Project Proposal

Background

The idea is to create a complex multiplayer environment where people can change the environment by conscious and subconscious actions. One of these subconscious actions that affect the environment is simply the effect of human presence. A clear example of this is that when people frequently travel the same path across a field, the grass will wear down and a visible path dirt track will appear instead. These paths are also known as desire paths. A similar thing happens with kids touching corners of buildings when running around them, the grease and dirt on their fingers will leave stains. Various similar effects can be thought of.

Goal

Show frequently traveled paths in a virtual environment by affecting terrain and assets.

Potential issues

• How to handle height differences
• How to make it look natural
• How to change the appearance based on ground material
• Saving the data
Saving all player moves will require a lot of storage, potentially crippling the game at some point. Especially in persistent a persistent online game.

Implementation idea

This project will be implemented in Unreal Engine 4. The general idea for implementation is to have a grid (heatmap) overlaying the terrain and simply counting the number of times a player passes a grid square. Then the terrain will be adjusted according to this number. The grid can be easily saved and the size won’t increase over time. The visual changes will initially be displayed using vertex painting, with this technique colors and textures of materials can be changed at runtime, without actually changing the material.

Additional ideas

• These ideas will probably not be implemented for this project, but might be interested in the future.
• Effects disappear over time
• Terrain deformation (so not only the material, or an overlay but the actual terrain shapes will change)
• Spawning or destruction of assets based on player movements.