Sorry, I cannot estimate anything, many things changed last time. The engine is now growing to be commercial, it sounds scarry , but it will be anyway available free for everyone, don't be afraid . I just don't know when it will be. The code is now being rewrited and redesigned, it won't use Irrlicht anymore. There's much to do, I think it will take long moths until first full release.
Yes it's going to be independent 3d engine, but it will be made in steps, not at once. Some 3rd party libraries including Irrlicht will be still used for some time, but will be replaced with engine's own code little by little.
Maybe units aren't handled by your specific engine but I pop the question anyway.
Would it be possible to have a very large number of citizens in a town with this engine? I mean, as long as they are only drawn if they are in view (which irrlicht handles automatically), this shouldn-t be to cpu-heavy right? I know all disitions and pathfinding will eat resources as normally but what would be a very roughly aproximated MAX_CITIZENS_WALKING_ABOUT on an average machine?
The number depends on the polygon count of each model, the texture size, the speed of the graphics card, the processor speed, how well non-visible objects are culled (I've read Irrlicht isn't too good at this) etc.
So the answer is - "it depends". There is no definite max.
If you want to have every person with a specified way and its own story, it will be dificult, as the cpu-power is limiting the number.
But if you only want that it "looks" lika a very populated city you can do it with a trick. As you have said only render the People (NPC's) if they are in range of the player and can be seen. You can set up waypoints on the streets wich the AI follows automaticly if they where spawned. So you can check where the player is and then spawn new npc's arround. If the player is to far away, delete the npc.
You can optimice this when you make an array in memory and set it to a specified number (lets say 50 npc's should be arround every time). As the memory is allocated, you have only to change the position of the npc if it is out of range. You can also test the machine how many npc's it can handle and then set the max number depending on the machine posebileties.
Ok this is obviously very speculative, but in a multiplayer-game, if each player has 50guys close to him drawn, would that matter? I mean i have my 50guys drawn, fine. But two other players also have it("their" guys are only drawn on their computers). Would that slow down my computer?
In a singleplayer game it can be used without any problem, but if you want this in a multiplayer game you have to choose what you want to do. If you want that there are 50 people arround the player every time and that every player see the same position it will kill your bandwith as every npc has to be syncroniced with each client. But if you not want that the positions of the npc's are the same on every client, use it like in a singleplayer one and let it be only clientside.
The program displays a 1frame flash of the model then displays a light blue screen with some 2d elements in the bottom corner - like the city wasn't ever there...
The program displays a 1frame flash of the model then displays a light blue screen with some 2d elements in the bottom corner - like the city wasn't ever there...
The program displays a 1frame flash of the model then displays a light blue screen with some 2d elements in the bottom corner - like the city wasn't ever there...
I would be interested in knowing why you dont use Irrlicht anymore. I am new to Irrlicht but find it very intriguing and am currently checking it out in order to use it in my own project. So what reasons do you have to move away from it?
, but it will be anyway available free for everyone, don't be afraid