Random WIP 2006-2011

[d-gun]

ok ill have some ready in a bit

probably will have a few for variation

poly limit?

[Johannes]

Painted desert is an excellent simple concept. just flat with a few small hillsand one big one...
Been done a thousand times in many games.
Whats the point of redrawing a similar heightmap if you already have a good one?

Cause its so easy to make a better one. Yes you can take the basic idea, huge area with small spread out mexes and tons of rocks.
Painted Desert heightmap is total crap for Spring, or at least TA mods... You can't tell where tanks can pass, it has this small noise everywhere on flat lands to easily spot enemy buildings from map deformation.
If all you really want is hills splattered around randomly it takes 5 minutes to make a new heightmap like that.

Sure it can be a nice nostalgia to play that map, but why not maximize that by looking at the old nostalgic texture as well?

[Beherith]

5 minutes? Talk is cheap.

[Master-Athmos]

I was not asking about gameplay I was asking about visual appeal. Seems to not attract attention enough to get you guys interested.

Well I guess one thing is that a comic like and rather colorful look really lacks some "cool factor" in contrast to some general sci-fi machinery with interesting designs. The way more bugging thing is that the Gundam universe really doesn't have all that much to offer from a visual point of view. The huge majority consists of humanoid robots holding huge guns. I'm sorry to have to say that but in a certain way that's boring. Here's a Zaku with a machine gun, there's a Zaku with a rocket-launcher and there's the RX-79 holding a rifle....

By design that ends up boring while in addition to that the actual robot designs don't really differ that much. I mean in the anime it's quite a thing if there's a Zaku or a Gouf but in a RTS and especially from a more far away point of view they pretty much look all alike...

What might get you back some of the "cool factor" lost by the design of the universe itself might be some cool weapon effects and things like that. That on the other hand won't really work with your gameplay though. You'd especially need way more range so you really have some nice looking spray fire with the machine guns and rockets wouldn't just be things that fly straight ahead and blow up after a second or two (due to the usually low range) but would wobble and "dance" on their way. You know - like getting some "cool action" by having a shitload of projectiles flying through the air. To say the truth in the end that's also a part of Gundam for me - there sure are some "close encounters" but those usually happen because of the story around the one single Gundam unit and its few helpers. When there's a big battle you have this action packed scenery with all guns blazing though. You lack to create such a feeling as it sort of feels like all the units in the game are standing next to each other when firing...

[d-gun]

meh...could use more work

[d-gun]

can features utilize the GLSL bumpmapp shader? if not ill have to reduce the polycount as this was meant for normalmap bake...

[smoth]

shots do stray, they drift somewhere past 1/2 their lifetime. meaning missiles and bullets even on a miss will sometimes hit things behind the defenders.

But let me zero you in here because this is not a gameplay discussion. this is about art and visual appeal.

I am going to pick on a fairly old shot here:


it doesn't have giant robots. It is just tanks, you have seen many shots of tanks and rts games. so we have tanks moving. Now you could say well that is just boring sure it is, I could try and catch a shot of them exchanging volleys but this is what I have on hand.

Why is it dull?

[bobthedinosaur]

Thats a pretty shot of your WIP smoth. ignore debasers, acquire immortality through your work.

[Master-Athmos]

The "problem" about that screen is that it's sort of a "glamor shot". You don't look at them this way ingame. There they just make up a brownish brick with some teamcolors. The missing tracks on the terrain probably are missing due to being a WIP shot I guess...

[Johannes]

5 minutes? Talk is cheap.

http://www.springfiles.com/images/735/P ... height.jpg

That's basically 6 different hill shapes recurring plus the big hill, their placement doesn't seem to be too exactly thought out. Maybe I exaggarated, and couldn't make something similar that fast but either way I prefer spending an hour or 2 to properly think and detail the layout through :D

[smoth]

The "problem" about that screen is that it's sort of a "glamor shot". You don't look at them this way ingame. There they just make up a brownish brick with some teamcolors. The missing tracks on the terrain probably are missing due to being a WIP shot I guess...

but they are not brightly colored nor is the surrounding environment.

[smoth]

5 minutes? Talk is cheap.

http://www.springfiles.com/images/735/P ... height.jpg

That's basically 6 different hill shapes recurring plus the big hill, their placement doesn't seem to be too exactly thought out. Maybe I exaggerated, and couldn't make something similar that fast but either way I prefer spending an hour or 2 to properly think and detail the layout through :D

In wm2 this height field is funny.

here (click for larger)

[Master-Athmos]

but they are not brightly colored nor is the surrounding environment.

But they pretty much are one-colored. You sure did some nice shades and made a good recreation of the tank as seen in the anime. It melts down into a brown block without any contrast on a distance though or in other words:

One colored and "boring":






"Realisitic" and fucking ace:




So it is possible to keep the original designs and apply a standard "cool" sci-fi look to it. I'm not trying to say that your models are bad but for a RTS where you only see the units from a top-down view and from quite a distance that highly one-colored faces style doesn't give you great visuals. It's also hard to combine that style with things like normal mapping which aren't just about more detail but especially give some great (dynamic) lighting which also is what in the end makes those "realistic" screens I posted so good. Those tanks also are pretty much one-colored but what makes them interesting are the details on the one side (which are good as you're close enough to see them) and the lighting on the other side...

[Beherith]

Athmos, what makes those look good is the following: Motion blur. Proper atmosphere. Haze effect. Bloom effect. Dust an particle effects.

d-gun, thanks for the effort, but I got me a cactus now :D

[smoth]

that is not a proper comparative shot you are comparing a render from 2000 to a clip from 1979 and one colored line art.

[FLOZi]

Smoth; I think the consensus is that Gundam is not ignored due to its visuals at all, visually it is pretty top of the line as far as Spring goes, imo. Certainly better looking than S44 on the whole. That's why you're getting comments off topic.

@ whoever asked;

Features can't use normal maps, at least with jk's gadget (it uses Spring.UnitRendering API)

[smoth]

we got a feature rendering bit in this latest though, so I wonder if normal map support is coming..

Thing is I am feeling like I am missing some kind of element to make people go HMM I WANT TO TRY THIS.

[d-gun]

Thing is I am feeling like I am missing some kind of element to make people go HMM I WANT TO TRY THIS.

suggestions, you might already have these, and if you do then maybe advertise them:

missions/a campaign
planet-wars style persistent game world
full manual with screenshots, descriptions of how to play, etc

[smoth]

simple missions next version courtesy of z.
survival mode courtesy of chickens.
tutorials are in in video form as gameplay elements are ever changing and the manual would be out dated fast.

[bobthedinosaur]

chickens vs gundam?!? noooo