How large are the Boundless worlds?

[PendragonTheNinja]

The worlds wrap around as if traversing a sphere, no? Unlike the Earth because it’s flat.

How large are our current worlds? How many blocks long and wide are they?

[MoriOni]

Each planet has a total of 50 regions to find.

[Chivlet]

From what I understand it’s not a sphere. It’s a toroid. So its a 2D square wrapped around a concentric 3D object. One end feeds into another.

[PendragonTheNinja]

That… that didn’t answer my question.

Okay.

How about this.

How many blocks in length and width are our worlds?

[Brynjar]

I honestly now want to see donuts in the sky instead of planets.

[MoriOni]

I think a dev would have to answer that one my friend. Ive no clue.

[Chivlet]

@lucadeltodecso

Here’s modifying the client/server to force it to be allowed (my computer is not super-high end but was struggling on fps (about 15) here), here is 2K render distance with double lods (so lod0 ends at 512m same as minecraft on highest settings… and then an extra 1.5Km of successively increasing lods) I spread the game screen across both my monitors and put the fov up to 110 as well to get a huge screenshot ;p

2K-double-lod.jpg3606x978 1.7 MB

funny thing here… is that 2k draw distance means that the end of the terrain here is roughly half-way around the world ;p Tell that to those silly “round” earthers (/s)

Just double whatever he says is the half value? So, 4 KM

[PendragonTheNinja]

Interesting… So the only reason we don’t see it wrapping around the sky like the Halo arrays is the too-small render distance?

[PendragonTheNinja]

Well then… it’s a good thing they watch these forums.

[Chivlet]

That and because it’s actually only confined in a torus for mapping purposes. It’s still a 2D plane. If you get what I’m saying. Like asteroids or Pac-Man.

[PendragonTheNinja]

Yeah, understandable.

Now, if I were to run straight across the world for long enough, I could end up in the same spot. How does a two-dimensional plane end up wrapping around like that?

[Chivlet]

Because a torus is just the way it’s mapped. One X-Y coord feeds into the other. Like if I go to the edge of the screen, I appear on the corresponding point on the opposite edge. The actual 3 dimensional shape is irrelevant and just a concept that helps describe this phenomenon.

[PendragonTheNinja]

Yeah, I understand that concept. So basically… there is a moment in the map of seamless teleportation to the, “other side” of the flat plain?

[boundmore]

its actually more than 4km - there are 2k+ blocks each directions and after doubling you get over 4km, cant remember exactly but its 4,5 to 5k blocks (meters)

[Chivlet]

Well, there’s no teleportation. That’s why it’s mapped the way it is. If you were looking down at it from the top, it would appear that way. If you had to teleport, it would limit your FOV, and you would essentially see the confines of your little box. Instead, the torus is fed from one direction while removing the other as you progress. Like a treadmill. The whole point of a torus as opposed to a sphere is to have definite X / Y values and prevent distortion from the spherical bending. You’re always on the edge of the torus, never where the donut hole would be.

[Brynjar]

For bounded variables (variables with a minimum and maximum), there’s the concept of rollover. Usually based on some defined bit depth for the number. For example, if a map has a coordinate system that allows you to go from (-2048) up to (+2047), when step beyond that +2047, it automatically rolls over to the lowest value (-2048).

[Brynjar]

I realize, now, that having a bounded map coordinate system doesn’t make the world Boundless…but that’s why we have more planets!

[BrianPWilson]

basically, we are walking around worlds that look like the below video. The items being passed through the center are where we never are in a sense. We are walking around the outside the torus. As we move more along the x and y axis the torus folds in on itself exposing more in the direction we are moving towards and removing where we have come from, which is why we can infinitely walk in one direction, but not infinitely see in one direction:

EDIT: At least, this is what was told to me by someone who hasn’t given me wrong game advice yet. I am open to being wrong

[PendragonTheNinja]

I think I’m still having trouble fully understanding the concept.

But let me verbally process this here.

You’re saying the world generates a two-dimensional, flat plane all around us that is part of the, “torus”, and as you move in a direction, the area of the world you are leaving unloads as the area in front of you loads. You’re constantly loading a two-dimensional small area of the entire torus world, but you can only see so far. We don’t notice the moment of, “teleportation” because it actually happens with the world generation/loading and just loads the next connected part of the map. There is nothing to notice because it’s seamless.

Now, imagine Boundless is a two-dimensional game such as Asteroids, and we can see the ENTIRE map top-down. Our little dude is running until he hits the edge, and it looks to us that he teleports to the other side. How would the map look in THREE dimensions if we could see the entire world? If we could see the entire world at once, would we actually see a three-dimensional, flat plane where we “teleport” to the other side at some point? That’s what I’m curious about.

[Chivlet]

If you could see the entire thing, it would be a sphere.

There is a lot of things that you have to consider. The map that YOU see, as the player, is loaded locally. It’s not the server that loads that part, so basically, (because there’s a lot of math here) you only load the plane you’re running on. When you interact with another player, you’re just bringing your map portion to where they are in the grid. It may be better understood if you don’t think about the player moving, but the ground moving under you.