I know it will never happen, but I can dream.

It would bee cool if spring supported rivers, lakes, and dynamic erosion.

Check this awesome demo out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWD3cpWT ... r_embedded

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/detail/craftscape/?f=

Water even flows (animation) down the rivers.
Lakes at any level of the terrain.
Dynamic terrain, hard and soft.

Erosion is conceptually just the same as terraforming (but governed by some simple height redistribution function), and gadgets have full dynamic heightmap control --> already supported, as is hard and soft terrain.

Multiple water levels on the other hand would require Work™.

It's pretty, but how would you integrate that into the gameplay?

Could be interesting on icemaps where stuff would produce heat. Thats basically the same as erosion right?

slow melting maybe but fast heat on ice results in fracturing. on something like an ice shelf you get ice chunks that break off form small floating platforms.



It would be neat to see but say something the end of a glacier is unplayable.


there is also the fact that you would have XXXton units marching around on ice.. fragile ice? LITTLE JIMMY WALKED WHERE THE ICE WAS THIN!!! ETc.

one of these days we're going to need a new game engine

The last screenshot is from Russia :D

a dirty workaround appears, all ships have a subvehicel called riverShip.
Once crossing the line, they turn into riverships, which are basically vehicles.. the rest is graffix.

Subs must stay outside.

This would be amazing coupled with dynamic weather, imagine it starts pouring down with rain and the rivers start filling up.

I'm thinking (probably not for multiplayer) but having seasons, altering the terrain, cutting off choke points as rivers rise during the wet season, then returning during teh dry season.

Probably a pipe dream I agree, but what a great feature that would be

Now if only we had a game that uses rising water as part of its gameplay..

Some maps have rising lava as a gameplay element.

I think players expect more fluidity (proper liquid simulation) something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwVbI5Vn ... re=related

Not just a rising plane with water/lava texture on it(anybody can do that).

not unless they are in some world sim like from dust.

stink you can code it. I am convinced that it is possible to create 'real world' water but it would be a lot of work. You can erode terrain with the lua terrain controls. Draw water planes for lakes and gfx for flowing water. Modify terrain impassibility.

You still need volumetric water not planes.

ice that cracks by unit weight/by ships running through it and then units fall into the water is possible if you are willing to adjust mod's movedefs for it: ships minwaterdepth=-1, land units maxwaterdepth=-1, so they can drive on the same shallow water areas -1 deep water areas you have on the map.
Draw some tilebased ice texture over that water, where ice[x][y]==true, flat would look ok for a frozen sea. Add 3d or features if feeling fancypants.
Do ice[x][y]=false when a ship passes over x,y or something explodes.
Also change heightmap at x,y to be -2, so groundunits can not pass anymore.
Evey few frame kill groundunits that are at x,y and ice[x][y]==false
To avoid units clipping through the lua-icebla you could move up their base piece when they are on ice.
But it would imbalance flash.
tl;dr
ice is localized lava

Speaking of dynamic terrain such as this.

Any ideas how would one approach something like zerg creep? FWIW, same tactic could then be used for flowing lava/water.

?

Does it actually creep and affect ground properties, such as that specific ('zerg') units can be built on it, speed modifiers, etc?

I've done something similar with decals, but they lack all of the abovementioned properties, unless i make it a decal-spreading invisible structure that gadgetizes all that.

Also, no normals or emissions for decals :\

(never played Cursed, so i have no idea how stuff on that image actually behaves)

iirc in Cursed it is just visual, just like in SC:BW (beside being only place for zerg to build)

Properties depends what you want, some are easy:
-only place to build
-only allow morph/burrow/other special stuff on creep
-cloak units
-units take less damage
basically like in viewtopic.php?f=23&t=24820
speed modifier idk how to make pathfinder use the fast-creep.