gonegahgah wrote:Hi quickfur. Cool pictures. Would the following work?
Keiji wrote:Well now, if we went with my idea of the planar rail, you have a nice 2D surface to paint lanes on anyway so it would be no different to 3D
The main reason I keep going on about that isn't inherently because of its similarity to 3D, but because I imagine that the more "common" 4D road ideas would be very difficult to drive on and a lot more attention would be necessary. Whereas with planar rail, you only steer left or right to select your lane, and all actual turning is done by selecting a lane which then bends in that direction in a "ribbon" fashion, so you don't need to steer for the bends.
quickfur wrote:Major roads would just have a (disjoint) bundle of say 6 or 8 lanes with the periodical off-ramp to either switch to a different lane or merge with the lanes in another road nearby.
Keiji wrote:quickfur wrote:Major roads would just have a (disjoint) bundle of say 6 or 8 lanes with the periodical off-ramp to either switch to a different lane or merge with the lanes in another road nearby.
I would still expect multi-lane roads to have the lanes going in the same direction connected so that you can change lanes whenever you want, rather than having a complex system of ramps to switch at discrete points. If you've ever driven on a motorway (and don't fancy being the slowest vehicle around) you'll know why this is important.
wendy wrote:[...] With road-direction signs, like 'toowong left next turn', it's more complex. The across-space of a travelling vehicle is 2d, and one can diverge out at any point of the circle therein. What's more, all one can assume, is that for all observers, the circle is clockwise, but individual motor-cars can be pointing to different directions of the circle. So 'left' and 'right' really don't have a meaning. You have to point in the correct direction to get the desired results. Also wordy signs would not make the cut, for exactly the same reason.
wendy wrote:With road-direction signs, like 'toowong left next turn', it's more complex. The across-space of a travelling vehicle is 2d, and one can diverge out at any point of the circle therein. What's more, all one can assume, is that for all observers, the circle is clockwise, but individual motor-cars can be pointing to different directions of the circle. So 'left' and 'right' really don't have a meaning. You have to point in the correct direction to get the desired results. Also wordy signs would not make the cut, for exactly the same reason.
Keiji wrote:wendy wrote:With road-direction signs, like 'toowong left next turn', it's more complex. The across-space of a travelling vehicle is 2d, and one can diverge out at any point of the circle therein. What's more, all one can assume, is that for all observers, the circle is clockwise, but individual motor-cars can be pointing to different directions of the circle. So 'left' and 'right' really don't have a meaning. You have to point in the correct direction to get the desired results. Also wordy signs would not make the cut, for exactly the same reason.
Another problem avoided by planar rail, for vehicles travelling on a plane have just the same left and right as we do.
Keiji wrote:Yes, it would be developed later on, it's more innovative 3D roads and 1D rails might come first, until some bright spark gets the idea to merge them as I have.
gonegahgah wrote:I hope you do QuickFur. I really think the whole 4D thing just cries out to be realistically (as possible) realised in a computer game. I think you will most probably be vital to that realisation one day. I personally feel that all the current 4D games fall short of that reality at the present.
I was just wondering if the following would make any sense. Say you had a 4-plank that the player in a 3D slice was orientated so that they saw it as wide when they came to it and it was wide all around even into the 4th direction. Then they came to a really narrow plank that was actually wide in the 4th direction but narrow in their current orientation.
Would the 2nd plank be fairly easy to traverse as well? Say the 1st plank has a square entry and the 2nd plank has a triangle entry. At the right rotation the plank could seem really narrow while still being very easy to traverse; would it?
Keiji wrote:I imagine a 4D game ought to project the floor space - just like earlier video games would display what was essentially a floor plan.
The material making up the floor itself would be transparent, and walls and objects would be rendered opaquely.
You would of course have the issue that you would not be able to see e.g. a door the other side of the room from you with a table in the middle, unlike a tetronian who could just look over the table. However, if you walk around the table, it comes into view.
[...]
quickfur wrote:Maybe a "fake 4D" representation can be used, like a cube-within-a-cube projection of a tesseract for the wall, and a cube with 8 dots near its corners to represent a cubical desk with 8 legs. Trees may be represented as a kind of fractal-like ball perhaps.
One can add a limited amount of 4D depth by analogy with "fake 3D" that older games used to have, like bevelling surfaces to indicate height differences, staircase objects that "transported" you into what is essentially a new map (conceptually, the upper/lower floor), etc..
Keiji wrote:[...] Yes, this is exactly what I've been getting at. Some 2D top down games do incredibly well at presenting 3D, so we should be able to present 4D using a 3D "top down" format.
gonegahgah wrote:[...]
The current "4D" game that is being worked on by Marc ten Bosch is Miegakure (mie gakure is japenese meaning "hidden and seen").
If you haven't seen it before you can find it at http://marctenbosch.com/miegakure/.
But, my impression is that it isn't a precise representation of 4D. Buildings should not have entire missing walls in one direction; just as ours don't; but they do in the game.
I am keen to play Marc's game but I see it as more of a blend of 3D and 4D rather than what I'm truly hoping for which is a 3Der exploring a real (as possible) 4D world.
Also, rather than rightangle dimensional shifting, I'm looking for more finer and intuitive rotation, via psuedo-location landmarks, through the full extra available 360°.
I've used the term psuedo-landmarks as the objects are not seen directly where they are because they are off in the extra sideways available 4-space.
They are depicted in coloured shadow form and, by their tilt and their location in the sky or underground, we can tell how much rotation is required to rotate our 3D slice of view into the extra-sideways to see them directly.
I've been working on some pictures to depict this so I'll add them here soon and also show them in the Baby Steps thread.
gonegahgah wrote:quickfur wrote:And I am looking more for a game where you're playing a 4Der living in his native 4D world. That's why I focus mainly on the projections approach, as that would be the closest to experiencing 4D as a native 4Der. It would be hard to understand from a 3D-centric perspective, of course. But then again, this is 4D we're talking about.
You might have to wait for that direct to brain technology we discussed then
It does truly amaze, and delight me, that our brain could perhaps actually deal with 4D 'reality' if we had some form of technology to directly control stimuli to our brains...
Maybe the Matrix could be 4D instead of 3D? Then perhaps the simulated 4Der could build a 5D world and so on...
quickfur wrote:Well, before we develop that technology, we can get a little glimpse into 4D perception by looking at projection images. I know the projection approach does suffer from some limitations, like the "inside-out" effect of rotations, but I suspect we will still have to deal with that in a direct-to-brain approach anyway. I don't think our brains would automatically understand that as a rotation, unless we can train it by direct manipulation of 4D objects.
quickfur wrote:...I know the projection approach does suffer from some limitations...
quickfur wrote:(I remember spending much time puzzling over how distant objects appear when I was young: mountains appear to move backwards when driving forwards, due to the different rates which the perspective of objects at different distances change. IOW, interpreting projection images is only partly instinctive, there's also a learned component to it.) Direct manipulation of 4D objects would require (simulated) 4D limbs, which is probably a lot harder than just sending visual information to the brain.
quickfur wrote:I've thought about a story idea, where the protagonists discover that their 3D world is actually a Matrix-like simulated reality, and when they "wake up" they realize they're actually 4D beings.
gonegahgah wrote:quickfur wrote:Well, before we develop that technology, we can get a little glimpse into 4D perception by looking at projection images. I know the projection approach does suffer from some limitations, like the "inside-out" effect of rotations, but I suspect we will still have to deal with that in a direct-to-brain approach anyway. I don't think our brains would automatically understand that as a rotation, unless we can train it by direct manipulation of 4D objects.
Our brains would take a lot of time to adjust, if they can, but a new born mind may find the task much easier.
If the 4D world is correctly put together then I suspect the new born would not experience those 'inside-out' effects; just as we don't experience them and the 2Der might think that we should. I feel the 'inside-out' effect is only due to the limitations of our 3D world canvas.
I feel that even in 4D things maintain a constant relationship and it is only our experience that makes it seem otherwise.
If a 4D environment could be simulated correctly then turning things around in 4D may have no more visual conflict to a 4Der than us turning things around in our world.
quickfur wrote:...I know the projection approach does suffer from some limitations...
I agree that it certainly has a place and I'm wondering if I would find it useful to include projection, but through the rotated planes, in the rotated method.
That and/or intelligent slices to help give the roamer the ability to discern alignments within the 4 dimensions.
One of the things that I've realised with our discussions is that 4D objects still serve purposes and that many of these will overlap with the same purposes that we have too.
[...] I guess the long term trick will be to work out what would naturally occur that wouldn't for us. [...]
[...]quickfur wrote:I've thought about a story idea, where the protagonists discover that their 3D world is actually a Matrix-like simulated reality, and when they "wake up" they realize they're actually 4D beings.
That would be cool.
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