Idea - An In-Game Real-time Navigation Map - Classic Doom-style

[LazyJ]

WARNING - This is long-winded. Grab your favorite beverage and some snacks before reading.

Does anyone remember the old game "Classic Doom" that ran on MS-DOS?

In that game was an in-game, real-time, navigation map. You toggled between the game screen and the navigation map screen while playing the game. The navigation map itself was a very simplified, hollow, colored, outlines only on a black background, 2D rending of the game world. The player could zoom-in or zoom-out and pan the navigation map.

The player was represented on the navigation map as a red arrow. The arrow pointed in the direction the player was facing. The borders of the navigation map were represented by brown lines, un-entered areas were grey lines, gates were yellow, line boxes... I think... it's been a few, um... Well, it's been awhile.

Anyway, I was wondering if something similar was possible in Minetest.

Granted, the Doom game world map was static and predetermined whereas each Minetest world map is unique and generated on the spot. But all Minetest world maps do have a constant attribute - an xy plane. (For a time set the 3D, "y" axis aside... we're focusing in terms of 2D at present. I'll get to the 3D part in a little bit.)

Keeping in mind that one of Minetest's strengths is running decently on older computers, this 2D map shouldn't be very detailed - graphically. Remember, outlines on a black background only.

To represent the xy plane a grid could be utilized. One, hollow, outline, square equals 100x100 horizontal nodes/blocks in the game world.

Or... no grid at all.

Just a large, empty square representing the entire xy plane of the game world. Nothing to render, reducing the computer's task to merely calculating the player's position (a red arrow) in relation to other players and marked locations on the map.

Other Players

Already players are represented in-game with their name above their avatar. That same information (name only, no avatar) could be brought into a "player location" mode of the navigation map. Maybe this 2D navigation map could be toggled between three modes: (1) player locations only, (2) marked locations only, and (3) combined players and marked locations.

Marked Locations

Ok, so we have an arrow to represent where the player is, but where is everything else? Players and/or server admins could set location marks using something similar to Mauvebic's "Bookmarks" mod. (The Bookmars mod has been packaged into the Riventest mod - http://minetest.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2399)

The Bookmarks mod creates a text file (bookmarks.go) in the /worlds folder. The marked locations mode of the navigation map could get location names and coordinates from that file to put in the navigation map.

So the end result would be something like this:

While playing on a Minetest server, I press the "M" key to toggle over to the first mode of the navigation map - all players and all marked locations. I see that my red arrow is way off in the booneys.

No one nor anything is in the area I'm in.

So I press the "-" key and zoom out of the map.

At near max-zoom I can see that there are a few other loners and their coordinates shown on the navigation map's outreaches. Around the location of "SomeTown" are a lot of players. So many in fact that I can't read their names and coordinates because they are so clustered together.

Using the WASD keys, I pan the navigation map over to the "SomeTown" area, press "M" to toggle the navigation map to its second mode, "players only", and zoom in using the "+" key. Now I can see the names and coordinates of several folks I know and a few newcomers.

I've never been to "SomeTown" and, from what the navigation map shows me, I'm clear on the opposite side of the game world from "SomeTown". Sure would be nice to know the coordinates to "SomeTown" so I could teleport over to there.

So I then toggle the navigation map ("M" key again) into it's third mode, "marked locations" and now I see the name and coordinates to "SomeTown". But since I'm still zoomed in from when I was looking to see who was there, I now can see other locations marked inside "SomeTown".

Seems they have a few shops, a roller-coaster, a sky ship...

Oh.

"SomeTown" is a sky city!

I can tell by looking at the "y" coordinate and by the color of names/coordinates.

(Yup, here's the part that addresses the "y" axis like I promised up above.)

If a player or a location is at an altitude that is usually below ground, their name and coordinates are colored light brown (brown dirt) or some dark color that isn't so dark that you can't read it easily on a black background. ( ...2D map, colored outlines, black background.)

Players and locations that are at an altitude that is usually above ground are represented in a medium color, like green (green grass).

Players and locations that are at an altitude that is usually in the air (like a sky city) are represented by white (white clouds).

Well, that's about it.

If you've managed to read this far... thank you.

[CTMN]

Maybe it could be rendered when pressing M (and aborted by pressing another buttom), so ig could be a better map. I'm thinking of having an own map color for every block, and every pixel would be as bright as its height. It would take more time to render, but only when pressing M. The map could also be saved in the memory, so the game would already have the half of the rendered map.

[BenAmaranth]

Ahhh! Make this already! I'm tired of falling down a deep shaft and loosing a 30 hour castle when I can't find my way back up!

[irksomeduck]

Ahhh! Make this already! I'm tired of falling down a deep shaft and loosing a 30 hour castle when I can't find my way back up!

I know that feel bro

[CTMN]

Press F5 and remember the coords -.-