Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Path: gmd.de!ira.uka.de!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!destroyer!cs.ubc.ca!newsserver.sfu.ca!sfu.ca!neilg
From: neilg@fraser.sfu.ca (Neil K. Guy)
Subject: Re: physics
Message-ID: <neilg.735341091@sfu.ca>
Sender: news@sfu.ca
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
References: <0foio9q00WBLA4lc9s@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 21:24:51 GMT
Lines: 36

Paul Christopher Workman <pw0l+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:

>How would you do something like this:
>a person pours water over a rock face.  most of the water
>flows off into the ground below, but some of it forms 
>little puddles on indentations on the rock.
>how could this be represented?  Not only the general
>characteristics of the rock but a fair amount of
>detail would have to be included.

 Another major problem that comes to mind is the perennial difficulty
in modelling infinitely divisible stuff. All the text adventure
systems I've seen to date just define each manipulable item as a data
object. While this is fine for things like tables, frozen turkeys,
T-shirts and microprocessor-controlled electric egg crackers it
presents real problems for anything you might want to divide. It
becomes difficult enough if you want break an item - remove the legs
from the table, say - but what about a bowl of water or a bag of wheat?
Maybe I want to pour half the water into a plastic tub. You start
having to do all sorts of strange kludges to make these things work.

 In my TADS-written adventure, for instance, I have a lake. This
should be setting off warning buzzers in anyone who's written a text
adventure. Lakes and such are a nuisance. How are you going to handle
swimming? Is it allowed? Does it get the player's clothing wet? And
with an essentially infinite supply of water the player might want to
fill every water-containing item with water for some reason. How do
you model that? I've basically had to create a potential water object
for each item that can act as a container for liquid. And then move
that object into the container if the player fills the item with
liquid. But even this sort of implementation creates as many problems
as it solves. You have to come to the point where you say - heck with
it! This is just a game and not a simulation of reality so you try to
make it reasonably convincing and playable and just leave it at that.

 - Neil K. (n_k_guy@sfu.ca)
