[crossfire] Face "overlays"

[Nicolas Weeger]

>   Ah - so it sounds like you are looking at one of these 2 possibilites:

<snip>

Correct :)



>   My gut instinct is that #2 would actually be easier.  For #1, I think it
> may require potentially more protocol changes (there may be issues with
> number of layers, so some extension for that, and the map send code would
> have to look at the object and see if that given object has overlays that
> need to get sent, look those up) - I'm just not sure how efficient that
> would be.


#2 seems nice too, but this also means there will be a need for many 
"temporary" images.

Imagine the player with a basic armor, and the associated overlay. There will 
be 4 (for most races) directions * 3 pictures (for most animations) so 12 
composite images.

Now the player casts a spell - that's another animation, so 4*3 pictures 
again.


So I'm wondering how many pictures that will imply at total...


One way would be for the server to find all "action-related" animations (so 
"player_fenx_spellcasting" and friends) and for each regenerate temporary 
faces for any face. That could mean 200 faces for a player. Maybe not that a 
big evil deal...



Also it seems the server will need to send faces updates at almost each 
equipment change. Probably not that a big deal either, but still.



For clients not having this support, the fallback would be simply to send the 
regular player face, imo.



Regards


Nicolas
-- 
Mon p'tit coin du web - http://nicolas.weeger.org
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