New map format

Post by **jcnossen** » 19 Jul 2006, 14:23

See this post:
http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewt ... 026#112026

There is some help in the wiki: http://spring.clan-sy.com/wiki/SM3_Map_Format , which will be updated in the future as I finish the renderer.

knorke · Post by **knorke** » 19 Jul 2006, 14:46

ooooooh

I like how you can simply use images to make a map.

At first I got the error "maps/dry.smd not found" (when the commander was spawned) but then I made a copy of "dry.sm3" named "dry.smd" and it worked.
Seems the game stills looks for that file even when it doesnt need it?

Not sure if this not done yet or a bug:
nano-particles are light-blue, selection rectangles are black, radar isn't drawn
(windows xp, Leadtek 6800)

The lighting on one of the maps looks kinda cool, is it dynamic, ie are rising suns and stuff possible?

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 19 Jul 2006, 14:48

the new format is simply pwnage. I've been messing around with it the lost few days.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 19 Jul 2006, 14:51

I don't quite get how blendmaps work... What size should your blend map be as opposed to your heightmap? White = full render and black = full texture alpha?

Also, can we add decals to the map? Things like roadways running along the map...

AF · Post by AF » 19 Jul 2006, 14:55

nanoparticles are light blue because thats team coloured nanoparticles takign effect.

Although SJ turned it off by default in a recent commit but I think the nanospray looks very very nice

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 19 Jul 2006, 15:18

The heightmap looks a bit... wrong. I think it needs some transparecy or just decreased brightness.

Post by **jcnossen** » 19 Jul 2006, 15:21

What size should your blend map be as opposed to your heightmap? White = full render and black = full texture alpha?

Also, can we add decals to the map? Things like roadways running along the map...

The blendmap can have any power of two dimensions, equal to heightmap dimensions-1 or smaller.

Decals will probably come later at some point. Also in cooperation with Buggi so the editor can place decals in a nice way.

At first I got the error "maps/dry.smd not found" (when the commander was spawned) but then I made a copy of "dry.sm3" named "dry.smd" and it worked.
Seems the game stills looks for that file even when it doesnt need it?

Hm not sure, I'll check this out when I get home.

The lighting on one of the maps looks kinda cool, is it dynamic, ie are rising suns and stuff possible?

No, there are a lot of tradeoffs for such a thing, and I prefer fast static shadows like this to dynamic shadows actually. People still want to play spring on pre-shader hardware, and it's quite complex to implement both static optimizations for those and dynamic stuff for flexible hardware.

Also the [LIGHT] section is used to generated the shadowing, but with a point light instead of a directional light which it actually is. So that might be confusing but it will change.

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 19 Jul 2006, 16:12

Comp1337 wrote:The heightmap looks a bit... wrong. I think it needs some transparecy or just decreased brightness.

Ok, at what point did you miss the fact that he's telling us about the new map format and not releasing a map

JC, got a question about the tile size. I understand that the tile size can be used to resample textures on the map... how do you set it so that it does not change the size of the textures at all? Tile size = 0?

Also, if the blendmaps are set as blend and basically acting as layers... Which ones get applied first? For example: If I'm using 15 blendmaps and I need a few of them to be applied before the others (because they overlap), does the sequence in the sm3 define the order that they are applied?

Also kids, you can use the render demo that JC posted long ago to see what your map looks like with bump mapping.

Oh damn, another point. When you archive your map, you can put everything else in seperate folders etc, but the sm3 must remain only in the maps folder inside the archive.

Cheesecan · Post by **Cheesecan** » 19 Jul 2006, 16:38

This is great. I'll be diving in once I finish my current project!

colorblind · Post by **colorblind** » 19 Jul 2006, 16:42

jcnossen wrote:
At first I got the error "maps/dry.smd not found" (when the commander was spawned) but then I made a copy of "dry.sm3" named "dry.smd" and it worked.
Seems the game stills looks for that file even when it doesnt need it?
Hm not sure, I'll check this out when I get home.

It was a 'bug' in some startscripts, which had the .smd extension hard-coded. It's already fixed in SVN

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 19 Jul 2006, 16:54

Very soon I will be posting a new tutorial of how to very effectively use this new map format. Any idiot can make one blendmap for hills etc and all it a day, but with craploads of blendmaps available it's a crying shame not to take advantage of it.

Cabbage · Post by **Cabbage** » 19 Jul 2006, 17:07

er any chance of posting a few screenshots? Or does it still look pretty similar atm?

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 19 Jul 2006, 17:22

from up high it looks awesome the lighting is really nice.

from closer down, i miss a detail tex, and the hills look a bit blury IMO. Also the minimap doesn't work yet for me. And the selection box around a unit is black instead of green.

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 19 Jul 2006, 17:48

No need for a detail tex tho. Normals bumpmapping ftw.

Weaver · Post by **Weaver** » 19 Jul 2006, 17:50

Ooh, time to play.

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 19 Jul 2006, 17:51

Detailtex is needed for when you are up really close... it now just get blurry which doesn't look nice...

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 19 Jul 2006, 17:54

JC another question about the new format.

I know that a 2048x2048 is the max that an ATI card will handle, however, Will larger work in spring? Please tell me that that max size isn't hardcoded. THe new generation of gfx cards can do 8192. Anyway, I'm getting off point here.

Will spring run the map if it is larger that 2048x2048 and since you still ahve to add +1 pixel, will 2049x2049 break maps for ati users? Can maps on the scale of 4096x4096 (4097x4097 actual hightmap dimentions) be usable for people with nvidia cards?

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 19 Jul 2006, 17:56

NOiZE wrote:Detailtex is needed for when you are up really close... it now just get blurry which doesn't look nice...

dude, make sure you aren't blowing up the tile sizes. Resampling a high res texture == bad.

Post by **jcnossen** » 19 Jul 2006, 18:22

Detailtex is needed for when you are up really close... it now just get blurry which doesn't look nice...

Nobody's stopping you from adding more texture stages

IMO it's better just to replace the snow with a higher res. texture.

This pack for example looks great: http://www.slackiller.com/downloads/cliff_textures.zip , especially when I still had the bumpmapping in it.

Will spring run the map if it is larger that 2048x2048 and since you still ahve to add +1 pixel, will 2049x2049 break maps for ati users?

Not hardcoded, it's just that currently the shadow texture has a fixed ratio with the heightmap, so when the heightmap gets too big the shadow texture will be > 2048x2048
And I'm not sure how the rest of spring handles 4096x4096

Anyway, you see it still needs a lot of polishing...

Another thing is that for blend operations, the renderer optimizes when entire nodes have black or white areas on the blendmaps.

AF · Post by AF » 19 Jul 2006, 20:34

A detailt exture cna still be applied, just tile a detail texture over the map using a blendmap that covers the whole map applying transparency to it..

Spring RTS Engine

New map format

New map format