Has / will game engines with editors come far enough recently to allow us to put together some sort of project to make a "to scale" deathstar level? I know about the repetition and all, but it would still be cool just for geekiness. Something I was just wondering with the rash of Vader / the new Deathstar level being showcased.

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1337Yectiwan
OSC Returns!!
10 of 14 -- 27 Lives On

DF has virtually no limit as far as ammount of arcitecture... I think most engines would be able to handle that much, the question is whether the COMPUTER can handle it... a map of the entire Death Star (take your pick, I or II) would require storage in the petabyes (kilo<mega<giga<tera<peta), and I'm unsure if the INTERNET has enough RAM combined to meet the requirement...

I think the most abitious project to bring a STAR WARS vehichle to full-scale life that succeeded was the Dark Forces level Assassinate Darth Vader, which takes place on a Victory-class star destroyer, which has just about all the locations you would expect - docking bay, flight deck, mess hall, target-shooting rooms, barracks, officer lounges, detention centers, the bridge, vetilation shafts, and, of course, the trash compacter!

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There's no doubt they WILL be able to make a game engine that could handle such a scale, it's a matter of when. That when will obviously be longer the more detail you want in such a recreation. Then it's a matter of if anybody would take the time to build it (and accurately/well).

Can we do it now? Probably not likely.

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You really think it would be that huge? I mean I can understand having a gigantic file, but PETABYTES? I've always heard that the limitation was merely something of the engine. However, file size wasn't something I had considered.

I don't see how it would be a problem for a system to run. The engine doesn't have to draw every surface in the level all the time. Only visible surfaces. So wouldn't that help rule out performance? From what you can see in the movies / diagrams of the ship, it's not overly complex architexture.

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1337Yectiwan
OSC Returns!!
10 of 14 -- 27 Lives On

How would they get the gravity right?

What do you mean? Within the ship gravity is "simulated". It's Sci-Fi, so being in this thing would be like being on Earth. Correct me if I'm wrong somebody, but I think that's how it works. Nobody ever appears to be floating in the Death Star... Hell, Palpatine fell pretty damn quickly.

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1337Yectiwan
OSC Returns!!
10 of 14 -- 27 Lives On

Of course the engine doesn't need to draw all the surfaces... but the RAM still needs to be able to hold the level, as the engine will need to be able to know when to load what textures, sectors, etc...

And by "ship", are you refering to the Death Star? I agree that it's not overly complex... After all, one of the first custom-made levels ever was a rather accurate-looking (albeit small) re-creation, Operation DethStar for DF, by John Sielke.

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That would come naturally to the (game, not rendering) engine... In SW, you notice that all captial ships/space stations have the same ammount/direction of gravity all over the vehichle?

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I apologise if my post on gravity is rendundant... I didn't notice your post. as for Palpatine, I laugh at how RotJ would've been if he fell at the normal speed under 1G. That fall was about 50 miles... I doubt anybody would still be watching when he finally hit the core, unless they fell asleep right there...


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Nes digs around in the trash can.
Nes finds a hamburger!
Nes puts the hamburger in his backpack.

I know at least in Serious Sam, there's advanced gravity entities and stuff, so it's really easy to make a spherical thingie with the gravity always pulling toward the center.

Although the death star seems small enough that the artifical gravity is all probably pointing one direction.

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He'd probaly have been vaporized before he got all the way to the core

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The scripting possibilities would be amazing, ships hypering in and out nearby, shuttles flying in and out, TIE's on patrol, radio/intercom chatter, occcasional rebel craft doing recons, freighters and cargo craft flying everywhere, ISD Battlegroups passing through

Maybe they'll do something like it for Galaxies and have apartments for rent.

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I was merely thinking that with all the "technical data sheets" that are out there for it, actually consructing it in a game wouldn't be all to aduous, however timely. It would make like the most excellent never ending game. Log in, hang out, kill people randomly, log out and log back it. IRC THROUGH GAME. hehe. OK not so much.

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1337Yectiwan
OSC Returns!!
10 of 14 -- 27 Lives On

The best thing to do would be to write a new engine that can render the level based on large 'templates'. IE, a ~10JKU section of hallway might be a single template, maybe a single room. In the map file, you simple specify to place a section of archi of a specific template at x and x coords, and the engine takes care of the rest. That way, the map file really isnt holding that much data, but it could easily reproduce the entire DeathStar.

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You know, its technology like this that will aid AI in the future when they go about enslaving us in the Matrix.

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[This message has been edited by DSettahr (edited February 09, 2004).]

There already IS a game that makes such extensive use of templates... It's called The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall. It has a full 3D world roughly 200-300 miles wide contained ~1,000 towns/cities, ~700 dungeons and >1M people, and the whole game (engine, resources and maps) fit into about 400MB. The templates are so bland you wouldn't believe it; most dungeons consist of roughly a half-dozen blocks selected from a total of about 50 different templates... Each block is about 1000 feet cubed, and towns are made of somewhat smaller blocks. The reason: the whole game map was computer generated, so it wouldn't take forever. I'm glad they decided to only include the island of Vvardenfell in Morrowind... It's less than 1/1000th of the size of the the Lliliac bay reigon, where Daggerfall takes place.


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Nes puts the hamburger in his backpack.

[This message has been edited by nottheking (edited February 09, 2004).]

Darnit, GBK, you beat me to it. That would immensely simplify the construction and space requirements.

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It's like CSS for a game. That would make things ultimately simpler. However, there isn't an engine to date that can do such a task, and creating one seems to only have a very specilized purpose. Thus, the likelihood of people playing on such a game in any multitude is lessened. Though it would make for some interestingly large Tribes III maps were it to be created.

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1337Yectiwan
OSC Returns!!
10 of 14 -- 27 Lives On

Ha, at this rate SWG won't be releasing anything anytime soon but pink droid decals and pokeballs.

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Making a convincing, high detail Death Star would take a long long long time, considering the amount of wires and pipes and ships and rooms and hallways on a structure 170 kilometers wide.

On the size issue, Kazaa Lite has 3,200,000 users sharing over 4 Petabytes of info, so the space is theoretically there.

Consider a game like Halo, which fits onto a 4.7 gig DVD. That game has miles and miles of horizontal terrain, but most of the areas lack minute detail. A Death Star would need about 4000 times more detail, so that means over 18.8 Terabytes would be needed.

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A guaould Mothership would be better

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

I already mentioned a crude version of the engine needed... I don't remember the engine's name, though...

Also, the engine would have usefulness... It would allow the quick 'n easy generation of random, detailed, 3D maps, with seperately definable parameters for the zones. This would allow Lucasarts/Raven to not have to expend any real effort to come up with decently-sized worlds... The tiny worlds (and focus on over-hyped but relatively unimportant worlds like Tatooine, Naboo, and Endor) are what has kept me from ever even thinking of GETTING Galaxies... I always thought the first world they should have done was Nar Shadda... But that just would have taken them too much effort!

That reminds me of John Carmack's other work-in-progress that I heard about, the "Quest" engine, supposedly meant for building MMORPGs... Does anybody else have any clues as to what it actually does?

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Nes finds a hamburger!
Nes puts the hamburger in his backpack.