About the new map format...

Slamoid · Post by **Slamoid** » 12 Feb 2006, 17:53

So what has been decided about the new map format? I know huge maps will be more easily made, but will ones like the 4000*4000 Eternal Struggle flagship map take too much ram for a normal person? What about AI pathfinding? And will you make the new map maker to use less ram? Will the same features be on all tiles in map, or only certain positions on map? How about terrain reflections?

Thanks for the awnsers.

Post by **jcnossen** » 12 Feb 2006, 18:34

- The map can be larger than the game area. Units will only be able to exist in the game area. The memory use of non-game area is very low, so it will be recommended to make big maps even for a 1v1, and just limit the game area so you still have a nice environment to look at

- Yes a 4000x4000 is way out of reach for the spring engine itself. The maximum actual area reachable by units will have to be around 2000x2000 or lower. We'll know more about this when it is integrated into spring.

- It's a new map renderer and a new texturing system. Nothing more, nothing less. Pathfinding will be the same. How features and geothermals are going to be placed is not yet decided. Geo's are possibly going to be specified through the SMD (I've read about the problems with multiple geo's next to eachother, so that would solve this problem). Features are probably just the same

- The advantage of it comes from lower download sizes and higher detail textures. In the future it could potentially support things like parallax mapping too, but I first want to get it integrated.

- The precompilation phase will not really exist. Buggi's planned SharpMap will be a map editor, not really a map compiler. Memory usage might be somewhat higher than the renderer, but probably not higher than spring's memory usage itself.
I'm thinking about not using an SMF file at all and just storing everything in image files specified in the SMD file.
These would be stored in "maps/insertyourmapname/metalmap.png" or something like that. That has the bonus of allowing compression on minimap/metalmap/featuremap.
An empty SMF would stick around just to keep compatibility for apps like SpringSP.

- True reflection is only possible when you can mirror the geometry of the scene easily. That is no option here. Support for specular lighting is difficult to fit into the general system, I have tried it and got it working, but only in certain setups of texturing. Maybe I'll do another try sometime, but expect absolutely nothing.

The actual renderer is quite stable and sort of completed already. There will be an improvement with LOD, and maybe some advanced texturing stuff, but otherwise it's finished.
Here's a demo:
http://spring.clan-sy.com/dl/SpringTerrain-0.65.zip

BvDorp · Post by **BvDorp** » 12 Feb 2006, 19:44

Readme:
Terrain renderer using geomipmaps and texture splatting
By Jelmer Cnossen

Keys:

WASD = move
F = textured/wireframe
Z/X = go through different shaders
O = decrease detail
P = increase detail

M=Sun moving around real fast

colorblind · Post by **colorblind** » 12 Feb 2006, 20:35

It looks brilliant, very nice work. Do you have any timetable for integrating it with Spring?

IMSabbel · Post by **IMSabbel** » 13 Feb 2006, 00:54

Looks nice.
Much faster, too, than the old one (20 Million Polygons/s on a 9500pro isnt too bad :D)

Plus the texturing system is SO much nicer than the "huge 10000000x10000000x monolithtic bitmap" one :D

edit:

im just wondering, looking at the demo again...
Would it be possible to dynamically alter the texture in craters, permamently?

Those scars are nice, but after a while they are gone. And it would be cool to have a grass area change to dirt if the terrain damage is bad enough (and maybe change back when its repaired...)

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 13 Feb 2006, 07:15

I realise it is not particularly related, but are there any moves on dealing with oversized features in maps, such as aGorm's massive trees, or tall buildings in urban maps?

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 13 Feb 2006, 10:47

Smoth posted a thread somewhere showing that weapons do collide correctly with tall features, using the footprint and height to determine collisions. However, the sphere thing still has to be huge, so that might be a problem for pathfinding.

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 13 Feb 2006, 11:06

Maelstrom wrote:Smoth posted a thread somewhere showing that weapons do collide correctly with tall features, using the footprint and height to determine collisions. However, the sphere thing still has to be huge, so that might be a problem for pathfinding.

Pathfinding use the footprint !!!!

edit : but it could cause problem with aircraft

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 13 Feb 2006, 12:44

Torrasque wrote:
Maelstrom wrote:Smoth posted a thread somewhere showing that weapons do collide correctly with tall features, using the footprint and height to determine collisions. However, the sphere thing still has to be huge, so that might be a problem for pathfinding.
Pathfinding use the footprint !!!!

Oh OK. Problem solved then.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 13 Feb 2006, 13:20

Is the mountain texture nontileable or was that just me? Anyways... the LoD still looks a little off, when you have a mountianous region that gets closer to the screen because of altitude it can cause it to go into a closer LoD rating then the ground around it and make some odd looking tiling/shading issues.

Post by **jcnossen** » 13 Feb 2006, 14:14

Would it be possible to dynamically alter the texture in craters, permamently?

Yes it would be possible, but it would have to fit in with the optimization of terrain texturing. It would probably require quite some modification, but the nature of texture splatting definitely allows it.

Is the mountain texture nontileable or was that just me?

Yes true, but the bumpmap for it looked quite nice so I still used it.

Anyways... the LoD still looks a little off, when you have a mountianous region that gets closer to the screen because of altitude it can cause it to go into a closer LoD rating then the ground around it and make some odd looking tiling/shading issues.

If you mean the lighting on mountains changing slightly on LOD changes... yes that is the last thing I have to fix.

I realise it is not particularly related, but are there any moves on dealing with oversized features in maps, such as aGorm's massive trees, or tall buildings in urban maps?

Yes

greenail · Post by **greenail** » 13 Feb 2006, 16:33

it crashed when i tried to run it on my laptop. it has some crappy intel vid card but it runs spring ok.

Slamoid · Post by **Slamoid** » 14 Feb 2006, 00:37

Zaph, is there any progress being made tward multi-level terrain in the next version?

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 14 Feb 2006, 11:00

Slamoid wrote:Zaph, is there any progress being made tward multi-level terrain in the next version?

Yeah, we want a bsp format format like half life !!!

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 14 Feb 2006, 11:32

Torrasque wrote:
Slamoid wrote:Zaph, is there any progress being made tward multi-level terrain in the next version?
Yeah, we want a bsp format format like half life !!!

I (we) would like a new pony uncle Zaphod!!!
Or a car and wile your at it a drivers license!

Anyway,
It looks good Jelmer keep it up

greenail · Post by **greenail** » 14 Feb 2006, 16:33

it ran on my home box and looks great!!!!!

greenail · Post by **greenail** » 14 Feb 2006, 16:43

it ran on my home box and looks great!!!!!

FizWizz · Post by **FizWizz** » 14 Feb 2006, 17:18

a double post with a 10-minute spacing?

FireCrack · Post by **FireCrack** » 14 Feb 2006, 17:25

Hmm, i get get this one to run at all, gives me the standard "windows encountered an error and needed to be closed" error.

Would anyone mind putting up a screenshot, or linking me to one?

Post by **jcnossen** » 14 Feb 2006, 17:27

Weaver mailed me that he has trouble posting on the forum, but he has been playing around with it already:

Spring RTS Engine

About the new map format...

About the new map format...