Initial design notes for Whirled.

git-svn-id: svn+ssh://src.earth.threerings.net/narya/trunk@210 542714f4-19e9-0310-aa3c-eee0fc999fb1
2001-08-10 01:23:22 +00:00
parent 9df1deef66
commit ebab858d1f
1 changed files with 32 additions and 0 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
 Whirled Design -*- mode: outline -*-
 * Overview
 Whirled builds on top of the Cocktail platform and provides a framework
 for building a virtual world made up of a node network of individual
 scenes. In the abstract, scenes contain only exits to other scenes and the
 world is one big directed graph. This is not unlike the structure of MUDs
 where one classically thinks of rooms and exits. We've chosen the term
 scene to avoid implying that we're indoors.
 Whirled provides a means by which clients can move from scene to scene,
 and to different locations within the scene (though restricting clients to
 movement only to a pre-defined list of locations within the scene is
 optional).
 The scene information needed by the client may differ from that needed by
 the server. Specifically, the server may need only know about exits to
 other scenes, whereas the client will need to know how to render a scene
 which may involve substantially more information (tile lists for top-down
 and isometric renderings or a 3D scene model). To this end, Whirled
 provides services for building static scene bundles that can be included
 with the client and then updated over the wire if the client enters a
 particular scene and needs updated scene information. Using these
 services, the world can change and evolve and the client can be sure to
 always have the correct scene information. Excessive downloading can be
 avoided by seeding the client's scene database with a snapshot of the
 system at the time the client is delivered, and subsequent snapshots can
 be provided periodically to bring all clients into sync with the runtime
 scene database, from which they can then continue to mirror updates as
 needed.
 * Notes