Chickens in Pirates of The Burning Sea?

It’s said that “the Devil is in the details…” In the case of Pirates of The Burning Sea, this means avatars and how they move.

Awhile back, one of the PoTBS team members was presented with a problem. Justinian was informed that data involving avatars’ position  and animations was being sent back and forth between the client and server far more often than necessary.

The result: avatar animations  that resembled a Michael Jackson parody or a bad music video (characters popping from one place to another, sliding around without  leg and  feet movement, shaking and shivering as if having the “java  jitters,” etc. The human avatars were bad enough – the chickens(!) were apparently even worse (yes, there ARE chickens in PoTBS!!)

Character animation in video games is a highly technical issue, with entire books written on the topic (if it was easy, EVERYONE would be doing it, right?) To put it simply, the solution lay in coming up with an entire new communication method in which the server sends the avatar’s destination and time of arrival, allowing the client to determine out how to get there. The client will pre-calculate  the path,  which the avatar follows until it getting additional instructions from the server.

The length of the interval between data messages will be determined by the relative importance of the avatar. For example, town NPCs need few instructions, and can have long intervals as they walk around town. They “select” a destination, and no more data is transmitted until they reach it.  Players’ avatars, on the other hand, require frequent updates as they move, since these must be properly synchronized on the different servers.

Justin says: “This has definitely been a really fun project to work on, despite a few frustrations and setbacks. And unless you’ve got a much faster net connection than I do at home, I think your network connection will be able to breath a sigh of relief as you watch all the chickens run around. Because come on.. who cares about NPCs and shops? Towns have chickens!“

Chickens…? Even Sims 2 Pets and The Movies don’t have those. Apparently, the Devil is keeping company with poultry in those details.

Via FlyingLab.com

It’s said that “the Devil is in the details…” In the case of Pirates of The Burning Sea, this means avatars and how they move.

Awhile back, one of the PoTBS team members was presented with a problem. Justinian was informed that data involving avatars’ position  and animations was being sent back and forth between the client and server far more often than necessary.

The result: avatar animations  that resembled a Michael Jackson parody or a bad music video (characters popping from one place to another, sliding around without  leg and  feet movement, shaking and shivering as if having the “java  jitters,” etc. The human avatars were bad enough – the chickens(!) were apparently even worse (yes, there ARE chickens in PoTBS!!)

Character animation in video games is a highly technical issue, with entire books written on the topic (if it was easy, EVERYONE would be doing it, right?) To put it simply, the solution lay in coming up with an entire new communication method in which the server sends the avatar’s destination and time of arrival, allowing the client to determine out how to get there. The client will pre-calculate  the path,  which the avatar follows until it getting additional instructions from the server.

The length of the interval between data messages will be determined by the relative importance of the avatar. For example, town NPCs need few instructions, and can have long intervals as they walk around town. They “select” a destination, and no more data is transmitted until they reach it.  Players’ avatars, on the other hand, require frequent updates as they move, since these must be properly synchronized on the different servers.

Justin says: “This has definitely been a really fun project to work on, despite a few frustrations and setbacks. And unless you’ve got a much faster net connection than I do at home, I think your network connection will be able to breath a sigh of relief as you watch all the chickens run around. Because come on.. who cares about NPCs and shops? Towns have chickens!“

Chickens…? Even Sims 2 Pets and The Movies don’t have those. Apparently, the Devil is keeping company with poultry in those details.

Via FlyingLab.com