New Map: Spring Mountain Delta

[Nixa]

Ok I put this map out a week ago, but haven't been able to anounce it or give it play time since my flat got taken to the cleaners by some locals...

Anyway, I tried ironing out the gameplay with a week of Beta versions, and I think this release is pretty good in terms of gameplay.

I failed on the final texture a bit, I will reskin it sometime when I get my new computer.

Link is here http://spring.jobjol.nl/show_file.php?id=1018

Screenshots here viewtopic.php?p=278186#p278186
(note these are screenys from a previous version, not much changed though)

Any problems with it post here and I will try to fix them. And yes ships can go through the middle, which ships exactly will be for you to find out.

Thanx to revenge for the help, and to all the testers that actually had patience for people to join rather than just go play 'another' game of DSD

Have fun

[Warlord Zsinj]

I like maps that try to make big height differences; but imo the mountains here look a little strange - not really like mountains. Is this intentional?

[Nixa]

no real reason, just wanted a natural bertha stop.

[Warlord Zsinj]

It might be nice to make them look like natural mountains then, or even mesas.

[Neddie]

You do realize that virtually nobody does the height map articulation required for that level of realism... few even can do manual height maps with any measure of quality in release.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Does that mean that because very few people can do it well, nobody should try?

.. And obviously I'm not after photo-realism here, I was just saying the 'mountains' in this map look like odd extrusions rather then natural formations.

[Beherith]

Using Bryce's built in erosion tool makes mountains look so much more real. I think that tool is way under utilised in spring, even though it would make maps much better. Bryce even shades the eroded areas very realistically.

But in order to get the realism in the pictures you posted, warlord, we would need much higher heighmap resolution, or at least slope adaptive texturing. 8 pixels of texture is not even nearly enough for texturring a steep drop like those mesas. Typemap based detail textures could help this process alot.

Also, springs scale would make this attempt futile, as any mountain of that size might be unmanagably large ingame, and when you stick some peewees on it, it just looks foolish.

On a different note, the pine trees in the last picture look really great, I would kill for some models of those, or at least something similar.

[Nixa]

Yes it is true I could have made them better, however you forget if i made it with slope units could climb it - not what I was after.

[Weaver]

I'll give it a go. BTW what fixed the FPS problem you were having?

[Nixa]

I can't actually remember lol

[Neddie]

Who can afford Bryce?

[Nixa]

Well some lucky people get it handed out to them for free *points at revenge*

[Neddie]

I make my heights by hand.

[Nixa]

Yeh that whole map was made by hand, and it took a loooooonnnnnnnnngggggg time... like 10 hours just for all the heightmap revisions

[Warlord Zsinj]

Again, wasn't after photo-realism, just more realism. They don't have to be climb-able either, if you don't want them to be.

[PicassoCT]

Gradiented 3D-Modells for Heigtmap...

[smoth]

I call bullshit on all claims that this is doable. we simply cannot map the textures on the side of steep cliffs. We have no way to do the images warlord z posted including the pointy moutain because spring hurls chunks on large maps.

We can fake texturing on the sides by making features but have fun with that as features eat fps like a fat kid in a candy store with unlimited cash.

[hunterw]

this heightmap generation/filter program blows everything else away

check it out

http://www.world-machine.com/gallery.html

[Warlord Zsinj]

Again, not after photo-realism, just terrain that has been thought about in terms of geologically what is likely. These shots on the screenshots page and elsewhere show steep terrain that doesn't look photo-realistic but is at least geologically a lot more reasonable then the extrusions on the map in this thread. All it needs is some foothills, erosion areas, sediment buildup, just things to make it look a bit less like pure cookie-cutter extrusions.

I'm not asking for anything I haven't seen done in Spring already before. There are plenty of maps out there with realistic-enough looking mountains and hillsides, etc.

[smoth]

hunter I use worldmachine .