Floating Origin (Player Centered World)

[DomW]

Hi everyone!

I'd like to create a space exploration game but before I even start thinking of any big ideas I want to get the fundamentals right.

I realise for an 'infinite' world I need to do something about the way positions (and physics variables) are stored due to fp precision with large numbers. I have read about some solutions involving scaling but I want a more permanent solution hence the floating origin thread. I have also read (tell me if I'm wrong) that UE4 features a player centered origin where the world moves not the player.

The way I'm thinking of avoiding the fp issues is: http://i.imgur.com/FnxYSPo.jpg

The player starts at (0,0,0) and can move in any direction. Surrounding 'regions' are loaded (level streaming perhaps?) and if the player moves out of a region, a new set of regions are loaded and then I loop through every actor within the loaded regions and adjust their positions by 5km. Ie: the blue dot moves into the purple cube making it become the 'active' region with a relative origin of (0,0,0) to the player but it's actual location is some multiple of 5km.

If I could get some opinions and suggestions on my understanding that would be great!

[frankit]

This will be an RTS style game? Scaling down planets / ships is frequently the trick used to avoid streaming...

[DomW]

Not a RTS, you'll be able to fly your ship with keys and visit planets etc. I want to have point gravity (or simulate gravity) from planets by applying a force to nearby objects and have solar systems for you to visit.

As I said, I don't want to implement a scaling solution as it does not solve anything for my project. Even if I scale it down, I am still bounded by fp limits. The only time I would implement scaling would be when you zoom out.

[coldscooter]

I guess you'd need some kind of seed, algortihm, or database that details the layout of the solar system/galaxy. Then override the player movement logic to instead adjust the offset of nearby objects, spawning in new objects as the player moves toward them, and destroying ones that the player moves away from. I imagine this would render the physics engine pretty useless though.

Sounds like an interesting challenge.

[frankit]

Not a RTS, you'll be able to fly your ship with keys and visit planets etc. I want to have point gravity (or simulate gravity) from planets by applying a force to nearby objects and have solar systems for you to visit.

As I said, I don't want to implement a scaling solution as it does not solve anything for my project. Even if I scale it down, I am still bounded by fp limits. The only time I would implement scaling would be when you zoom out.

So will Players be able to explore planet surfaces as well?

Anyway kudos, this is particularly ambitious. Simulating gravity / point or otherwise can be done by adding velocities to objects floating in a zero-g volume. But making it infinite using UDK? It would be like trying to make 'No Man's Sky' in UE4 never mind UDK! I'd be lost... But I really hope you get this working as it'd be inspiring!

[DomW]

Landing on a planet and exploring one would be another feature if all goes well, but I think I'll stop thinking about that one for now

Right now I'm just creating a few assets to use then hopefully in the next few weeks I can start working on some level management. But if someone has had experience with what I want to achieve or could shed some light on possible issues then that would speed things up.