Spring RTS Engine

Gota wrote:replace lame chickens with army of dead pls.

this would be awesome!!!

skeleton cyborgs riding chickens :D

Y'know, one of my crazy ideas floating around has been about adding zombie armies to P.U.R.E.- let the Overmind "harvest the dead" and convert them into zombie hordes. Then players could blow them up, for gooey zombie-killin' fun.

I just lack the time to make the zombies and the Lua to allow the Overmind to use them, since I wanted to tie them to casualties... the Lua ought to be easy, but meh, I have no appropriate zombie models.

I consider the model to be more or less finished at this point, not really sure what direction to take it

I'd add gull-wing hatches on the sides, and some additional greebling on the front (maybe a bumper with lights?) to suggest it's some futuristic APC. It really evokes the one from Aliens- I'd avoid stealing directly from it (i.e., no rails to stow the turret, no front turret) but I'd go ahead and add more detail- your polycount is what? Maybe 350 or so?

Argh wrote:I'd add gull-wing hatches on the sides, and some additional greebling on the front (maybe a bumper with lights?) to suggest it's some futuristic APC. It really evokes the one from Aliens- I'd avoid stealing directly from it (i.e., no rails to stow the turret, no front turret) but I'd go ahead and add more detail- your polycount is what? Maybe 350 or so?

244 iirc.

Plenty of overhead to use for greebling, then. Another hundred triangles of simple boxes to add some points of interest will work nicely. If you don't feel like messing with it, I might, I like the look, although I'd probably rework the turret and wheels. Gotta finish what I'm doing right now first, though.

Argh wrote:Plenty of overhead to use for greebling, then. Another hundred triangles of simple boxes to add some points of interest will work nicely. If you don't feel like messing with it, I might, I like the look, although I'd probably rework the turret and wheels. Gotta finish what I'm doing right now first, though.

fo' sho. when im done with it, it will become PD.

Some BloX models I'm getting pretty happy about:

FastCar, Light 1 slot, 3 wheeled Car
224 Triangles


Builder, Builds Stuff
152 Triangles


Salamander, Flamethrower Gun
216 Triangles


Skink, Rapid Fire Plasma Cannon
204 Triangles


Tuatara, Constant Beam Laser
180 Triangles

I've only done the base + a few greebles so far.



^LOL 7 PIXEL RESIZE^

I like the greebling, but the will the white lines on the edges show like that ingame?

I may make them a bit weaker, but yes, they will be there.

Edit: Also, the white lines get harder to see as you zoom out, so it'll be a bit more balanced at a distance.

White lines are a good idea as a kind of pre-shading for edge highlights I think, you wouldn't get those from the renderer unless you made softened edges with more polygons. But they should be dark lines on edges that face inwards (such as those between the butt box and hull on that tank). And also might want to have them in different intensity depending on angle.

Thanks Zpock, I forgot about that one.

Finally got my builder ingame, with cool reflecty stuff.

That does actually look kinda cool, in a cartoony sort of way

Yeah, it's weird - some of the most realistic textures in Spring just don't fit the maps, while sometimes some objectively less realistic and detailed textures can actually look more like they belong in the terrain.

A highly realistic texture raises the expectations on everything else like animation, lighting, terrain, effects.

While a really bad pixelated low res game can make the players mind fill in all the detail if it has awesome immersion through personality, story and gameplay...

By ignoring realism and going for some cartoonish or whatever art you can also just completly shut down the inevitable "that looks good but there's something wrong can't say what" feel...

possibly; I think you are right in letting a player's mind fill in the blanks - but I think highly realistic textures tend to stick out in Spring's terrain, which is not highly realistic (not that it looks bad). Textures that are simplified or of a certain style tend to sit well in the maps, giving a consistency of design that seems to break with really nice textures.