Hm. Whats the throw-shit-into-each-others-faces stuff doing here?
Yes, bandwith isnt free, but maybe it would be sensible to get the map torrent idea running again. Or even integrating a torrent client (as there are enough open source codebases available) in the internal map downloader (which would reduce the load at FU a lot).
Also, i noticed that apart from the initial "lets check this new map if its any good" factor, surprisingly few maps are actually played (and thus have to be kept), so the storage space facter isnt an issue either (not to mention that 1GByte HD space costs <50c... a single copy of a retail game saved would give a 120Gbyte hd)
Also, i agree that spring need niced maps, or at least a nicer image quality / performance rating.
About the high quality highmaps: well, if the area is flat, than the entropy will eb low and 7zip will seriously squash the files. Also, why does the highfield data contain normal vectors?
I dont think that the "lets make a bitmap as large as the map and slap it onto the gpu 1:1" approach is in any way usable for epic maps TA should actually be played on.
The whole concept was sucky starting form the day the first full-render bryce/terragen maps appeared.
Maybe the solution would be a surface based mapping system. Each surface gets a shader (which could of course be a normal texture map, or a water shader, or reflections + texture for stuff like ice , ect). The highmap simply gets another byte for the material, and when creating the terrain-mesh from the heighmap it just assigns the shaders accordingly (Which could also moved on hardware, in a certain ways). That way, the GPU could also do the blending between the surfaces in hardware (by just blending between the two shaders in areas they hit).
Also, while flat maps with high resolution highmaps dont need that much filespace, memory space is a much more scarce ressource (plus more memory footprint also reduced caching efficiency, and many operations eat more memory bandwith).
So is it really needed to use the high resolution data for everything? A Quad-tree approach would be much more efficient, plus it would allow to perform operation on the resolution needed.
What i mean is the following: If we have a theoretical 1024x1024 pixel map, it could have a coarse 16x16 heighmap used for distance LOD highmaps, ect. This is subdivided into 4 16x16 maps for each corner, recursivly until the needed precision is reached.
watermap for example wont need high resolution heighmaps anywhere but on the shore or the islands, so it would be such a waste to save it everywhere, and do all pathfinding/LOS operations on the redundant data.
Also, with those heighmap tree, the terrain lod-levels would already be there and could be optimized by the creater of the map, to avoid stuff like the moving walls in castles.
Together those two features (hirarchical terrain heighmaps and surface shader based terrain rendering) would allow MUCH bigger maps _AND_ speed of the whole thing considerably
TA Spring needs more impressive graphic
Moderators: MR.D, Moderators
the torrents should only be active when player is not in game... but this could be issue when u play other games online too and wont close lobby... but i really like this idea so i say gogogogo develop and do it thenIMSabbel wrote: Yes, bandwith isnt free, but maybe it would be sensible to get the map torrent idea running again. Or even integrating a torrent client (as there are enough open source codebases available) in the internal map downloader (which would reduce the load at FU a lot).
it even would give us more download speed 
and maybe the torrents would be on FU Just qwick response.
aGorm. You seam to have missed my point aswell. I don't care about the dailup users. Infact, fuck the dailup users. They proably can't play spring anyway. Still, I think that if they/anyone want to complain about something they/anyone don't like and have a valid reson (and yes, 15 minutes extra in download time is a valid reson) they/anyone can complain all they want. Getting annoyed bye it is your problem, since it's so "minor" anyway.
I've responded about 8-9 times now, with recapas and other stuff only to tell you that i don't really like this sentence of your post: " And you can stop complaining about what you dont like. "
That's just silly and inlogical.
Again, i do not care about dialup users, i don't care about high download sizes.
bye
aGorm. You seam to have missed my point aswell. I don't care about the dailup users. Infact, fuck the dailup users. They proably can't play spring anyway. Still, I think that if they/anyone want to complain about something they/anyone don't like and have a valid reson (and yes, 15 minutes extra in download time is a valid reson) they/anyone can complain all they want. Getting annoyed bye it is your problem, since it's so "minor" anyway.
I've responded about 8-9 times now, with recapas and other stuff only to tell you that i don't really like this sentence of your post: " And you can stop complaining about what you dont like. "
That's just silly and inlogical.
Again, i do not care about dialup users, i don't care about high download sizes.
bye
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SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
Fuck the dialup users. I want tonnes of maps for spring and I'm not made of hardrive space. If I get 50 40 meg maps my spring folder is pressing 2 gig. This is TA spring, not UT2007. plus if I download them all in one shot my ISP will call me up and nazi at me even though thier fucking contract says unlimited download.
Everybody... chill.
If you have no technical solutions you'd like to propose for what are basically technical problems, please... quit posting here.
If you want something... work for it. Just cheering/booing on the sidelines is not always enough. The technical skills that those of us who make content utilize are learnable, and not terribly hard- anybody with reasonable intelligence and the desire to make a difference can learn how to model, skin, animate or map.
If you cannot do any of these things, then you're like a writing critic can't spell their own name, or an art critic who's never used a paintbrush- you're advice/opinions are completely irrelevant to anybody who actually knows how to do things, and you are very likely to be ignored. Sorry, but it's just the truth. The SY's are practically saints, for having put up with this sort've behavior for the better part of a year now... don't push your luck.
So sit down, read the tutorials, download the FREE software we've provided links to, and start changing things, if you're not happy- and I will root for you. Just whine... and I could care less. In the decade I've been making game mods, I've been called everything from "gay" to "stupid" to ... worse, I guess. And I really don't care- if the people who've whined knew how to do what I do, then they'd understand how lame their complaints are
As (another) example, and to prove that I'm not just telling you people to sip a big cup of STFU... here's one concrete way that map downloads could be made smaller:
Whatever happened to the collections of Features that were so important to OTA mappers? Why hasn't this been a major goal of every mapper? If everybody who complained in this thread made just ONE unique item in S3O format (say, like a house, a rock, a tree) we would have... a lot more standardized Features than we currently do. Yes, UpSpring is a little buggy, but it basically works- I get the "black screen problem" on my PC/video card, but the final models work just fine. Don't listen to the nay-sayers, who're avoiding S3O because they're scared of dealing with a few bugs... get your hands dirty and make a difference!
See what I'm saying here? Bring us solutions, not problems. Be positive, not negative. Be constructive, not critical. Be useful.
If you have no technical solutions you'd like to propose for what are basically technical problems, please... quit posting here.
If you want something... work for it. Just cheering/booing on the sidelines is not always enough. The technical skills that those of us who make content utilize are learnable, and not terribly hard- anybody with reasonable intelligence and the desire to make a difference can learn how to model, skin, animate or map.
If you cannot do any of these things, then you're like a writing critic can't spell their own name, or an art critic who's never used a paintbrush- you're advice/opinions are completely irrelevant to anybody who actually knows how to do things, and you are very likely to be ignored. Sorry, but it's just the truth. The SY's are practically saints, for having put up with this sort've behavior for the better part of a year now... don't push your luck.
So sit down, read the tutorials, download the FREE software we've provided links to, and start changing things, if you're not happy- and I will root for you. Just whine... and I could care less. In the decade I've been making game mods, I've been called everything from "gay" to "stupid" to ... worse, I guess. And I really don't care- if the people who've whined knew how to do what I do, then they'd understand how lame their complaints are
As (another) example, and to prove that I'm not just telling you people to sip a big cup of STFU... here's one concrete way that map downloads could be made smaller:
Whatever happened to the collections of Features that were so important to OTA mappers? Why hasn't this been a major goal of every mapper? If everybody who complained in this thread made just ONE unique item in S3O format (say, like a house, a rock, a tree) we would have... a lot more standardized Features than we currently do. Yes, UpSpring is a little buggy, but it basically works- I get the "black screen problem" on my PC/video card, but the final models work just fine. Don't listen to the nay-sayers, who're avoiding S3O because they're scared of dealing with a few bugs... get your hands dirty and make a difference!
See what I'm saying here? Bring us solutions, not problems. Be positive, not negative. Be constructive, not critical. Be useful.
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SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
-
SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
What were you people fighting over anyway?
There will be a new map format, and like caydr already said, filesizes will be smaller.
Also textures can have higher resolutions and map areas can be slightly bigger in game area.
For any of the people that know rendering algorithms and structures, I'm using quadtrees and geomipmapping for LOD, and texture splatting using alpha textures. There can be as much different textures on the full terrain as people want, however it should not be more than about 3 different textures on the transitional areas, to keep it fast enough on the current hardware.
A demo comes soon...
There will be a new map format, and like caydr already said, filesizes will be smaller.
Also textures can have higher resolutions and map areas can be slightly bigger in game area.
For any of the people that know rendering algorithms and structures, I'm using quadtrees and geomipmapping for LOD, and texture splatting using alpha textures. There can be as much different textures on the full terrain as people want, however it should not be more than about 3 different textures on the transitional areas, to keep it fast enough on the current hardware.
A demo comes soon...
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PauloMorfeo
- Posts: 2004
- Joined: 15 Dec 2004, 20:53
The fact that no one has answered that yet, in all the times it has been asked, leads me to think that they haven't decided.mongus wrote:...
will old map format (current one) be still supported?
...
- Suport for old format is good so people don't need to make new maps and so that we won't have an initial shortage of maps.
- Cleanse of old maps can also be good to purge old maps that aren't played and aren't good. (most people do a better job an they're second try than in the first).
Buggi had informed us when he first broke the news that the current format will still be compatible after the switch. I know that I have answered people saying so on at least two different occasions.PauloMorfeo wrote:The fact that no one has answered that yet, in all the times it has been asked, leads me to think that they haven't decided.mongus wrote:...
will old map format (current one) be still supported?
...
- Suport for old format is good so people don't need to make new maps and so that we won't have an initial shortage of maps.
- Cleanse of old maps can also be good to purge old maps that aren't played and aren't good. (most people do a better job an they're second try than in the first).
im on 56k myself guys, and whenever i download something more than 40 mb, i just let it go for the night, or if its the weekend i just let it go for a 2-3 hours to download.
If it really adds to the flavour of the game I would say just up the size. I have obviously no say in this since i just learned about this game and havent made any maps or anything yet.
If this engine can render such amazing graphics why not let it. and stop holding it back? Im just asking, but why hold it back because of file size.
an extra hour of download time or 2-3 for an extremely awesome looking map, that is gigantic would make me drool.
Hopefully i can learn to make maps for this beutiful game :) Gotta find my copy of photoshop:/
If it really adds to the flavour of the game I would say just up the size. I have obviously no say in this since i just learned about this game and havent made any maps or anything yet.
If this engine can render such amazing graphics why not let it. and stop holding it back? Im just asking, but why hold it back because of file size.
an extra hour of download time or 2-3 for an extremely awesome looking map, that is gigantic would make me drool.
Hopefully i can learn to make maps for this beutiful game :) Gotta find my copy of photoshop:/
Yes the old maps will stay compatible, it will also keep using the same rendering code as it does now. Only the new maps will use the new rendering code.- Support for old format is good so people don't need to make new maps and so that we won't have an initial shortage of maps.
- Cleanse of old maps can also be good to purge old maps that aren't played and aren't good. (most people do a better job an they're second try than in the first).
I think making a new map format should not be the reason to drop compatibility just to clean it up. We need a different procedure for removing maps nobody plays, or move them to some kind of map boneyard
Well, I can't be bothered to come back at Kixxe over somthing as trivial as one sentance. Compailing about the fact that I'm complaining about people complaining will get no-one anywere, and nither of us is obviosly goona quite get whats bugging the other.
Smoth... NICE! I like those buildings alot. What sort of scale are they? (In comparison to a Peewee say?)
Argh... Some people have been saying that for ages (refering to the first half of ur post)
And about the feature thing... Why I don't disagree on principle, I can forsee a few problems.
1) Not everyone thats in this thread can moddel.
2) You'd then get complaints of "Oh you used that feature AGAIN, that sux...
But anyway...
Oh and Zaphod, when is the next releas goona be? And when will the new terrain system get added? Can we have a rough date? Pretty please?
aGrom ...(its not only writing critics that can't spell their own name)
Smoth... NICE! I like those buildings alot. What sort of scale are they? (In comparison to a Peewee say?)
Argh... Some people have been saying that for ages (refering to the first half of ur post)
And about the feature thing... Why I don't disagree on principle, I can forsee a few problems.
1) Not everyone thats in this thread can moddel.
2) You'd then get complaints of "Oh you used that feature AGAIN, that sux...
But anyway...
Oh and Zaphod, when is the next releas goona be? And when will the new terrain system get added? Can we have a rough date? Pretty please?
aGrom ...(its not only writing critics that can't spell their own name)