World Builder.

[aGorm]

Don't worry.. I was't angry with you or anything!

And also... Missunderstanding, I though you ment you planed on packing it with PURE permenantly so it always overrid the maps features, but I think you mean, its currently mod side, but the plan is more for mappers to add it to the map, and the mod side use of it will just be for the stuff I was saying I dont mind happening anyway?

Also, I know its beat and wont be perfect.

Another Idea...
What would be realy intresting would be some way of reading a current feature map and fs.txt, and importing that data to place exact features. (I mean this not as part of worldbuilder per say, but as an easy way of generating a file with the cordinates of features you want to place exactly, that world builder can then read...). As I can see typeing in a buch of co-ordinates for even just 10 or so features would be a pian...

Personly I can see a world were the undergroth (IE small small features) are placed randomly by world builder, then I can fine tune trees and rocks as just features still, thus the undergroth would cull nicly... I ramble... anyway.

Big G out.

::EDIT:: Forb, yes, but I rather more ment on the you creating the features side, not on the placing tem side. I though LanStan made thsoe features? I'd call Autum Woods pushing the limits, Industril Mountian is no more complex than aftershockV1.

The Only other person to use features in a crazy fasion is Smoth, on teh one packed with spring, and LanStan with swamp lake. Those push limits.

Sigh... I cant be botehr to argue, as its a silly point anyway. I was mostly pissed becaue you spelt 'aGorm' 'Agorm' anyway. You a good mapper and a nice bloke, i dont want to break into hostilities.

Anyway, Argh got waht I was gettin gat and the discusion will go on.

aGorm

::EDIT::

If anything, go away baring this in mind... I just want maps to look better. Anything that helps to that end is good. So all soments are because I care and want this to be somthing that realy does make spring A* in grahpics.

[Argh]

And also... Missunderstanding, I though you ment you planed on packing it with PURE permenantly so it always overrid the maps features, but I think you mean, its currently mod side, but the plan is more for mappers to add it to the map, and the mod side use of it will just be for the stuff I was saying I dont mind happening anyway?

Absolutely. I do not intend this to become a permanent "feature" of P.U.R.E., it's just a demo.

What would be realy intresting would be some way of reading a current feature map and fs.txt, and importing that data to place exact features. (I mean this not as part of worldbuilder per say, but as an easy way of generating a file with the cordinates of features you want to place exactly, that world builder can then read...). As I can see typeing in a buch of co-ordinates for even just 10 or so features would be a pian...

The code actually started off just replacing Features with random stuff. I could make it do that again (with all of the non-random tweaks, of course), as one of the example scripts, and then give you the ability to tweak the frequency of what gets replaced, so that it's correct by height, etc.

Getting a list of every Feature and outputting it to a textfile is probably very easy. You'd need to grab it out've infolog.txt, but meh, that's no big deal. Outputting it in a format that was ready to put into some sort of giant script... a little harder. Easier, probably, to just figure out a grep method.

Personly I can see a world were the undergroth (IE small small features) are placed randomly by world builder, then I can fine tune trees and rocks as just features still, thus the undergroth would cull nicly... I ramble... anyway.

Or, instead of that... just make "big stuff" have a different Icon assigned, that instead of having the half-distance that I've used for stuff I want culled, uses a twice-distance or more, so that it's never culled. In fact, I'll set that up, in the next beta of the demo, which I hope to have out in about 48 hours (showing off placement of cities and some other specific crap, among other things, and hopefully making the code much easier to read / tinker with, among other things). I'll also try to remember to have that stuff draw whether it's in LOS or not, and we can just see how that goes.

[EDIT] And no, I didn't think you were mad, or anything. If anything, I think I'm probably not communicating well, because I'm very tired at this point. I need a nap.

[Argh]

Great news!

Spring.SetUnitAlwaysVisible is 100% compatible with IconDistance!

In English, that means that stuff like Trees can be seen as far away as you'd like (forever, if you want), but little bushes and stuff can be culled. And it looks like performance is acceptable- with shadows turned on, there is an appreciable drop, but it's probably acceptable. Dunno what will happen if polycounts per average-square rose considerably, though- it'd probably be bad. Still, this looks like a plan, and for now, it gets around the ghosting issues, too- stuff is either drawn, or not. So, I'll do that, and set up another Icon category in the demo, after I've slept!

Oh, and on the subject that started this, deciduous trees... I've been looking at old HL1-engine trees, aGorm... and I don't suppose you know how to get those suckers back out've a .BSP? I'd like to take a closer look at a few, maybe learn a few things.

[SwiftSpear]

HL engine trees use camera sensitive sprites for leaves. I don't think spring has a comparable technology implemented yet.

[Argh]

Right-click to enlarge.

Still working on the SFX, don't have it all doing random heights and stuff for more variety, more skins, etc., but meh, this is still sexy as hell when it's in motion. I could destroy large cities all day long...

[Argh]

So, here's an early example of a world populated with cities here and there.

Yes, this is a weird sci-fi building. I'll probably call it the "Mental Control Center", or something equally sinister.

A shot to establish scale. The buildings are a wee bit small, compared to the unit scale of P.U.R.E., but I think I'm going to keep them that way, for now, it's a fairly good compromise between Elmo-land and most games, which use a larger scale. Plus, since we don't have hitboxes or whatever yet, making them even taller would be... bad.

[aGorm]

Now that sir, looks hot. And thats somthing that realy doesnt want to be features. Made of Win. And... ohhh the map Ideas I have that I can achive now...

aGorm

[Forboding Angel]

^^ Glad you see what I was getting at

DO WANT!

[Argh]

Apparently, Lathan's still working on his skyscrapers. There was some cursing involved, when I told him that I can animate them now, and blow them up (really, it has to be seen in motion- it's fairly convincing), but I'm sure that when they arrive, we'll figure out something. I'm still working on buildings... I don't suppose I could talk you into doing some stuff, once you've seen how the animations work? It's not terribly fun stuff, but if I had painted meshes that were designed with destruction in mind...

Also, I've tested the whole LOD-level-via-icon thing, and it works just fine. So, small stuff can disappear pretty close, medium stuff will disappear at a medium distance, and big things won't disappear at all, no matter what. Using this with a few tweaks, I think that performance will be OK, so long as you don't force everything to render all the time, period- then you're right back to the limits imposed by Features.

The main remaining niggles- area-reclaim, and combat behavioral stuff, are hardcoded things. I may need to fine-tune a few things before a public release, such as the height-check algorithm, but it's not an emergency.

I think I've made Feature Requests for everything now, though, so it's just a matter of waiting to see if any developers will be willing to help out.

Oh! And one last thing... could I trouble you folks for a map, designed specifically to show this stuff off, as a map-side script? It needs to meet some technical and aesthetic requirements, but nothing terribly onerous or weird. I just want to have something that's built specifically for a demo, that can really wow people when it's available.

[child]

Wow, that looks awesome!

[aGorm]

Id offer but still need to finish AfterShock, I'd have thought Forb would be fastest at doing somthing taht looks good quickly. Plus I take it you'd want it to fit in with cities to show off those.

Thankfull I can spend some realy time looking over tis as its finaly the weekend!

aGorm

[smoth]

argh, what about the hitsphere issue? how are you addressing that?

If you have a good solution, I can do Eastsidewestside and we could have a true urban map.

here is a question, what about things like car models?

[Argh]

Car models would be useful indeed. Especially if they can be animated. I'd love to figure out some simplistic road-building code, lay down a "street", then have little cars drive along it via LUA, that'd be sweet.

The map, though... I want something fairly specific. I'd like a map with a big lake in the middle, going from beach up to a low level, then to a higher level, with plateaus, to show off how the height code works- remember, the objective here is to demo things, and the best way to do that is to be able to point to the map's actual behaviors when played, so that people have a basis point for evaluating the effects of their tweaks, etc.

I need some big rectangles painted up to look like concrete, so that I can put down some cities there, and only there. I really dunno about doing a full-sized Eastside-Westside, man, given that I'd like to accommodate aGorm's desire to see some stuff get rendered at all distances. That was a fairly giant map, IIRC, with somewhere on the order of a thousand buildings. While we could do that... from a technical perspective...

I think it'd be a more impressive demo if it didn't require as much culling of lower-level scenery as that would entail, just to achieve a halfway-decent framerate. I mean, my buildings aren't just cubes with a map- they have parts and stuff, so that they can do what they need to do. They're efficient, and they cheat a lot, but there's an upper limit.

I'd rather see maybe 4 cities, 60+ buildings apiece, which is just fine for spec, if small crap gets culled and trees get culled at normal IconDistance. And I'd rather see a traditional, 4-sided design meant for competitive play, than something like EastsideWestside, which was a massive mess because of all of the stuff blocking Bert / Tim and other issues.

As for the hitspheres... I have a solution, it's a kludge but it's a workable kludge. What I don't have, though, is avoidNeutral / collideNeutral... without those, a city-fight is a mess, because Units just ignore the buildings and attempt to fire as if they weren't there, which with splash-damage stuff is obviously a Bad Thing.

[smoth]

I can crank that out in an evening. Pm me a draft of the desired layout and I can crank it out this sunday.

[Argh]

Okie doke. I'll get to making a rough sketch of the heightmap, after that it's entirely up to you, just keep the textures for the main areas looking Earthlike, so that the plants don't look too weird, that's all I ask. I'd be willing to hand-paint details in, if you're going to L3DT it.

[Guessmyname]

I'll send you those building models I made.

EDIT: Sent. Check your email. Bomber, Rocket Trike and MBT included

[Argh]

@Smoth:

Ok, here ya go. Simple, designed for competition play, has three main areas of height (counting the ramps), and big flat zones for the cities. If you don't like it, improvise, I just want to see symnetry, flat zones for the cities, and three levels of height that aren't convoluted mountains, since my code avoids them on purpose (looks stupid to see a model buried in the side of a mountain, lol).


Right-click to enlarge. GIF, and too small. I was thinking 2048 for the heightmap, at least. But it'd need to get converted to 16-bit gray and then blurred out again anyhow.

@Guessmyname: cool, I'll use what I can get done.

[Guessmyname]

Could you send me the city-stuff too? I want to destroy large cities as well! (I'll also take some snazzy PURE screenshots for you if you want)

[smoth]

argh, the flat low-lying areas need to be city?

[Argh]

Yes. And GMN, the next version of the demo will be out soon