Mapping flexibility

[Beherith]

1. Heightmaps must still be present, even if you hide the level geometry. You can use a zero-height map, then manipulate it with code, but (at present) there is no code that will automatically shape it to a model. I was working on that problem, but I've had to set it aside for now.

World machine has a plugin to render objects into the heightmap.

Bob, the skies you are looking for are in Apophis, Astroturf and TMA-0.

[Mr. Bob]

Here is a few fairly simple little concept wireframe renders. It stands at almost exactly 13k polies. When I am done it should be more than twice that.

This is the type of mapping I had in mind. Keep in mind, all the terrain is on one level.

This particular map would need no sky model obviously.

[manolo_]

looks cool, but is it good for some hard fights?

[Pxtl]

looks cool, but is it good for some hard fights?

Those would be good for a KP map idea I had - a Token Ring. You have a teleporter that runs around the map, transporting units from zone A to zone B to zone C in a round-robin fashion - every 10 seconds it hops to the next position, moving all the units with it.

For that design, I'd use the little circles for the Token Rings, and have the inner-set be a clockwise Token Ring and the outer-set bieng a widdershins one (or just rotate them 180┬░ from each other), then put a datavent on each of the 16 intersections and put the master factory at the doors.

[Mr. Bob]

Well, what I had in mind was to have starting positions in the small circles. As well as by the 4 entrances if you prefer that over the circles.

The map itself would be quite large. I'm not sure if you could shoot circle to circle.

With the map being so large, you can destroy any entrance blocking defenses via transport. That way, you wouldn't end up with 50 turrets blocking the way of everything, all at one spot.

And, since you clearly can't have metal spots be green, (because there is no terrain.) I am going to put little 'metal hubs' everywhere.

My main problem now is finding a decent texture, or to just make my own. Are there any sci fi texture packs anywhere here?

[Beherith]

The textures you are looking for are:

http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... 41&start=0


Prefabs (Pre-fabricated Tiles):
PrefabPack 64x64 r1
PrefabPack 128x128 r1
Note: PrefabPack currently consists only of Tiles made by KaiserJ.
Pay your credit

[Pxtl]

Implement the map using a landscape and voidwater first - just use a simple repeating texture. The kind of mapping you've chosen is very rigid. If you find out the gameplay sucks... well, it's tough-titties-too-late. You can't change it easily. Epic frequently lamented not doing this for UT2k3, a process they fixed for UT2k4.

[JohannesH]

What game are you planning the map for?

[KaiserJ]

welcome to the wonderful world of mapping, bob!

you have a lot of good ideas, some of which are more outlandish than others, so i think that this :

I'll start after I get finished with a few regular terrain based maps.

is probably your best way to get acquainted with the way spring maps work.

the map you posted pics of; which i would label "luke i am your father" due to its tubular death starry nature, is very cool, and makeable, just some of the parts of it will be a bit hacky.

having it suspended in space for instance isn't too hard; you can use "voidwater" to alpha out the water textures and anything underneath it; and then create a skybox using your original model, you'll be 90% of the way there.

the problem is that the skybox is difficult (impossible?) to perfectly sync with the map... so as you scroll around; the sky will appear to stay in the same place. maybe having the floating area held in place by forcefields would work better as a concept than having it direcly attatched (although i must say it looks very cool in your concept)

try making a "simple" terrain map first and learn the ropes; then give some of these avante garde ideas a go. if you need a hand with mapping in 3d max; either me or picasso CT can probably help you out.

natural terrain is the most popular theme for a spring map but by no means are the limits of what can become a spring map dictated by this.

theres a thread in the mapping forum called "mean streets of the deathstar" that you may want to check out; its sort of a progress log of me trying to make a city map in 3d max, there may be important information to be gleaned there.

cheers, welcome, and good luck!

[Argh]

the problem is that the skybox is difficult (impossible?) to perfectly sync with the map... so as you scroll around; the sky will appear to stay in the same place. maybe having the floating area held in place by forcefields would work better as a concept than having it direcly attatched (although i must say it looks very cool in your concept)

Impossible is the word you're looking for. And the resolution would be horrible.

No, what he actually needs to do is to build the heightmap from that data, texture the model, or break it up into several models (that would get tricky, due to scalar issues later) and then use the model and turn map drawing off. The only really serious problem with turning map drawing off is that groundflashes / tracks don't show up at all. Otherwise, it can work just fine.

Meh, maybe I should try out World Machine's heightmap renderer, and see what's possible. The biggest issue I can see is that the model would almost certainly have to get broken up, for texture-size reasons, and that would be a big hassle, in terms of final assemblage.

[KaiserJ]

use the model and turn map drawing off.

how does i do it ?

[Mr. Bob]

KaiserJ yes I will definitely make a terrain based map first. This is a rough draft of a future map. If it will work.

About the skybox, wouldn't it be shown outside the model? The model is closed by the way. It depends on the distance I guess. Unless it's a different system than I am thinking of.

Argh, I'm not sure why I would need to use a heightmap when it is all on one level.

And, as far as texture size of the model goes, I only really need 3 textures from that pack. Can't I just divide the model up based on texture, give it the same scaling and pivot, then place all 3 models at 0,0?

What if I took way the ground of my model and only kept the borders so that I could fill it in with real ground and alpha the rest?

I shouldn't be asking all these questions till I know how mapping works for spring, as Kaiserj said. So, I'll go ahead and make a few terrain based maps.

[Argh]

how does i do it ?

Spring.SetDrawGround(false)

Argh, I'm not sure why I would need to use a heightmap when it is all on one level.

It's not a plane- you have areas you don't want to let anything go into. Using height is the easiest way to restrict that, combined with "acid" water, so that anything that gets pitched off the map geometry gets destroyed.

[Mr. Bob]

how does i do it ?

Spring.SetDrawGround(false)

Argh, I'm not sure why I would need to use a heightmap when it is all on one level.

It's not a plane- you have areas you don't want to let anything go into. Using height is the easiest way to restrict that, combined with "acid" water, so that anything that gets pitched off the map geometry gets destroyed.

But, wouldn't that make aircraft duck down into the chasms?

EDIT: I guess it wouldn't seeing as how you don't have to make the height that steep.

[manolo_]

looks cool, but is it good for some hard fights?

Those would be good for a KP map idea I had - a Token Ring. You have a teleporter that runs around the map, transporting units from zone A to zone B to zone C in a round-robin fashion - every 10 seconds it hops to the next position, moving all the units with it.

For that design, I'd use the little circles for the Token Rings, and have the inner-set be a clockwise Token Ring and the outer-set bieng a widdershins one (or just rotate them 180┬░ from each other), then put a datavent on each of the 16 intersections and put the master factory at the doors.

its cool to see whats doable with lua :), couldnt u make a "normal" (not ment bad or offending) with such a concept?

[SinbadEV]

based on looking at his picture, he doesn't even need to disable terrain rendering, just needs a simple flat terrain.




Red is the border of the map (make sure you leave enough room for units to fit and fall to their deaths )

Green is surface, Blue is void-water, edges slightly raised... something like


(sketch is excessively rough... don't use it)

Then you have a bunch of feature models representing the raised edges (one fore each small circle, 1 for each size square, 1 for a quarter of the center circle, 1 for wide path segments, 1 for small path segments... ensure their origins are placed in logical places and make them passable obviousely... they will sit "over" the actual map edges so they need to be slightly taler then the physical map.


The you make 8 BIG models for the "outside of the map walls and entrances" and place them at the four corners+edge centers.

[Mr. Bob]

I still don't understand why I should break up the mesh. Why not just UVWrap the whole thing and center it at 0? The texture would look the same as if I broke it up. Does spring have a model clipping distance?

[SinbadEV]

Does spring have a model clipping distance?

It used to only render objects whose origins were in the players view and it used to auto-reduce model complexity at distances... the effect of which was that huge, map spanning objects would just look bad or be missing most of the time... maybe it's been fixed or there are ways around it... it's still worth making the walkable parts actually be map texture so the metal-map shows up etc.

[Mr. Bob]

Does spring have a model clipping distance?

It used to only render objects whose origins were in the players view and it used to auto-reduce model complexity at distances... the effect of which was that huge, map spanning objects would just look bad or be missing most of the time... maybe it's been fixed or there are ways around it... it's still worth making the walkable parts actually be map texture so the metal-map shows up etc.

You said it used to? So it doesn't anymore?

[KaiserJ]

i still don't understand why I should break up the mesh. Why not just UVWrap the whole thing and center it at 0?

this is the big problem, at least in my eyes... its hard to figure out an -exact- centre of a map when the texture and heightmap are a different size and you have to use a single point in a large texture sized image to define where the model goes...

but hell, im bad with numbers; im sure it can be done.