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Making Minecraft Spherical

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Re: Making Minecraft Spherical

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't downvote you, but you're just repeating what's in the article. And you say "presumably" so it sounds like you're guessing without fully reading? Which isn't adding anything to the conversation.

I think only the part about blocks getting smaller as you go down and then doubling in size again is in the article. Will check. I'm saying "presumably" because of points the article didn't spell out. Edit: I re-read and it doesn't talk about the very much non-cuboid blocks at the corners, or the pointed blocks at the core. Not in words, anyway. They're implied in the pictures. If you want comments that build on this…

They do mention it:

> When it comes to placing block structures, there are two (2) edge cases that can throw a wrench into things:

> 1. The corners where three (3) sectors meet break the regular horizontal grid topology, since three (3) blocks meet at the corner instead of four (4)

> 2. Vertical shell boundaries break the regular vertical grid topology, since a block can have four (4) vertical neighbors instead of just one (1)

> This means that there are places on our planet where it’s impossible to define a box-shaped zone of blocks that corresponds to the block structure’s source zone. I could just detect and prevent structures from being placed at these locations, but I opted for a more general solution.

> Placing structures will now “work” everywhere, though it can get a little wonky around the problematic areas. Still, I prefer this to having dead zones where no structures can be placed at all.

Re: Making Minecraft Spherical

#63

You should definitely have a look at space engineers. They have a similar spherical problem with their voxels and I don’t think they went half as far as you did when implementing “orbital bodies”. As someone who is rather keen on space, gfx, and the algorithms that render them. Kudos. The problems were known to me, which is why I didn’t attempt it, however - the distortion correction, the chunking, I’m thinking if yo…

My understanding is Space Engineers takes the "blocky sphere" approach mentioned early in the post, works around the "walk along its surface" part of the problem by making gravity direction point towards a fixed point, and bypasses the "trying to build 'upward'" part of it by not allowing voxel construction. It doesn't use a quad-sphere at all.

Correct, which is why I said they didn’t go half as far as the OP did. Most stop at quadsphere after realizing their blocks are no longer square.

Re: Making Minecraft Spherical

#65
I wonder if there's a way to do something similar to Rectangular Surface Parameterization[1] with voxels. It would allow you to get pretty even-volumed voxels, and also simplify vertex identification (same three coordinates, nonlinear connection).

[1]: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kmcrane/Projects/RectangularSurfaceP...

Re: Making Minecraft Spherical

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think only the part about blocks getting smaller as you go down and then doubling in size again is in the article. Will check. I'm saying "presumably" because of points the article didn't spell out. Edit: I re-read and it doesn't talk about the very much non-cuboid blocks at the corners, or the pointed blocks at the core. Not in words, anyway. They're implied in the pictures. If you want comments that build on this…

They do mention it: > When it comes to placing block structures, there are two (2) edge cases that can throw a wrench into things: > 1. The corners where three (3) sectors meet break the regular horizontal grid topology, since three (3) blocks meet at the corner instead of four (4) > 2. Vertical shell boundaries break the regular vertical grid topology, since a block can have four (4) vertical neighbors instead of ju…

I am pressed for time now, so I'll just say thank you. Gotta rush off ...

Re: Making Minecraft Spherical

#67

You should definitely have a look at space engineers. They have a similar spherical problem with their voxels and I don’t think they went half as far as you did when implementing “orbital bodies”. As someone who is rather keen on space, gfx, and the algorithms that render them. Kudos. The problems were known to me, which is why I didn’t attempt it, however - the distortion correction, the chunking, I’m thinking if yo…

thats why a liquid core is needed in the matrix

Re: Making Minecraft Spherical

#68

Eco: Global Survival ( https://play.eco/ ) bypassed the distortion problem entirely by using an undistorted flat voxel grid, but rendering the globe view as a torisphere. It still has the tradeoff of making travel close to the center take longer than it should on a sphere (worked around by limiting diggable height), but i find it a more elegant solution.

I had a similar idea while reading this article, it’s very cool to see someone implemented it!

Re: Making Minecraft Spherical

#69
post #9

Wonderful write-up of attempting to tackle this problem. I believe there must be a significant number of people who have played both Minecraft and Super Mario Galaxy, and had something like this sequence of thoughts - although you have followed it all the way to an actual demonstration, and written up your thoughts along the way so clearly. The vertical distortion is the biggest issue IMO, there are a few reasonably…

Never played Super Mario Galaxy. How does it relate to this topic?

Re: Making Minecraft Spherical

#70
on a tangential note I once tried to get pathfinding working on a rhombic dodecahedral honeycomb feeling as regular 3-ish level octtree Dwarf Fortress of 2014-ish vintage was insufficiently weird.

this did not end well, but was hilarious. just to visualise the stuff I had to spend a week gluing cardboard rhombododecahedrons from pizza boxes.

what I learned is that they make much more fun toys than plain old cubes.

and that shallow sparse octtree-like things are in fact better for those kind of games (or GIS for that matter).

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