SMD file explained - Page 2

SMD file explained

Discuss maps & map creation - from concept to execution to the ever elusive release.

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Maelstrom
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Joined: 23 Jul 2005, 14:52

Post by Maelstrom »

Well I will be providing one later. Just alot later. As I imagine it will not be easy. Perhaps I should throw that in for now, just to be sure.
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Maelstrom
Posts: 1950
Joined: 23 Jul 2005, 14:52

Post by Maelstrom »

Well im even further now, Im just curious about a few things:

1) What the different light settings do. The descriptions in the Wiki are not very usefull. If you want a visulisation thing like Gnome suggested, then I will need to know exactly what the following settings do:
  • GroundAmbientColor
  • GroundSunColor
  • GroundShadowDensity
  • UnitAmbientColor
  • UnitSunColor
  • UnitShadowDensity
2) Default Values. I need to know some default values for the settings to be loaded in by default. I can work some of them out by my self, but if some good map makers would suggest some generic values for the different options I would much appreciate it.

3) For the colour values, does spring support multiple decimal places, or just one? EG is 0.756 good, or only 0.7

4) Any Ideas for features that have not already been listed?
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aGorm
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Joined: 12 Jan 2005, 10:25

Post by aGorm »

This is a very ticky question... mainly because I dont think even the SY's know! Well Ok they prob do have some idea...

Basicly Unit and Ground are, as ud expect, for the actull terrain and teh actull wrekages and units.

The ambient valuse are the lighting conditions in an area not lit by the sun.
The sun colour is one one fopr areas of ground that are lit by the sun.
Shadow density deals with the harsness of the transition. (Ie how quickly somthing fads between lit and unlit)

Default valuse would realy depend on what sort of map, i cant give you any now as im at work and can't check, but youd be best served by checking out the valuse in several different style maps and giveing severaly basic options like "Metal" "Grass" "Snow". somthing liek that...

It takes multiple decimal places, and also tehre is no real cap on teh numbers, all the valuse seem to be in relation to other valuse not as actull valuse.

How are you gonna handle terrain types? Cause leavein fields for 255 different types would be nuts...

aGorm
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Maelstrom
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Joined: 23 Jul 2005, 14:52

Post by Maelstrom »

Ill look into the different lighting styles tommorow then.

How I was going to do the terrain types was:
Have a list with Add, Delete and Edit buttons.
You add a terrain type, edit its values and place it in the list.
From there, you can delete them or edit them again.
will support the whole 255, but you can add just the ones you want.

And just for some clarification of the lighting, if we had say a white map, with a white sun. A GroundSunColour of 1 1 1 would leave it as default, and a value of 0.5 0.5 0.5 would make it grey. The Shadow colour works the same way, but on the ground in the shadows. Please correct me if im wong, cause I really dont want to have to go through and re-write my code later if I do it wrong.

Thanks for the help.
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aGorm
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Joined: 12 Jan 2005, 10:25

Post by aGorm »

Problem Is that teh valuse can be bigger than 1, plus you can often use negative valuse to remove the colour even more (IE if the sky is mainly red a sun with red 0 still looks red, but one with a negative value heeds more to white (till the value is greater in the negative sence than the original colour)

aGorm
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Maelstrom
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Joined: 23 Jul 2005, 14:52

Post by Maelstrom »

Oh. Now thats a problem. Mabey I will just keep it like this for now, with no visuilisation thing, and the people who want to have weird minus numbers can go put them in themselfs. It would be good if one of the SY's themselfs came and told us how it worked, cause that would be handy.
SJ
Posts: 618
Joined: 13 Aug 2004, 17:13

Post by SJ »

The lighting values in spring is something like

AmbientColor+SunColor*max(0,Normal.dot(-SunDir))*(inShadow?(1-shadowdensity):1)
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Maelstrom
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Joined: 23 Jul 2005, 14:52

Post by Maelstrom »

OK... I can see this extending way beyond my current skill. How about I just have a box that you can select different presets from, with the ability to go into an 'Advanced Mode', where you can tweak this stuff. Does that sound good? If so, I will need some presets from map makers that will fit the job.

So All the different settings in the [LIGHT] thing, and possibly some presets for water as well. Both would be very handy.


In other news, I have lost some of my work to corruption, and this means that I have to try to repair some VB files in notepad. It aint fun.
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