Jools, it means that only the terrain is shaded. Features, water, trees, grass, geovents EVERYTHING but the terrain.

Ok, but that's not a big deal, things such as grass and trees are so small anyway. They are good for taking nice screenshots, but nobody actually plays the game on a zoomlevel that he would notice such details.

What game that is? I definitely want los-shaded units in mine.

You want your units shaded when they are not in LOS?

I would want gaia units and features to be shaded yes, I would want WATER shaded yes.

Unlike smoth, i don't want water. But i want to make extensive use of always-visible units.

that would be jarring if the effect isn't applied to water. People will assume it is a bug in the render.


Those units by rights should not be shaded with the LOS shader, if it was, then that would be a bug.

Sure, I don't claim to represent the truth, but I think most players play that way. But go ahead and survey the folks here and then we will find out.

lol you assume the engine should be tailor made for *A. That is what your assertion comes down to. I have been fighting this mentality for years and I won't stop now. Not all games play at the same zoom level. Most users probably use a similar zoom level because most play BA. Majority rule does not apply here because we are talking about the engine NOT game specific lua. The engine should support many zoom levels because that is how some games may be done.


LOL you assume all features are small

LOL you assume all gaia units are going to be small.

So you want to make an engine that no-one wants to use? For what? I'd say that majority rule is indeed relevant. If you think that there may be some stakeholders that are not represented, then back that up with something.


Yes. Most of them.


Yes. But I'm happy if yiu can prove me wrong.

So if a person has a game they are working on for spring they are a stakeholder? Hmm seems like you aren't a stakeholder. I am sure that is fallacious.

That is a terribly weak argument. So then you say, makes an engine no one wants.. YET, YET option#2 is a fucking gadget, which resides in a game. BAM optional! BAM doesn't effect the engine! OH SHIT! Seems to me you are winning my argument for me. As you say that to the guy who wrote feature placer, converted the entire spring collection of features to lua, and actively maps. Most of the features in spring are larger than the spring trees.
gunmetal harbor, do I win something in this imaginary penis contest?

Everybody who has a relation with spring is a stakeholder.

All vampire movies are just stakeholder development

Jools, you are insane. Why would I (and many others) have spent any amount of time making nice maps and models and features and basically all my work with spring to make it look better if "but nobody actually plays the game on a zoomlevel that he would notice such details"?
I play spring, not dotwars.

I'm not talking about that zoomed out either :)

I'm talking about whether people will notice shaded grass. Grass is very small. Units are bigger, and terrain is even bigger.

But don't take my word for it. Ask people.

Grass is very visible. Trees would be very obvious. And Jools, why the fuck are you arguing against a gadget? That's just ig'nant.

An engine no one plays? That's like saying no one plays the Torque engine right? You're right, no one plays the Torque engine. They play games built upon the Torque engine, like Frozen Synapse and Space Pirates and Zombies. Spring is no different.

Smoth is a gadget?

I'm arguing against the policy to do things first and then find out what people want. I was stating my impression of the most common zoom level, but this is very easy to find out. Make a widgets that people can use that monitors the zoom level as they play. It would give quite a lot of quantitative data, so then we don't have to argue what the relevant level is.

Or are you saying that it doesn't matter how people actually play the game? We make thew engine the way we want nevertheless...

what game? ba?

Jools, Do you realize how fugly non-shaded features and grass would be? We are talking fullbright (mapbright anyway) trees and grass when you aren't looking at them.

Moreover, why should something be hardcoded into the engine rather than lua'd? You are aware that spring versions only come out once in a while aren't you? Do you want to wait 6 months for los to be fixed because some engine dev made a typo?

Your entire argument is based upon nothing but hot air and trolling.



Bullshit. You have not made that statement once in this thread on your own until just now. People want shit to look good. Gamedevs want shit to look good. Reviewers want shit to look good. The gadget is the best looking by far, and with the added ability to modify it as needed.

Your entire argument is null and void.

what's the map fog effect?
why is the engine version better looking (i.e why is the gadget version limited), and how much faster is it?

without knowing the details, I'd rather have the LOS effect in the engine as it fits the description of being "something that a majority of RTS games have and is complex enough that they shouldn't have to implement it"

would it be possible to somehow mix the two, i.e by providing engine rendering, thus gaining speed and a larger variety of effects, but still having some sort of control and customization - expose a lua interface content devs can use