New map: Jonathan's pond

[Jools]

Sure, I'm working on it. I just fixed the other map, centre command, and it works now, but it didn't really become beautiful. Not sure what's causing the errors with shadows though.

[Jools]

I fixed the errors, it was due to the setting Fogstart being set at a too high value (I didn't want fog so I set it to 25, that's apaprently bad). Here are some screenies (the careful reader will notice the commander wanking on the first one):





At two locations on the map, there are these stone rings. I'm thinking of what to put in them, any ideas? Something luaish...

[knorke]

At two locations on the map, there are these stone rings. I'm thinking of what to put in them, any ideas? Something luaish...

Make them much bigger so players actually notice them. Also a different ground texture (sand?) in middle.
Maybe units in the circle could slowly be healed or something.

[Jools]

I made them a bit bigger and added a specular map highlight to them. But they aren't so important that I'd want to recompile the whole map to make another texture (unless something else need to be fixed too).

Here's how they look now.



And here's the RC version, I changed the name to John's pond, it's better known under that name.

http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-maps/johns-pond

There might be a problem with the trees: they burn too fast, and there's no visible fire to warn of a pending forest fire (those can be quite damaging to your base). I set the trees to non-blocking, so you can build labs without reclaiming them, and I set them to flammable. Is there some better way of making them burn, or at least controlling the way the fires spread (burn time, area of contagion etc..)?

Also, when trees burn they don't leave a stump, however, they do if they are destroyed some other way.

[Jools]

It seems that the vast amount of trees and shrubberies on the map may cause lag (there are about 7000 of them, and I didn't even employ a shrubber).

Would it be better if the trees were made smaller, or is ther only remedy to just decrease the number of them (maybe make it possible to cut them down with a herring)

[smoth]

It seems that the vast amount of trees and shrubberies on the map may cause lag

How significant was it? How weak was the hardware of the person in question? Not being sarcastic, having a high quality texture is enough to cause "lag" for many spring people due to weak hardware.

[Jools]

Well, it wasn't on my computer so it's hard to tell. However, I did test some maps on my own computer, on all maps I have about 60 fps when zoomed in. However on full zoom-out (ie you can view all map), I got:

* John's pond: ~20 fps
* Centre Command: ~50 fps
* Delta Siege Dry: 60 fps

Don't know how significant this is, I have a crappy GPU anyway.

The test was with all settings to performance, ie shadows 0, water 0 etc. I did have a LOD distance of 500, but that didn't seem to matter so much.

My system:
Intel E6600 Core Duo
Asus EN7300GT Silent GPU, 256MB DDR2 PCI-e
RAM: 4Gb DDR2

[smoth]

I suspect it is that asus card, thing is like 1/2 as powerful as my 2+ year old 280.

[SirArtturi]

Thats a common problem for many. Features in masses will cause lags.

Imo you could get rid of some of the trees in, for example, cliffs because you cant really differ them from terrain anyway.

You could also try to rationalize the use and place them only some areas in clusters, just to create a feeling of vegetation. You dont have to spam them like in SSB for example. Take example Beheriths tabula-v4 where he clustered them in certain spots.

[Jools]

I think that's a piece of good advice.

The thing is that some of the bushes are so small that you never really see them, unless you zoom in ridiculously, I think I should remove those first.

They are about the same size as grass (which I made smaller too). It's beautiful in principle, but in practise no-one ever sees it.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

yeah, Iimo features should only be used in small clumps- never a universal spread across the map... I would suggest thinking of them as a resource & obstacle rather than anything asthetic, and place them accordingly.

[Forboding Angel]

Well IK, in some games, features are used tactically. For example, in evo, trees cause cloak + stealth to be given to units small enough to hide in them.

I agree, small clumpings of trees and such generally get the job done, but it's a bit of a stretch to say that that is the way it should be done period no exceptions.

[smoth]

ultimate BA MAP BEST EVAR! I CAN RUN IT ON MY COMPUTER FOR TA DAYS!

[SirArtturi]

[SirArtturi]

btw, I now know your troll/smurf name smoth :)

[Jools]

Well IK, in some games, features are used tactically. For example, in evo, trees cause cloak + stealth to be given to units small enough to hide in them.

That's a great idea of how you can expand the use of features.

I agree, small clumpings of trees and such generally get the job done, but it's a bit of a stretch to say that that is the way it should be done period no exceptions.

I agree, just that when I was making the map design, I looked down from a plane on how (finnish) trees operate: they are sprayed everywhere like a thick blanket, not placed individually by a Scientologist or so.

Like this:

[AF]

Another note, if you have a dense clump of trees, instead of modelling lots of trees, just model dense foliage, and add a few trunks here and there, most of the foliage I've seen models every single plant individually

[smoth]

Another note, if you have a dense clump of trees, instead of modelling lots of trees, just model dense foliage, and add a few trunks here and there, most of the foliage I've seen models every single plant individually

yeah I know, what asshole ever did features as clusters.. rite? it isn't like one the the most used features in spring was a palm/bannana tree cluster?

[AF]

You completely missed my point and launched an attack against something I never said.

To clarify where you went wrong:



I'm fully aware that you can model 4 or 5 trees and put their models in a single file and save a new model, giving you 4 or 5 features for the price of one as a cluster. What I was saying, is that you don't need to model individual trees in a cluster to give the appearance of dense foliage.

[smoth]

*rolls eyes*

2006 says hi.

af, at least consider that maybe your brilliant idea was tried before..

you should have seen this enough to know that I AM the guy who did the only clusters in spring.