Standalone Featureplacer - Page 2

Standalone Featureplacer

Tutorials & Resources For Mappers

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enetheru
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by enetheru »

I just tested out feature placer, and it works really well, clean and simple. I really like these in game tools for editing maps, it makes so much sense.
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enetheru
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by enetheru »

http://springrts.com/wiki/Map_Making:_Feature_Placer

This page needs updating :)

edit: removed emphasis
gajop
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by gajop »

Forboding Angel wrote: Unitpics cannot be read properly from a dependency apparently. I know this because all the feature pictures are in spring features, but spring won't read them from spring features.
I just did a tiny change to how features pics are obtained in Toolbox and it seems to work using Spring Features from svn as a dependency. I suggest you do this in featureplacer as well, as it properly separates responsibilities.
Forboding Angel wrote: Make them coexist gajop?
Well I guess it would work by just putting it in as a dependency - and not sure I want to make it mandatory right now (I think ToolBox one could replace this eventually).
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smoth
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by smoth »

Image
Just putting this out there, unless forb grabbed the latest(broken version with fixes from the svn) I do not, cannot and will not support this version. The current latest has many fixes but because I am working with it as a side tangent of my GBS stuff I cannot attack THAT specific problem at the moment. If I look at it, I'll probably remember what the issue is but I JUST got back from a month in antartica and I have a lot of IRL shit that currently takes priority. #1 being I want to go get groceries, pick up my cute turtle and sleep a lot.

yeah, the preview images were NEVER made with features, it is hard enough to get features from modelers AND I did the initial manual conversion(because I was largely ignorant of spring looahs at the time) of most of the features defs. The build pics were included probably just because that is how forb packaged it and not how I would have done it. However, I don't believe in controlling feature placer as far as I consider it, that shit belongs to the community. So people can do whatever the hell they want with it and whatever approaches you guys take I may or MAY not integrate into my projects. I 100% believe in better approaches and that being a huge part of opensource. My code was sloppy at best and mostly patched together with bits of shit I learned from others. If I do any fixes to it, they will be pretty bottom priority after working on my generalized unit scripts and a few other bergy bits. If someone else wants to build on the feature placer stuff do me a favor and keep the shit PD where possible. PD is compatible with most licenses and doesn't make demands of people who build on it.
gajop
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by gajop »

can you really licence lua code under PD? i thought it's all forced to be GPL by the engine?
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jK
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by jK »

gajop wrote:can you really licence lua code under PD? i thought it's all forced to be GPL by the engine?
PD has less restrictions than GPL. You can always license stuff under less restricting ones, but GPL is minimum (so LGPL isn't sufficient).
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smoth
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by smoth »

gajop wrote:can you really licence lua code under PD? i thought it's all forced to be GPL by the engine?
please start a licensing discussion elsewhere.
Jk's
jK wrote:
gajop wrote:can you really licence lua code under PD? i thought it's all forced to be GPL by the engine?
PD has less restrictions than GPL. You can always license stuff under less restricting ones, but GPL is minimum (so LGPL isn't sufficient).
is 100% correct.
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Forboding Angel
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by Forboding Angel »

Smoth, in this one everything works. I know you totally redid it, but in the meantime, till that is ready, this will do the trick.

Not sure what you mean about controlling it, in the sense that anyone could take it and do whatever they please with it, but at the same time, it's nice to have a(n) (at least semi) standard tool for feature placement that mappers can rely on.

FP in evo is temperamental , so making fp it's own module was a net gain for me as well. The irritating thing is that some people think that I wrote it and I get tired of correcting them, but whatever.
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enetheru
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by enetheru »

Forboding Angel wrote:The irritating thing is that some people think that I wrote it and I get tired of correcting them, but whatever.
thats only because it was part of evo(and gundam) and previously the only way to get it was to get gundamrts or evo.. since yo were the only vocal person around, it ended up being "get evo and use featureplacer" kind of understandable that it gets attributed to you.. however incorrect

still, we know better now, and having its own module is awesome! and can have its own list of authors/maintainers etc.

blah.
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smoth
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by smoth »

Forboding Angel wrote:Smoth, in this one everything works. I know you totally redid it, but in the meantime, till that is ready, this will do the trick.
There are a few issues with rand rot etc. Not a big deal I need to move them off of units and just make a ui to plop on click but right now I just have other things which feel like they are higher priority.
Forboding Angel wrote:Not sure what you mean about controlling it, in the sense that anyone could take it and do whatever they please with it, but at the same time, it's nice to have a(n) (at least semi) standard tool for feature placement that mappers can rely on.
Feature placer is meant to be PD so people can do what they want with it. I only gpl'd stuff that the authors already gpl'd. I do not control it because I cannot. People will do what they want here, a license is only as good as your will/motivation to enforce it and unlike a few ex-members of this community, I am not a blowhard. I acknowledge my lack of will to do much about what happens with featureplacer. If someone breaks the standards set by it, I will just rename the config file I use and ignore them. What if the standards are better? well I will adopt them. I should not stand in the way of the thing being better than it is. I should also not stand in the way of it being used.


Forboding Angel wrote:FP in evo is temperamental , so making fp it's own module was a net gain for me as well. The irritating thing is that some people think that I wrote it and I get tired of correcting them, but whatever.
the reason I setup feature placer in EVO was not for evo to keep it as a map tool. It was so evo could add evo specific features, corpses and feature placement. I later included only the gundam feature map in desert valley as BA players typically have shit pcs and need all the fps they can get. don't ask me why but largey they all act like BA should be as graphical as a bargin-bin game from 2000 because they want to run it on pcs from around 7 years ago.
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Forboding Angel
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by Forboding Angel »

smoth wrote:
Forboding Angel wrote:FP in evo is temperamental , so making fp it's own module was a net gain for me as well. The irritating thing is that some people think that I wrote it and I get tired of correcting them, but whatever.
the reason I setup feature placer in EVO was not for evo to keep it as a map tool. It was so evo could add evo specific features, corpses and feature placement. I later included only the gundam feature map in desert valley as BA players typically have shit pcs and need all the fps they can get. don't ask me why but largey they all act like BA should be as graphical as a bargin-bin game from 2000 because they want to run it on pcs from around 7 years ago.
Yeah I get that, and tbh it was just nice having it there at my beck and call.

I just wish I could get away with feature placement like on deserted gully (around 8k iirc). God that map looks pretty, but it plays like dog shit because of features dragging the performance down.

I need to just get over myself and redo it :-(
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smoth
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by smoth »

if you get the chance I want to talk to you about some new approaches and changes that need to be done with regards to features etc.
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enetheru
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by enetheru »

can we post feature requests in this thread?
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smoth
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by smoth »

feel free to but don't be upset if I don't do them.
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enetheru
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by enetheru »

smoth wrote:feel free to but don't be upset if I don't do them.
oh no no no, I wouldnt dream of it.

* removal of the need of the build tree
* selection tools, paint selection, loop select, type select, select random etc.
* replace all
* cut, copy, paste
* rotate multiple selected objects around median centre
* paint tools, with options limiting proximity to existing features

* feature browser,
- multiple view types like list, icon or preview(3d view, with soemthing to show scale like the units footprint)
- categorisation

* modular feature archive loading, so that not all features need to be in the one huge archive.
* bundle tool, to extract the feature from the archive and include it in your map archive(cutting dependency)

umm, thats just off the top of my head.. glad to have a place to chuck it down. now I can not think about it..
gajop
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by gajop »

i'm slightly curious about some of these use cases, may want to implement it in toolbox, so could you give it some more detail?
enetheru wrote: * selection tools, paint selection, loop select, type select, select random etc.
I'm going to guess you want to select all features the map? Can you elaborate them in some more detail? Or do you want to select feature types which you will be adding to the map?
enetheru wrote: * replace all
Is the intent of this to replace all features of one type with all features of the other type? Or just do a replace of all features (of any type) in one area to another type?
enetheru wrote: * rotate multiple selected objects around median centre
You basically want this just for multiple objects?
enetheru wrote: * paint tools, with options limiting proximity to existing features
I think 0ad has something similar in its' editor, but you basically want to click on the feature tool and choose a brush, and you want to "draw around the map" and have it create features only in certain, limited amounts? That is, it won't create features if there's already enough of them in that area, and might even remove some so the area holds the amount that the brush tool is configured to create?
enetheru wrote: - multiple view types like list, icon or preview(3d view, with something to show scale like the units footprint)
I'd like to do 3D rendering of ingame features, I'm just not sure how to do it yet, as I've no idea how to draw features properly, DrawFeature isn't enough. They need to be drawn with textures (maybe even some lightning or w/e?) or they look really weird. Any hints there?
enetheru wrote: * modular feature archive loading, so that not all features need to be in the one huge archive.
I'm pretty sure you can't add/remove FeatureDefs and UnitDefs tables while in-game, but you may be able to load some of it in some early stages of the mod. Can anyone confirm when/where this is doable?

Also note that you can always modify the modinfo.lua file.
enetheru wrote: * bundle tool, to extract the feature from the archive and include it in your map archive(cutting dependency)
Makes some sense but I feel there's a high chance (at least currently) that people will be using the same feature in multiple maps, which may lead to larger maps on average and probably larger total map size in general. It's something to look at, but not yet imo.
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enetheru
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by enetheru »

gajop wrote:i'm slightly curious about some of these use cases, may want to implement it in toolbox, so could you give it some more detail?
enetheru wrote: * selection tools, paint selection, loop select, type select, select random etc.
I'm going to guess you want to select all features the map? Can you elaborate them in some more detail? Or do you want to select feature types which you will be adding to the map?
ok lets elaborate there are two things that come to mind from your response.

first my original idea is just selection tools for features that are on the map already
* rectangular area
* lasso or free select, draw an area and everything inside is selected
* randomise selection
- has paremeter of %, randomly selects % of features.
* select by type, selects the same types of units already selected
* brush select, gives you a circular "brush" that you move around and anything under it gets added to the selection. ala painting the selection.

some of the tools can be used in conjunction with each other, like randomise and type.

so selection areas could be: entire map , screen, rectangular, free/lasso, existing selection, brush

and the modifyers would be: randomize, type

ooh, also thought selection sets could be useful so you can re-select groups of features easily..

The other thing I thought when I read your response was that selecting multiple features in the build menus would allow you to paint them both onto the map at the same time, so you could select a range of foliage and paint them onto the terrain all together, saves you going over the same areas multiple times.. could also have options to set the rate of placement in comparison to the other features, so 10% tree1 %10 tree2 %40 shrub1 30% shrub2 %10 rock1 to cover large generic areas quickly..

gajop wrote:
enetheru wrote: * replace all
Is the intent of this to replace all features of one type with all features of the other type? Or just do a replace of all features (of any type) in one area to another type?
you would work it based on selection, so you replace the currently selected features with the new one.. if you select everything you replace everything.. could also work with the above idea of selecting multiple features from the build menu
gajop wrote:
enetheru wrote: * rotate multiple selected objects around median centre
You basically want this just for multiple objects?
yep

hmm also made me think of pre-fab or build groups.. dont know how to call it.. add features, select them and save as a pre-fab.. you can then add that set of features anywhere else on the map with a click of a button.
gajop wrote:
enetheru wrote: * paint tools, with options limiting proximity to existing features
I think 0ad has something similar in its' editor, but you basically want to click on the feature tool and choose a brush, and you want to "draw around the map" and have it create features only in certain, limited amounts? That is, it won't create features if there's already enough of them in that area, and might even remove some so the area holds the amount that the brush tool is configured to create?
thats better than what i was thinking so yeah
gajop wrote:
enetheru wrote: * bundle tool, to extract the feature from the archive and include it in your map archive(cutting dependency)
Makes some sense but I feel there's a high chance (at least currently) that people will be using the same feature in multiple maps, which may lead to larger maps on average and probably larger total map size in general. It's something to look at, but not yet imo.
yeah definitely larger maps..but if we have loads and loads of features in multiple modules dependency hell starts to exist.. what about multiple versions of certain feature archives?

It's a trade off that I would make to avoid that situation.

I have no comment on your other points.
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Forboding Angel
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by Forboding Angel »

enetheru wrote:
gajop wrote:
enetheru wrote: * bundle tool, to extract the feature from the archive and include it in your map archive(cutting dependency)
Makes some sense but I feel there's a high chance (at least currently) that people will be using the same feature in multiple maps, which may lead to larger maps on average and probably larger total map size in general. It's something to look at, but not yet imo.
yeah definitely larger maps..but if we have loads and loads of features in multiple modules dependency hell starts to exist.. what about multiple versions of certain feature archives?

It's a trade off that I would make to avoid that situation.

I have no comment on your other points.
No it doesn't. There is only one spring features and it is on rapid, meaning incremental updates in subsequent versions. All of the lobbies auto download dependencies now, so this is a non-issue, and bundling with the map increases fragmentation and map size.
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by gajop »

OK, I have already thought about some of these things, so going to annotate my plans in your quote:
enetheru wrote: first my original idea is just selection tools for features that are on the map already
* rectangular area first thing to implement, won't be too hard probably
* lasso or free select, draw an area and everything inside is selected can be done, just don't care much about it atm
* randomise selection optional
- has paremeter of %, randomly selects % of features.
* select by type, selects the same types of units already selected could be done much like it's done for units, i.e you get a list of selected features, and their numbers, and by clicking on their icons (shift/ctrl) you can select a specific type or types
PS: In ToolBox, I want to unify feature and unit selection, and to allow people to select (move, rotate, copy, paste and stuff) units and features at the same time, i.e to remove the difference users see between units and features.

This replace part seems ok to me.
enetheru wrote: you would work it based on selection, so you replace the currently selected features with the new one.. if you select everything you replace everything.. could also work with the above idea of selecting multiple features from the build menu
Understood the prefab part (can also call it a template or sth). Shouldn't be too hard to do.
enetheru wrote: hmm also made me think of pre-fab or build groups.. dont know how to call it.. add features, select them and save as a pre-fab.. you can then add that set of features anywhere else on the map with a click of a button.

I think it would be better if we could download features/feature packs from a certain repository, based on map/mod dependency, and only do that if it's not already downloaded (much like rapid works).
One could also do neat (advanced) things like either specify a feature version or commit to using the newest feature version in case it ever gets updated (f.e "tree1:newest", "tree1:v132").
That requires a bit too much work atm though.
gajop wrote: yeah definitely larger maps..but if we have loads and loads of features in multiple modules dependency hell starts to exist.. what about multiple versions of certain feature archives?

It's a trade off that I would make to avoid that situation.
Btw, I already implemented most of the stuff you mentioned at least twice so far, once in a C++ 2D allegro based map editor 10 years ago, and once in a 2D Swig java editor 4~ years ago. So I think I have a good idea on how to do it (and how hard it is), but feature requests are always welcomed as it gives me an idea of what to prioritize!

PS:@FA, yes, but if anyone makes new features, it either gets integrated in Spring Features (thus increases that archive's size, which is already in the 200sMBs iirc), or it gets released separately. Hopefully, when we get large amounts of features, i.e in the 10s/100s of thousands, it would make little sense to enforce it if only small subsets are used.
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enetheru
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Re: Standalone Featureplacer

Post by enetheru »

Forboding Angel wrote:No it doesn't. There is only one spring features and it is on rapid, meaning incremental updates in subsequent versions. All of the lobbies auto download dependencies now, so this is a non-issue, and bundling with the map increases fragmentation and map size.
I tend to think worst case scenario, offline play, servers crash, community dies and cannot get things anymore, or so much extra data that spring features explodes in size, hundreds of dependencies from multiple modules.

its entirely a trade off, one that personally I would prefer to bundle features with my map.. it also allows me to customize them to suit the map more.. for instance with charlie, I plan on altering the texture colours, so need to bundle them with the map anyway. Greater coherency of art and all that :|

If I was to make a set of maps with a particular theme, then I would think seriously about an archive for their common factors.. its just the way I think.. and I don't mind a bit of extra file size.

In my mind archives like spring features are great for mappers, but not so great for gamers.. and this is just an opinion..
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