*Tree bridges -.- Hi! I'm Trancos (duh); it's my first post here, seems a great community! I've posted this already in /r/starbound, but I though it might get the attention of the developers here Now, I don't have much experience in the field of programming or game design; I don't have any, actually So I don't know if this will be possible. I'll try to break it down as much as I can, so if it is, you can tell what you think about it! To the point now: I've seen the falling trees demo video. It's fantastic, I love it, love the sounds, love everything. Now, after watching it, one thing struck me, which lead to another. The first thing was that I kind of expected the tree to hurt NPCs or the player by falling down. I think it could be a pretty cool trap to use, specially against many enemies at once. Now, this would mean making the trees sort of a "foreground" object as soon as the game detect they've been cut, right? What I thought about, next, was this. There's a point in the video where Tiy cuts down a tree by a ravine. The tree hits the other end of the ravine, and the pieces that hit the ground turn, naturally, into wood. Now, how cool would it be (at least to my opinion) for the tree *not* to turn into "wood pieces" when hitting the ground, and instead, remaining there as a solid object until the player "processes" the wood (chops it down in smaller pieces, or whatever; it could be made even with the same tool that's used for chopping down the tree to begin with)? This would enable, at least early in-game, the player to make quick, cheap bridges, in case they don't want to risk going down a ravine to a cave. It could also be used when running away, or whatever, so you don't have to be building a bridge step by step. As an improvised trap, too, when you're being chased(cutting the tree down on them)... I don't know, I think there could be many possibilities to that. Of course, that'd mean one more step in the wood processing system, but I don't think it'd make the game that much more "heavy", or anything, right? Perhaps players could start with an "axe" that can be used to chop down trees and "chopping" them into smaller wood pieces, one by one, and then, a little later, be able to craft or get a chipper, to make the "wood refining" process faster? Please let me know what you think about it! Thanks for reading!
seems like a good idea to me, I like the realism it adds, but one bad thing could be that it would take longer to get wood as you would have to cut it into smaller bits, but that's a minor trade-off for the multiple things you could do with this
This is indeed a good idea, I like the "wood fiber" part, because that is a practical use of wood and means you could "recycle" wood. Although I do sometimes like building with logs and trees so there should be a way of harvesting the tree without having to break it down.(Resource wise)
This is a cool idea, but having the tree's pop into and out of the layer the characters occupy is a little jarring, surely having some trees in the foreground might be an idea? Ones you need to cut down to get past?
I like this idea, but not too sure if this game can manage physics in terms of this. For example, if you chopped a tree down and as it fell it hit a block that was higher or lower than the level it was cut down on, could the game support a diagonally resting tree? Or, if you chopped a tree down on the side of a hill, would the felled tree slide down hill? I mean, it's an awesome idea and I think it'd be great if it happened. But I'm curious if it's it actually possible to achieve within the game's engine?
well, in the video the trees did slant when they fell, so why not copy that for the different levels of blocks it can catch on.
Hmmm, yeah that's a good point! But what about the trees sliding down steep hills? Or if you then chopped a resting diagonal tree in the middle, the remaining pieces would fall again and rerest? Like if I chopped a tree bridge in the middle (probably not the smartest thing to do though ). And, seeing how the tree is now resting on a block, what would happen if you mined that block? Well, I can understand what should happen, the tree should fall further, but I'm just curious about whether this is possible to implement into the game's engine. Does Starbound allow items to be affected by physics like this? It'd be great if it was possible but I've not seen it. Aside from fluids, being affected by gravity and spreading but that's not the same as keeping a rigid entity between two points of impact, and then allowing gravity and friction to affect it.
if the game can handle making almost every thing randomized, I think it should be able to handle physics.
If you are in 'said' chase, hitting the tree will cause it to block your way and the enemy could catch up slightly considering the tree fall speed is not incredibly fast, is it? I still love the idea's concept, regardless of the minor down-sides.
Picking a combination of precreated "parts" and then randomly colouring them is a completely different, and much less hardware dependant, process than making an integrated real-time physics system. Where you could potentially, chop down an entire forest, and have dozens of felled trees falling down holes, hills and ravines... Not to mention what the system requirements would be bumped up to. I love this idea and I'm not saying that I wouldn't want it implemented, but I highly doubt the game's engine is capable of achieving this, or the developers would be hesitant to create it, because of performance. Of course, they could remove the physics part entirely and make it where if the angle of resting is too steep (where it would look weird if it didn't slide), the tree just turns straight into collectable wood like in the video! But then if the angle of resting is not as steep, the tree stays as a whole, allowing you to bridge gaps etc.
while i'm conserned for the the perfomance, the animation have and physichs have already been done, the only thing needed is to aplly it to the tree, wich it by the looks already is
true, cause if a tree falls far it would shatter, but a brief fall for a bridge wouldn't, I agree with your new point.
