Improved terrain damage

Improved terrain damage

Requests for features in the spring code.

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Yatta
Posts: 55
Joined: 13 Aug 2006, 17:18

Improved terrain damage

Post by Yatta »

Im making a map and after some time testing different values, I end up thinking that terrain smoothness - the fact terrain is modified by explosions - can only be used with very low modification ratios, because commander explosions, double nuke on the same point & other heavy stuff like that will create huge craters.

However keeping the terrain hard enough to prevent those craters will make more regular fight explosions (bertha hits & stuff) not cause visible terrain modifications.

So I tought maybe another terrain modification system could be usefull to give battlefield a real chaotic look after the fights, without allowing extreme modifications to be made.

The first thing would be to have a control over the maximum height modification the terrain receive per explosion (so on one 'smooth' ground, regular explosions will create little craters, but nukes wont create an abyss).

The second thing would be to reduce the terrain raising arround the craters. This is what make the heavier explosion's crater look dull because of the high mountains that suddendly raised all arround the crater. Yes this means that there is some mass loss because all the dirt dug from the crater isnt found back in the crater borders.

This second 'feature' would also open level-design / gameplay opportunities because that would mean a player can actually 'dig' a canal or hurt a cliff enough to make it a practicable slope for kbots. Might sounds strange in most maps but since the terrain hardness is up to the mapper, the mapper can decide if he wants that to be possible or not.

Finally, to avoid exploits with such a new system and old maps, there could be a switch in the .smd file to tell the engine what type of terrain modification the map uses.

:?:
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Hoi
Posts: 2917
Joined: 13 May 2008, 16:51

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by Hoi »

we need a new map format, with cool features like this.
Warlord Zsinj
Imperial Winter Developer
Posts: 3742
Joined: 24 Aug 2004, 08:59

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by Warlord Zsinj »

Most mappers do not use deformable terrain, and most mods have no weapons that cause deformation due to the high lag that it causes (via pathfinding). It's a shame, because I love seeing battle-worn landscapes, but unfortunately it's a feature that must be avoided to have lag-free games.
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Yatta
Posts: 55
Joined: 13 Aug 2006, 17:18

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by Yatta »

Didnt tought of that. Its quite sad indeed. :|
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Neddie
Community Lead
Posts: 9406
Joined: 10 Apr 2006, 05:05

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by Neddie »

I don't think your ideas are bad though. The sort of deformation is as much an issue as the degree of it, check blocks against bumps from CA terraform, etcetera. If we can use your ideas to change how deformation works then we might be able to make it more viable.

And I use hardness/softness on my maps. Sometimes.
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FLOZi
MC: Legacy & Spring 1944 Developer
Posts: 6242
Joined: 29 Apr 2005, 01:14

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by FLOZi »

Eh, S44 uses deformation sensibly and i've not noticed any issues, especially with the changes to LOS resolution (meaning that small lumps and bumps are ignored in LOS)
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hunterw
Posts: 1838
Joined: 14 May 2006, 12:22

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by hunterw »

you can actually have a hardness map just like a typemap to make different parts of your map harder and softer, but its buggy

send a nuke to the starting positions of DSD to see why
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Gota
Posts: 7151
Joined: 11 Jan 2008, 16:55

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by Gota »

Instead of deformaing the ground,cant we just use decals to make the ground look torn apart?
Is it not possible that when a point recieves a certain amount of "deformation" a decal would be painted there?
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aegis
Posts: 2456
Joined: 11 Jul 2007, 17:47

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by aegis »

eww
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Hoi
Posts: 2917
Joined: 13 May 2008, 16:51

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by Hoi »

not really
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Forboding Angel
Evolution RTS Developer
Posts: 14673
Joined: 17 Nov 2005, 02:43

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by Forboding Angel »

Gota wrote:Instead of deformaing the ground,cant we just use decals to make the ground look torn apart?
Is it not possible that when a point recieves a certain amount of "deformation" a decal would be painted there?

Possible, yes, would it look good? No.
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jK
Spring Developer
Posts: 2299
Joined: 28 Jun 2007, 07:30

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by jK »

@Warlord Zsinj & Gota
You should test things before making assumptions! Press "b" from time to time, you would see Map Damage eats nearly no performance!

@Yatta
Mappers have the hardness map and modders have their impulse tags. So it is the decision of the modder how strong a nuke explosion is compared to a plasma shot, and it is your decision (as a mapper) to define how much explosions can change in general the terrain!
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Peet
Malcontent
Posts: 4384
Joined: 27 Feb 2006, 22:04

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by Peet »

jK wrote:@Warlord Zsinj & Gota
You should test things before making assumptions! Press "b" from time to time, you would see Map Damage eats nearly no performance!
But the re-pathfinding that is necessary upon map deformation eats plenty.
[Krogoth86]
Posts: 1176
Joined: 23 Aug 2007, 19:46

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by [Krogoth86] »

Gota wrote:Instead of deformaing the ground,cant we just use decals to make the ground look torn apart?
Is it not possible that when a point recieves a certain amount of "deformation" a decal would be painted there?
Well this is possible but not if you think of simple "2D-Sprites-Decals". You'd need to use decals which get applied via normal or even displacement mapping. It would have its issues though as the units will react as if there were no deformations and so you'll have tanks floating above craters or driving straight through walls of dirt...

So can you make the ground look torn apart with decals: Yes (if you can write and apply the shaders).
Would it be a good idea when actually playing with this: No.
BaNa
Posts: 1562
Joined: 09 Sep 2007, 21:05

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by BaNa »

hunterw wrote:you can actually have a hardness map just like a typemap to make different parts of your map harder and softer, but its buggy

send a nuke to the starting positions of DSD to see why
Hey if you blow your com in the right place, north becomes inaccessible to vechs :)

I like the idea of changing terrain modification a bit, but i think we could be leaps and bounds ahead if we just made a change so that all deformation to a point in the terrain scales logarithmically, so the second nuke in the same spot would have a lot smaller effect than the first one, and so on. This way you could have small craters easily but big ones would require more and more work.

edit: hey even tho its broken, dont we already have ground decals ?
[Krogoth86]
Posts: 1176
Joined: 23 Aug 2007, 19:46

Re: Improved terrain damage

Post by [Krogoth86] »

BaNa wrote:edit: hey even tho its broken, dont we already have ground decals ?
Well I'd call it unstable not broken but yes - we have decals although they just are sort of "stickers" you attach on the ground... :wink:
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