|
Post by iamallama on Feb 10, 2014 18:02:30 GMT
The entire thing is probably some gross exaggeration. The dollar figures I quoted were actually calculated by me, however stuff like expecting each packet to be a full 1k is almost crazy. I did just want to explain a point though. This stuff isn't cheap. There are ways to limit it more like don't use amazon. Smaller cloud platform companies offer much better rates for bandwidth. Also you typically don't pay for incoming bandwidth to your server. And if it really came down to it, you can use a dedicated server (which is what I believe Gamer did) that will still offer better rates for bandwidth all the way up to completely unmetered (no limit). And Acappella, when it comes to stuff light the lightmaps, they are just images and so can be pre-loaded just like all the sprites. Light sources are integrated into the map so once again, pre loaded. If you have anything like a torch that a person carries meaning it moves, there is a single torch light that is added to the package and that is cloned and moved around with players.
|
|
|
Post by iampanda on Feb 10, 2014 23:26:04 GMT
wow, i feel really back for racing and spam clicking
|
|
Acappella
Rock Crab
Level 120
Posts: 83
FO Level Status: Ascended
|
Post by Acappella on Feb 11, 2014 11:34:21 GMT
And Acappella, when it comes to stuff light the lightmaps, they are just images and so can be pre-loaded just like all the sprites. Light sources are integrated into the map so once again, pre loaded. If you have anything like a torch that a person carries meaning it moves, there is a single torch light that is added to the package and that is cloned and moved around with players. Yeah, but each player sprite has to have its own shading for each direction the light source will be coming from(I guessed 3, 1 from left, 1 top, 1 from right). Each sprite would need its own layer due to different shaded areas on each item ie a sword wont have a same shadow as an axe, or a hood wont cast the same shadow as a helmet. Am I barking up the wrong tree? On the server side it could tell the rasta(shade) layer to be a different tone ie if red flame light or blue light or white or sun light. All those could be commanded from your end to change the hue/colour/transparancy(an easy option to adjust heavy shading or lighter pending on distance from light source if you wanted to go that far) of the rasta(shaded) layer. I don't know how much traffic that would create?
|
|
Alteria
Rock Crab
Posts: 64
FO Level Status: Ascended
|
Post by Alteria on Feb 11, 2014 12:32:00 GMT
dat math
|
|
|
Post by minche on Feb 11, 2014 13:36:52 GMT
And Acappella, when it comes to stuff light the lightmaps, they are just images and so can be pre-loaded just like all the sprites. Light sources are integrated into the map so once again, pre loaded. If you have anything like a torch that a person carries meaning it moves, there is a single torch light that is added to the package and that is cloned and moved around with players. Yeah, but each player sprite has to have its own shading for each direction the light source will be coming from(I guessed 3, 1 from left, 1 top, 1 from right). Each sprite would need its own layer due to different shaded areas on each item ie a sword wont have a same shadow as an axe, or a hood wont cast the same shadow as a helmet. Am I barking up the wrong tree? On the server side it could tell the rasta(shade) layer to be a different tone ie if red flame light or blue light or white or sun light. All those could be commanded from your end to change the hue/colour/transparancy(an easy option to adjust heavy shading or lighter pending on distance from light source if you wanted to go that far) of the rasta(shaded) layer. I don't know how much traffic that would create? yeah but all the lightning and sprite staff can be calculated safely on client side. in FO you could change your sprite to anything (only on your machine though), so yeah you could also change lightmaps and shading stuff on client too, but you can't really do anything with it (maybe make an interesting screenshot to mess with people).
|
|
|
Post by mdccxxvii on Feb 11, 2014 16:01:28 GMT
In theory if all sprites and lighting and stuff is client-side, people could make interesting skins for their game. It would only show up on their PC unless they shared the skins with other players, and shouldn't have any negative impact that I can think of.
|
|
|
Post by minche on Feb 11, 2014 16:10:41 GMT
yes, and client-side skin editing is done for many games (changing colour schemes if possible - can help colour blind people, making certain elements more noticable - like chat text colour, gear text colour...)
|
|
|
Post by iamallama on Feb 11, 2014 17:56:37 GMT
Yes, they are stored client side, but unity has a proprietary compression that they use for the files and I have no choice but to use it if I want to use the sprites.
|
|
|
Post by Kainui on Feb 13, 2014 7:13:45 GMT
Just out of curiosity, what were some other alternatives to SMS you considered before making your purchase and ultimately why did you decide against them?
|
|
|
Post by iamallama on Feb 13, 2014 16:42:38 GMT
You mean SFS? I checked out as many as I could. Photon, SFS, Badumna and a few others I can't remember. Really what it came down to is I went through a tutorial for each and SFS seemed to be the easiest to grasp both server and client side. They have also been around the longest and so I figured that might count for something.
Really, it came down to SFS and Photon. I was really considering photon, but what made me decide for SFS was linux support. As far as servers go, I prefer a linux server. Having to run a windows server remotely is not fun and I am much more comfortable on a linux command line. SFS has much better support for linux because it is written in Java.
|
|
Roarzor
Rock Crab
Posts: 31
FO Level Status: AFK
|
Post by Roarzor on Feb 15, 2014 11:56:07 GMT
I see now why it's hard to keep a game up without a proper company.
|
|