.FF-Surrounded (preview)
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Optimus Prime
- Posts: 755
- Joined: 03 Oct 2005, 14:31
yes i know. And to make you all happy i will try to make a skybox, but i will also try to put some 3d elements on the map which are on the map, but behind the playable area. The advantage would be, that you dont get confused by scrolling, but the disadvantage will be, that i need water for this. But i think its a good compromiss - and a lot more work for me .
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Mars Keeper
- Posts: 240
- Joined: 25 Jan 2005, 21:00
Optimus Prime wrote: but i will also try to put some 3d elements on the map which are on the map, but behind the playable area. The advantage would be, that you dont get confused by scrolling, but the disadvantage will be, that i need water for this. .
Thats great actually.
Scrolling around can sometimes be very confusing in cosmos, but as it has already been said, I coulnd´t have it any other way.
The argument that I am ignorant is true. Not near as ignorant as you are, you seem to confuse ignorant with stupid a common misconception. Ignorant just means you lack knowledge. You are much more ignorant on this matter. Are you a programmer and a capable cg artist? FYI scripting in ota doesn't count. I mean have you ever written a binary tree, linked list or even DONE game code.Optimus Prime wrote:lol sorry but YOU are the ignorant.
Right, what is YOUR background?
I have and if needed to can program in:
BASIC(it was all I had at 12)
C++
C#
ASP
COBOL
JAVA
PERL
ASM
VB.NET
I am familiar with:
Adobe photo shop(6&7)
Corel photo suite 6(All applications)
bryce 3d
wings 3d
mgi photosuite
I have been a core member for:
Towarena
shogo switch
shogo paint
I have written 3 mods that I have never released (thank an unfortunate data loss)
for quake and duke nukem
I am currently working on:
Greased with loving
Gundam annihilation(all by myself)
I was the lead developer for the FTVS system which my university
now uses.
Ignorant indeed, but not likely that I am less ignorant then you are.
The real world as i said earlier does not have a skybox KEY WORD BOX! As I said... it would be a sky sphere or dome. Also the real world does not apply either in the context of SPRING or space.I put the word "real" to *mark* that i dont mean the definition of the skybox in its computergameing meaning.
wichavenIIOptimus Prime wrote: Ah and i made maps for other games (ut2004) too...
Duke nukem
warcraftII
blood I
Quake
quakeII
Shogo:Mad
Grimware(now defunct, but was professional level work at the time)
warcraftIII
Total Annihilation
Axiom blade(unreleased demo of a friend)
spring
yeah I have made tons of maps... whoopty do. The point is that you are
arguing a point that frankly is moot. People are telling you make a skybox and you retort with that isn't a skybox. It is but you have limited knowledge of the subject(which makes you ignorant) and you proceed to argue with no valid point about a skysphere concept. If you have to try and save face, the best way to save face would be to make such an awesome skybox that it blows us away.
After I get the information I need I was going to get runcrafter to teach me what he can so I can produce some good skyboxes and using what I already know produce some features for YOUR MOD. I could always cancel that plan if you REALLY want. I have the tools and all I need is a bit more knowledge from rune to do space skyboxes and I could be even more useful.
Anyone who knows me in real life has seen what I can do I am not tooting my horn if anything I am never happy. I am a perfectionist and nothing is ever good enough it drives everyone nuts. I am no harder on you then I am on myself. Maybe I shouldn't be so harsh, it is my nature though.
Smoth si absolutely right, I dotn see how you're disputing what he's saying.
Anyways, look at HW2, in the misisons you could see stars but you didnt have the problem you're describing with not beign able to put the position of an object relative to other objects cus the stars all looked the same whereever.
Look at all the HW 2 maps, and the vast majority ahve big huge nebulae or planets, thigns the user can figure out their position relative to. There's no fancy particle effects etc, it's all done through an image on the infinite, nothing more. Some of the most spectacular looking maps on that game had no nebulae and little in the order of asteroids. My fav scene from the missions si the one where you gotta get the motherships crew, and protect the transports from veygr attacks. That map had no nebulae etc and relied on the image to look nice, it had a big nebulae, and higaara with its moon, and I think ti looked amazing at th time.
What about the very start with Tanis? That was good too, and all these good looking space maps had very little int erms fo godo looking features, ti was all background background background. The sybox is VERY important, and you cannot just do an OTA style FF map and expect the same results because you need to be intuitive and give an atmosphere using light and a good skybox to suit it, combined with the fact ti cannot look like every other map. You cant make a set fo orange nebulae maps and expect ti to be a common format if it's to be anything more than a waste of resources.
With space maps, the majority of your effort should go into the skybox image. Small eye candy like small big bangs and supernova and galaxies like in those shots wotn work. You have to think on vast scales, not landmap feature scales...
Of all the OTA FF maps I saw the prettiest one by a longshot was one over a planet that ahd no stars in it, which if I recall was made by warlord....
Anyways, look at HW2, in the misisons you could see stars but you didnt have the problem you're describing with not beign able to put the position of an object relative to other objects cus the stars all looked the same whereever.
Look at all the HW 2 maps, and the vast majority ahve big huge nebulae or planets, thigns the user can figure out their position relative to. There's no fancy particle effects etc, it's all done through an image on the infinite, nothing more. Some of the most spectacular looking maps on that game had no nebulae and little in the order of asteroids. My fav scene from the missions si the one where you gotta get the motherships crew, and protect the transports from veygr attacks. That map had no nebulae etc and relied on the image to look nice, it had a big nebulae, and higaara with its moon, and I think ti looked amazing at th time.
What about the very start with Tanis? That was good too, and all these good looking space maps had very little int erms fo godo looking features, ti was all background background background. The sybox is VERY important, and you cannot just do an OTA style FF map and expect the same results because you need to be intuitive and give an atmosphere using light and a good skybox to suit it, combined with the fact ti cannot look like every other map. You cant make a set fo orange nebulae maps and expect ti to be a common format if it's to be anything more than a waste of resources.
With space maps, the majority of your effort should go into the skybox image. Small eye candy like small big bangs and supernova and galaxies like in those shots wotn work. You have to think on vast scales, not landmap feature scales...
Of all the OTA FF maps I saw the prettiest one by a longshot was one over a planet that ahd no stars in it, which if I recall was made by warlord....
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Optimus Prime
- Posts: 755
- Joined: 03 Oct 2005, 14:31
smoth you can write a book about your background and it wouldn impress me. I could write you a book too and it wouldnt impress you (btw i m studying computer science in the 9th semester).
But to come back to topic (second try): I have a BIG problem with creating my map. The map is to huge for a bmp file and a jpg file cant handle transparent ground. So if no one can tell me how to solve this problem (is ther a color which the mapcreator handles like a transparent color? Any other smaller files which can be used instead of bmps and which have transparent colors), we can skip the thought to a skyboxmap. Actually the bmp file is 675mb.
But to come back to topic (second try): I have a BIG problem with creating my map. The map is to huge for a bmp file and a jpg file cant handle transparent ground. So if no one can tell me how to solve this problem (is ther a color which the mapcreator handles like a transparent color? Any other smaller files which can be used instead of bmps and which have transparent colors), we can skip the thought to a skyboxmap. Actually the bmp file is 675mb.
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SwiftSpear
- Classic Community Lead
- Posts: 7287
- Joined: 12 Aug 2005, 09:29
wait, what is the problem? How can a BMP be "Too big"? I wasn't aware there was an aribitrary max size they used...
[edit] optimus, a skybox is a box that wraps around your map to create the illusion of sky. Different games use very different methods of rendering and using thier skyboxes, but they are still boxes because you texture 6 sides to make them. The game doesn't render the box as a sphere, it renders it as a box that has no shading applied to it, thus the corners are virtually unknowticable. In TAS the skybox doesn't move with the map, and you can't make it move with the map. You can argue until you are blue in the face but you don't get to arbitrarily change the definition of commonly used gaming termology just because you understood it originally when you first heard it.
[edit] optimus, a skybox is a box that wraps around your map to create the illusion of sky. Different games use very different methods of rendering and using thier skyboxes, but they are still boxes because you texture 6 sides to make them. The game doesn't render the box as a sphere, it renders it as a box that has no shading applied to it, thus the corners are virtually unknowticable. In TAS the skybox doesn't move with the map, and you can't make it move with the map. You can argue until you are blue in the face but you don't get to arbitrarily change the definition of commonly used gaming termology just because you understood it originally when you first heard it.
Last edited by SwiftSpear on 16 Feb 2006, 08:37, edited 1 time in total.
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Optimus Prime
- Posts: 755
- Joined: 03 Oct 2005, 14:31
Is there no way to make transparency on a jpg file? Else i have to wait for the next mapcreator or i need to make the map the standard way .
[to the off topic: i know what a skybox is! You dont need to explain it to me. But that doesnt change my oppionion, that a real skybox, which would represent the sky more realistic would be not a box around the camera, but it would be a box around the map. I never said that the skybox in TA Spring is not a skybox by definition but i said that I would need a different skybox - better: more boxes which all have stars on them and the rest would be transparent so you would see that some stars are more far away than others. Ah and on this point you are right with the dome... a sphere would be much better, but i f you put the boxes far enough you cant see any difference. The last box could be the normal skybox so some stars would never change. And you can discuss as much as you want, that doesnt change my oppinion on that. We are talking about 2 different things. When i talked about a "real skybox" i wanted to say that i speak about a different skybox whichs definition you cant find in any book. Lets call the word "real skybox" "Hans"
%0
.[to the off topic: i know what a skybox is! You dont need to explain it to me. But that doesnt change my oppionion, that a real skybox, which would represent the sky more realistic would be not a box around the camera, but it would be a box around the map. I never said that the skybox in TA Spring is not a skybox by definition but i said that I would need a different skybox - better: more boxes which all have stars on them and the rest would be transparent so you would see that some stars are more far away than others. Ah and on this point you are right with the dome... a sphere would be much better, but i f you put the boxes far enough you cant see any difference. The last box could be the normal skybox so some stars would never change. And you can discuss as much as you want, that doesnt change my oppinion on that. We are talking about 2 different things. When i talked about a "real skybox" i wanted to say that i speak about a different skybox whichs definition you cant find in any book. Lets call the word "real skybox" "Hans"
%0
hmmm
First off, bitmaps are large by nature, dotn sue them and expect to get decent filesizes for anythign large.
Second, skyboxes arent generated by running them through mapconv, instead you create a dds skybox then tie it intot he map by putting ti in the map archvie and adding a skybox= tag to the map smd.
Thirdly, the very nature of the skybox makes havign a transparent colour in it absurd. The skybox is painted on the infinite, adn there cannot possibly be anything behidn it, your onyl option si to have a huuuuge feature that is extremely far away but always gets draw so ti is too far away to move with the map as much as a tree so it appears that the skybox has a 3D part. But the skybox is drawn on the infinate, a transparent colour would be useless as there would be nothing beyond the skybox to draw, especially since the skybox is infinately far away.
Why you would want things on the skybox ro transparent colours int i on a space map, I dont know. Go look at HW2 and the backgrounds they use there.
First off, bitmaps are large by nature, dotn sue them and expect to get decent filesizes for anythign large.
Second, skyboxes arent generated by running them through mapconv, instead you create a dds skybox then tie it intot he map by putting ti in the map archvie and adding a skybox= tag to the map smd.
Thirdly, the very nature of the skybox makes havign a transparent colour in it absurd. The skybox is painted on the infinite, adn there cannot possibly be anything behidn it, your onyl option si to have a huuuuge feature that is extremely far away but always gets draw so ti is too far away to move with the map as much as a tree so it appears that the skybox has a 3D part. But the skybox is drawn on the infinate, a transparent colour would be useless as there would be nothing beyond the skybox to draw, especially since the skybox is infinately far away.
Why you would want things on the skybox ro transparent colours int i on a space map, I dont know. Go look at HW2 and the backgrounds they use there.
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Optimus Prime
- Posts: 755
- Joined: 03 Oct 2005, 14:31
fuck it doesnt work anyway. My plan was to make a bitmap transparent on the ground which has asteroids on it. Than i wanted to make some asteroids under the water and some above where you could build on. The asteroids under the water should be far away so you could see when you scroll.
The Problem: The mapcreator dont work with transparent bitmaps. So all i could do would be to make a skybos like in cosmos without having objects in the background. That sucks really!
Any suggestions? Shall i just make the map the old way or cosmos way?
it doesnt work anyway. My plan was to make a bitmap transparent on the ground which has asteroids on it. Than i wanted to make some asteroids under the water and some above where you could build on. The asteroids under the water should be far away so you could see when you scroll.The Problem: The mapcreator dont work with transparent bitmaps. So all i could do would be to make a skybos like in cosmos without having objects in the background
. That sucks really!Any suggestions? Shall i just make the map the old way or cosmos way?
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Optimus Prime
- Posts: 755
- Joined: 03 Oct 2005, 14:31
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Optimus Prime
- Posts: 755
- Joined: 03 Oct 2005, 14:31
that would be a solution, but a bad one. I must give the asteroids a very big height and therefore they would look odd (like skyscapers if you dont look exactly from above). Also i think that you cant make non reachable areas. With a trasnparent texture that would be no problem.
It seems that spring is not made for good FF maps and i dont read anything about transparency for the next map format.
It seems that spring is not made for good FF maps
and i dont read anything about transparency for the next map format.
not everybody :D
We had just a 8 player FF game on Cosmos, and some played it the first time.
The reaction was:
WTF?
Looks nice!
<insert from me: try rotating camera>
WOW. That fucking cool!
And thats even for a first try.
There would be SO many cool ideas possible (ringworlds, orbitals, planetary systems, ect...)
We had just a 8 player FF game on Cosmos, and some played it the first time.
The reaction was:
WTF?
Looks nice!
<insert from me: try rotating camera>
WOW. That fucking cool!
And thats even for a first try.
There would be SO many cool ideas possible (ringworlds, orbitals, planetary systems, ect...)
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Optimus Prime
- Posts: 755
- Joined: 03 Oct 2005, 14:31
and again a Problem with the skybox idea .
The map creator works with thousands of polygons and puts textures on them. But because these polygons arent really small and if you have round things which are above the void water, you will get this:
You see that the edges arent round and look odd. Its definitely not my fault but its the fault of the creator. It works on the cosmos map because the platforms are all rectangles, but with asteroids it doesnt work.
So my question, skybox with odd edges and confusing scrolling or a bad space but good looking asteroids?
Or has anyone other suggestions?
BTW i dont know how to create a skybos file format so that can need some more time.
.The map creator works with thousands of polygons and puts textures on them. But because these polygons arent really small and if you have round things which are above the void water, you will get this:
You see that the edges arent round and look odd. Its definitely not my fault but its the fault of the creator. It works on the cosmos map because the platforms are all rectangles, but with asteroids it doesnt work.
So my question, skybox with odd edges and confusing scrolling or a bad space but good looking asteroids?
Or has anyone other suggestions?
BTW i dont know how to create a skybos file format so that can need some more time.