How does SimCity2000 render the terrain? I know it's 2d isometric but any good article on the actual data structure/algorithm?
It reticulates splines
OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000
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Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000
#42Ah dang. SC3K would've been more interesting.
Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
EA is actively selling SimCity 2000 at least on GOG.com. With that in mind, I think there can be no real gesture of goodfaith on the author's part. It's lazy, maybe just the "easy way" to do it in the beginning, but when the game is being actively sold, it's also slimy.
I don't think "bad faith" and "slimy" should really apply to 24 year old game assets. I value useful creation much higher than dated intellectual property. Or in other words, I do not support long-tail profit and control of any creative work.
That's fine, but when you get sued into oblivion don't come complaining that you didn't know it wasn't OK.
Lobby for law changes if you don't like the law.
Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000
#44openage http://openage.sft.mx/ Free (as in freedom) open source clone of the Age of Empires II engine (work in progress)
Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000
#45How does SimCity2000 render the terrain? I know it's 2d isometric but any good article on the actual data structure/algorithm?
I'm also actually working on an unreleased to-be-open-source SimCity 2000 clone in C++ (which I am planning to call 21st Century Micropolis, after the existing, official open-source SimCity Classic release called Micropolis), so I've looked into how SC2K renders the screen. I'll describe it for drawing the whole map, since it's simpler, but you'd want to modify it to draw only the visible parts in an actual game.
Directions are relative to the screen, not the grid.
10 Clear the screen and set a pointer to the top corner of the map
20 If the pointed tile belongs to terrain or the leftmost tile of a building, draw it on top of what we already have on screen. (Note that for tiles that belong to a building, but aren't the leftmost tile, we do nothing) (1x1 buildings always count as a leftmost tile)
30 If we are at the last row, exit
40 If we are at the end of the row, go to the leftmost tile of the row below, and jump to 20
50 Otherwise step one tile to the right, and jump to 20
That's it.
One wrinkle in getting the exact same output as the original has to do with the magic eraser tool, which basically hacks the map and forcibly resets a tile to it's blank state, even if it's supposed to belong to a building. If the leftmost tile of a 2x2, 3x3, or 4x4 building has been magically erased, the entire building disappears. If you magic erase a tile below the leftmost tile, or to the right of it, you will draw ground tiles over the building. Erasing tiles above the leftmost tile's waterline has no visible effect. Magically erased tiles can also have things built onto them. This algorithm gets these cases correct.
Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000
#46Hmm - cool project. Don't want to be a buzzkill, but copyright? Should probably remove the assets to avoid a takedown.
I immediately cloned it for this reason just in case. Wanted to make sure I didn't miss the opportunity to play this game again in case they did a take down. Still have the old games, but I haven't had the willpower to learn how to use Wine.
> Still have the old games, but I haven't had the willpower to learn how to use Wine.
Maybe check PlayOnLinux? It provides a front-end to Wine and automatizes game installations via custom scripts. Basically, you select your game in a list, it installs it, then puts a launcher on your desktop.
Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000
#47is there source code to SC2K anywhere? If not, won't it be really hard to even approximate the simulation behavior?
It could be reverse-engineered from the original binary, although that's very time-consuming.
Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000
#48Its very questionable to include the assets. The bottom of the readme says: > Includes assets and graphics extracted from the original SimCity 2000 Special Edition CD. These assets are NOT covered by the GNU General Public License used by this project and are copyright EA / Maxis. I'm including these assets in the hope that because the game has been made freely available at various points in time by EA, and because i…
I once wrote a building generator that could create SC2k pixel art buildings based off a simple floor plan and some settings. It could be used to generate a lot of assets in a hurry.
Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000
#49Its very questionable to include the assets. The bottom of the readme says: > Includes assets and graphics extracted from the original SimCity 2000 Special Edition CD. These assets are NOT covered by the GNU General Public License used by this project and are copyright EA / Maxis. I'm including these assets in the hope that because the game has been made freely available at various points in time by EA, and because i…
EA is actively selling SimCity 2000 at least on GOG.com. With that in mind, I think there can be no real gesture of goodfaith on the author's part. It's lazy, maybe just the "easy way" to do it in the beginning, but when the game is being actively sold, it's also slimy.
Yeah there's still copyright on Simcity 2000 for 50 years and Simcity itself is trademarked.
Re: OpenSC2K – An Open Source Remake of SimCity 2000
#50Its very questionable to include the assets. The bottom of the readme says: > Includes assets and graphics extracted from the original SimCity 2000 Special Edition CD. These assets are NOT covered by the GNU General Public License used by this project and are copyright EA / Maxis. I'm including these assets in the hope that because the game has been made freely available at various points in time by EA, and because i…
I once wrote a building generator that could create SC2k pixel art buildings based off a simple floor plan and some settings. It could be used to generate a lot of assets in a hurry.
Cool, got a link for it?