Eurekav2

[Cheesecan]

Or the *a mods could write an efing widget so the mappers don't have to deal with this crap

Ooh good idea!
No really, it is. Makes mapping a lot easier too. If it's not already been done by somebody else, I'll add it on my todo list.

I haven't done any ogl drawing calls in lua before but it looked to me to be very similar to c ogl so it shouldn't take me long to figure out how to load images and draw some metal spot based on the metal map.

Do you know if it is possible to include some type of boolean field in the smf or map archive which a widget could read to check if it should draw metal spots on that map? That is the easiest way I could think of to maintain compatibility with old maps.

Let me know if you have any particular preferences for your own mods so I can take that into consideration when writing the widget.

[smoth]

you can read the mex spots outright, s44 does it for it's flag system.

[SanadaUjiosan]

And then you spawn rocks and our problems are over.

[smoth]

You can run into issues with all metal maps but I can help with that

[Cheesecan]

I need some way to tell if a map already has metal spots textured on it. It could be done intrusively, meaning file(s) inside the map archive, or non-intrusively, by trying to guess the metal spots by looking at the texture map's properties. So the alternatives I can think of are:

1) The map.sd7 contains a metal.conf file that contains a line
METAL_SPOT_TYPE = [DESERT/GRASS/MARS]
to indicate that this map should use lua metal spots, and that a particular set of textures should be used. The textures would be found in say /luaui/widgets/metalspots directory and be prefixed with their terrain type e.g. desert_large.jpg. This way players could even customize it themselves.

2) The map archive contains under map.sd7/textures/ a set of metal textures named metal_small.jpg, metal_medium.jpg, metal_big.jpg which the widget will find and use for that particular map.

3) The widget tries to guess if the map already has metal spots textured on, and what type of terrain it has by looking at the texture map. Slowest and unreliable but also the only option that doesn't require any modifications or extra work from mappers.

Maybe also rotations for each metal spot to make them look less similar.

[smoth]

1) The map.sd7 contains a metal.conf file that contains a line
METAL_SPOT_TYPE = [DESERT/GRASS/MARS]
to indicate that this map should use lua metal spots, and that a particular set of textures should be used. The textures would be found in say /luaui/widgets/metalspots directory and be prefixed with their terrain type e.g. desert_large.jpg. This way players could even customize it themselves.

do able see feature placer.

2) The map archive contains under map.sd7/textures/ a set of metal textures named metal_small.jpg, metal_medium.jpg, metal_big.jpg which the widget will find and use for that particular map.

doable.

3) The widget tries to guess if the map already has metal spots textured on, and what type of terrain it has by looking at the texture map. Slowest and unreliable but also the only option that doesn't require any modifications or extra work from mappers.

Probably not doable.

Maybe also rotations for each metal spot to make them look less similar.

easily doable.

[Cheesecan]

#1 and #2 are what I am adding right now. Let me know if you want any other features. Lua metal spots could allow for lots of new things. Maybe someone wants 3d metal spots for their mod

[Forboding Angel]

Or the *a mods could write an efing widget so the mappers don't have to deal with this crap

That would break backwards compatibility with all the existing maps that already drop metal patches into the texture. It would be hideous to have those metal patches doubly highlighted.

The alternate approach would be some HUD-ish glowy thing instead of baking the metal into the texture. Like drawing a circle around each metal patch... which, to be honest, would be nice since some maps with visible metal aren't really that easy to see on.

This same gameplay exists in CA, Evo, and every other major mod except yours and KP (edit: my bad, I forgot 1944). All the maps they use show the metal on the texture, so they all can take it for granted that they always will.

This is not true. Evo doesn't even use metal extractors (ill leave it to you to figure out how its done). Evo uses easymetal which highlights detected resource locations and restricts building of extractors to those locations. No future Evo maps will have visible resource locations.

[FLOZi]

S44 is fine without or with it doesn't really make a great deal of difference to us.

[SanadaUjiosan]

You can run into issues with all metal maps but I can help with that

Our goal isn't playability on all maps, just most maps/most normal maps.

That being said, if it's doable that's cool.

[oksnoop2]

Yeah if someone could help us out with that. Well that would just be great.

[Cheesecan]

It could also place features such as say oil wells or mines. If you like I could add an option for that.

Here's a shot of the current progress(Step #1 is finished now):
http://i53.tinypic.com/103ivyg.jpg

I could use some better looking metal textures for sure.

[FLOZi]

Yeah if someone could help us out with that. Well that would just be great.

Just use easymetal, I recently stripped out my old metal spot finder and replaced it with easymetal. Infact you should be able to adapt the S44 gadget to your needs quite easily, just replace the bit that spawns a flag with knorke's code to spawn mineral fields, and rip out lines 236 to 321.

http://spring1944.svn.sourceforge.net/v ... threv=3208

[Cheesecan]

So you also used analyzeMetalMap() from areaMex widget.

edit: here ya go:
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=24526

[FLOZi]

So you also used analyzeMetalMap() from areaMex widget.

Just use easymetal, I recently stripped out my old metal spot finder and replaced it with easymetal.

author = "FLOZi, AnalyseMetalMap algorithm from easymetal.lua by CarRepairer",

[Cheesecan]

:D code re-use is everywhere zomg.

[smoth]

:D code re-use is everywhere zomg.

that is the POINT of open source. Why reinvent the wheel over and over and over.

[MidKnight]

:D code re-use is everywhere zomg.

that is the POINT of open source. Why reinvent the wheel over and over and over.

Smoth's right.

[Neddie]

Though it is the basis of coding as a practice in general.

[knorke]

epic thread derail, its basically the same as
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... 19#p457219

Though it is the basis of coding as a practice in general.

in spring modding the basis is "copy over stuff until it works, wonder when it suddendly breaks"