Natural terrain

More OpenGL wrestling occurred, but eventually I bent it to my will and managed to get VBOs working.

The dungeon now has a floor and ceiling that varies in height, and a very rough first stab at a continuous mesh:


Now, there are many things wrong with the implementation so far, not least of which is the lack of textures and shaders. Those will require me to gird my loins and head back into the terrifying world of the GL. No, perhaps more fundamental is the way solid areas (natural rock in this case) are represented. Right now I did a quick hack and pulled the terrain up to mimic the effect, but this causes nasty artefacts thanks to the stretching of polys and is far too restrictive. A different approach would be needed for crafted walls.

I'm thinking a better approach will be to create a separate wall mesh by extruding the lines defining a change from solid to traversable terrain. There are some big potential problems with this, and another method is still required for constructed rather than natural areas, but I think on the whole it's a win. It also reduces the amount of geometry to be recalculated when creatures dig or destroy walls.

So the basic dungeon components are looking like:
Floor/ceiling - heightfield, possibly with discrete mesh tiles (flagstones)
Rock and ruined walls - extruded continuous mesh with procedural variation
Worked walls in good order, unique features - discrete meshes, possibly welded together.

A new map format will be needed soon. The .txt map generator is beginning to look a bit under-featured, especially for representing material differences. It may still be the first step in map creation though, as I like how easy it is to check the output.

The heightfield meshes still need to represent material variation (rock, sand, vegetation, pebbles) and there may be additional mesh layers (water, lava, ground cover). So much to do, and as ever so little time...

As an aside, my rough thoughts on combat with height variation:
Melee - if the attacker is half a tile-width or greater above the defender, attacker is at +1*. If half a tile lower, attacker is at -1. Height differences equal or greater than 1 tile prevent both standard movement and melee attacks.
Movement - movement uphill takes more energy than moving on a flat, and movement down less. I think this'll cap at around double/half cost for the max gradient. Maximum gradient for movement without a 'climb' action is 45 degrees. Non-climb movement down a slope >45 degrees counts as falling, and will cause damage roughly proportional to the height difference squared. There will be rules for falling/climbing on inclines that are greater than one tile wide.
Ranged - projectiles deal increased damage and have increased range when fired from an elevated position
LoS - high tiles may block LoS, depending on height relative to player and 'interesting objects' (monsters) in potentially hidden tiles.

* Where +1 is a small attack and damage bonus. Possibly +1d4 to both - it depends on the exact mechanics for combat and stuff, which are currently not defined...