New map format

Kixxe · Post by **Kixxe** » 19 Jul 2006, 20:44

NOiZE wrote:from up high it looks awesome the lighting is really nice.

Yay, plastic land!

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 19 Jul 2006, 20:51

no need for a detail texture when you can do a mul layer with details... and normal mapping wasn't working last time I tried it but once that is in you will defecate upon detail textures.

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 19 Jul 2006, 21:26

jcnossen wrote:
Detailtex is needed for when you are up really close... it now just get blurry which doesn't look nice...
Nobody's stopping you from adding more texture stages
IMO it's better just to replace the snow with a higher res. texture.

This pack for example looks great: http://www.slackiller.com/downloads/cliff_textures.zip , especially when I still had the bumpmapping in it.

Okay i tested with a higher res texture and it look beautifull!!

Cheesecan · Post by **Cheesecan** » 20 Jul 2006, 01:09

Toyed around and converted dying grounds:
http://files.upl.silentwhisper.net/upload4/lol-uvb.jpg
She's no Mona Lisa but pretty nice for less than a 2mb map, no?

We can definately solve the FU bandwidth problem with this new format. Just remove all the old maps and only allow us to upload say max 10mb per week /mapper. Even with just 10mb that could easily equate to say 10 maps/week by re-using the same textures. Bandwidth usage would only be a fraction of what it was.

AF · Post by AF » 20 Jul 2006, 01:10

This format sorta makes map exporter groupAI obsolete

Slamoid · Post by **Slamoid** » 20 Jul 2006, 02:21

What tools are you guys usiing to convert from-to RAW? GIMP won't open it...

Cheesecan · Post by **Cheesecan** » 20 Jul 2006, 02:28

Slamoid wrote:What tools are you guys usiing to convert from-to RAW? GIMP won't open it...

Photoshop works.
I've also tried JPG/TGA/PNG in the sm3 and they've worked fine. Any 8/16-bit bitmap like the wiki says iirc.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 20 Jul 2006, 04:47

What FREE tools do you use to convert from-to RAW? GIMP won't open it...

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 20 Jul 2006, 10:08

Forboding Angel wrote:
Comp1337 wrote:The heightmap looks a bit... wrong. I think it needs some transparecy or just decreased brightness.
Ok, at what point did you miss the fact that he's telling us about the new map format and not releasing a map

Nonono. Youre getting me wrong. I meant the heightmap ingame.
Ill get a screenie.

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 20 Jul 2006, 10:58

Now that i think about it it may be the lack of detail tex..

PicassoCT · Post by **PicassoCT** » 20 Jul 2006, 11:31

Look, Kixxes Avatar was iced...

Comp1337 · Post by **Comp1337** » 20 Jul 2006, 11:50

Weaver · Post by **Weaver** » 20 Jul 2006, 20:32

The water has very angular edges and it crashes out when scolling, but otherwise it very good. Plenty of limits to push too.

Cheesecan · Post by **Cheesecan** » 20 Jul 2006, 20:35

Would look even better with bumpmapping..

AF · Post by AF » 20 Jul 2006, 20:41

Can we have a tag to totally disable the water plane?

You can see it under the terrain on all land maps if you goto the edge of the map and look at it sideways and its just so nasty looking.

Post by **jcnossen** » 20 Jul 2006, 20:53

If you set heightoffset > 10 it should not make a waterplane I think.

AF · Post by AF » 20 Jul 2006, 20:54

ah so that's what that tag does.

Post by **jcnossen** » 20 Jul 2006, 21:05

Setting WaterPlaneColor=; should do the same btw

zorbawic · Post by **zorbawic** » 22 Jul 2006, 10:32

i was wondering if there could be something like %shared_content% or %shared_textures% folder there where sd7 files are stored or in the main Spring folder. I mean why should textures, which are used in several different maps, be downloaded that many times as the maps. Especially if these textures are bigger files than those non-shared/used more than once files. This is an example :

dry_modified.sd7/
........................./Maps/
................................../dry_data/
................................................/hipshot/
...........................................................cliff_01_normal.jpg
...........................................................cliff_01_v1.jpg
...........................................................README.TXT
................................................/
................................................1026.png
................................................1026_bm_small.png
................................................dirt2.jpg
................................................dirt2_bm.jpg
................................................metalmap.png
................................................Snow_Sand.jpg
................................................typemap.png
................................../
..................................dry.sm3
..................................dry_mod1.sm3
..................................dry_mod2.sm3
........................./

spring recognizes this sd7 file as 3 different maps. Those 3 sm3 files weight 9 KB (compressed 4KB) an the rest which is shared weights 2,41 MB (compressed 2,32 MB)

why not go even further and make shared dir which would contain textures, used by sm3 files out of their own sd7 file? This would save a lot of bandwith/would be 56k's friendlier and mappers wouldnt have to search for high quality textures anywhere as they will have them already with spring.

AF · Post by AF » 22 Jul 2006, 11:33

When enumerating this format for unitsync+lobby are textures taken into account? Afterall the textures in thsi format should be ignored and treated as unsynced imo.

Spring RTS Engine

New map format