Sounds interesting. :)

But I'm hoping we gradually start addapting Procedural methods that shrink the actual size of the different assets.

- Textures
Textures take up the most space from what i've seen. Procedural textures are starting to be used more so by big gaming companies, especially mobile ports. A combination of Vector graphics, some mathematical operations (using a number of different algorythms), and small textures that are used as an Original template to create all the different variations for your outfits/pieces.

- Music
Even though OGG reduces the WAV size, there is a procedural method to create Modular music scores. S3M, XM, IT, MOD...

- 3D Terrain
I've only seeen a few 3D Software applications make extensive use of City Scapes build primarily with Procedural methods.

Even though this helps cut down the time a 3D Designer spends on a city scape, it still doesnt reduce the size of the 3D Models created. Once Hudini or other software houses create a runtime version of their City Scape builder and have Unity3D or Unreal Engine implement it, we can then generate a City scape, or any terain for that matter, at runtime... using the tiny procedural instructions in the file format that we could create/save in the Editor. (I dont think it exists yet). And this would come in very handy with Unreal Engines Level Streaming method... then we can generate and load the levels at runtime, and do it in a sector basis.

We can have Unreals TriggerVolumes start the Level Streaming, making the size of zones imense. Well, correction! Seeming Imense! ;D

But even though a zone can be made to seem imense, i dont know if it can handle all the players in that zone...
...Wellllllllll, maybe. If the players are split up into Sectors also, you could spin off an Instance (or shard, or player channel, or whatever you want to call it) and as they travel from one sector to the next, players are transfered to that instance/shard.

Hmm, streaming levels might make it possible to run a Massive Multiplayer Online in a number of consoles also. ;D

But there are a few issues, like: when others players Appear and Dissapear as they travel past you. I think CoX used a Cylinder maybe (radus based) to determine this.

As long as the players code isnt tied to the Zones loading mecanics, players can instantly transfer to another Zone instance, without having to use the train and reload the level. Scarlet Blade has a dropdown you can use to switch to a different player channel in a matter of 2 to 3 seconds.

Procedural Assets creation does come with a drawback though. The assets need to be generated 1st before they can be used, and that takes up some CPU power. On i5's or i7's its not too bad, but Pentium 2 or lower, loading times will suffer. Even though a whole zones proceduraly generated assets comes to only 100MB (compared to 2 GB regular bitmap/etc.. assets perhaps, depends if it looks like Praetoria?!?) slower machines might have the option to generate the procedural assets and Cache them to disk, and use that to speed up loading the next time. So, disk space is only allocated for assets in areas that the player ventures to only.

Ohh Gawd!! I sound like a sophmore writing a thesis for something that we wont see for decades to come. :/
I can stop now. :(

Zombie Man wrote:

We could use procedurals for the avatars, too, because, after all, three to seven limbs is almost always sufficient.
:P

Awww.... buttt. buttt.. i wanted to stylize my Arachnid pets limbs. :(

Mr Fluffles
[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FeaU01D-3wI/SiwP5bkB92I/AAAAAAAAAbE/_r-okysIsxg/s400/P1010318+jumping+spider[/img]

Ummm. might neeed to poke a few more holes for his mask though. ;)

Izzy wrote:

Zombie Man wrote:
We could use procedurals for the avatars, too, because, after all, three to seven limbs is almost always sufficient.
:P

Awww.... buttt. buttt.. i wanted to stylize my Arachnid pets limbs. :(
Mr Fluffles

Here's syle:

[img]http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f346/zombie_guy/Private/f6d9451b.jpg[/img]