Spring RTS Engine

Don't even stop to ask us. Just keep going!

another solution would be to remove the colors and keep the models more or less grey and add color just by teamcolors:

how does it look with reflections on?

Get yourself a nice palette of colours to use that aren't team colours. These, ideally, should be neutral colours, but the odd dark colours wouldn't do any harm as long as used sparingly and in the right places.

Am I to understand that units do not cast shadows on other units? Because, if they don't, all of the models will be kinda screwed.

Also as far as that pic is concerned, it looks like you need to enable shadows. Its kind of the remedy for grayness. As is specularity (dirty specularity with normals), reflectivity, and normals. Its basically the only reason it is gray. Oh, and also I plan on having baked AO maps for ground textures.

In other words, the texture should be fine the way it was provided all the shaders and elements are applied.

How did you think about the teamcolor? At the moment it has none, the red is just texture

The color is placeholder. It helps in the wrapping process. When we are finished pyra will remove the color and place alpha channels where it was. :D

EDIT: So would this be an acceptable packed mode? Or does it need extra popup armor?

When I made some trees for maps, I realized that in the end they came out looking bland and dull. A bit more different than I used to see in wings. Beherith told that the main reason of this dullness was because the only way to add depth to map objects is via preshading. Theres no fancy stuff like normal maps for them. So its all about the textures...

The thing is, that pyras textures are not heavily preshaded like the model of commander in that screenshot for example. The texture of the commander is just a some half-assed eyetrick to make it look like reflective while in reality its nothing but a texture. But yea, it kinda works from a distance creating an illusion of depth and reflection.

This leaves the model pretty much dependable of normal maps and specularity. Most of the CA units are suffering of this problem afaik: Low graphic users like caldera sees just a bland version of the model while those who can afford shadows and reflectivity on, will enjoy eyecandy.

So, you are in akward situation. Really wouldnt like to scare you, but yeah, some of the spring players are still playing crappy stone age computers, unfortunately, and they are more like a "performance" than "quality" persons.

SirArtturi wrote:When I made some trees for maps, I realized that in the end they came out looking bland and dull. A bit more different than I used to see in wings. Beherith told that the main reason of this dullness was because the only way to add depth to map objects is via preshading. Theres no fancy stuff like normal maps for them. So its all about the textures...

The thing is, that pyras textures are not heavily preshaded like the model of commander in that screenshot for example. The texture of the commander is just a some half-assed eyetrick to make it look like reflective while in reality its nothing but a texture. But yea, it kinda works from a distance creating an illusion of depth and reflection.

This leaves the model pretty much dependable of normal maps and specularity. Most of the CA units are suffering of this problem afaik: Low graphic users like caldera sees just a bland version of the model while those who can afford shadows and reflectivity on, will enjoy eyecandy.

So, you are in akward situation. Really wouldnt like to scare you, but yeah, some of the spring players are still playing crappy stone age computers, unfortunately, and they are more like a "performance" than "quality" persons.

Preshading on unit models in rts games was done away with a very long time ago. We're talking wc3 era. (Extreme preshading that is. Basically, its all AO baked now.) As sad as it is, in order to get a larger player base (the point of this project basically) you have to sacrifice old tricks for new technology. Because, they can never mix. And, the nice thing is, the engine has that capability. As I have stated numerous times on other sites, when you model for old computers, you end up with old models. A great example is sc2. While I don't personally like the flashy art style it has, you have to admit, Sc2 has some amazing technical graphics. But, when you turn it to the lowest settings possible, you end up with this: http://www.hiveworkshop.com/forums/atta ... oaking.jpg

That is by far some of the worst looking rts units ever. This is because they basically are completely dependent on shaders.

And, I realize that the engine being free and all, your attracting a large amount of people who would rather not pay for games, and/or don't have the greatest systems around. But, this game is never going to grow unless you get up to speed with common rts games. Plus, preshading is never going to work properly with shared textures. If you do preshade shared textures, you end up with ota style models. And that, is a very bad thing. I can not understate how ugly preshading is when its done wrong.

I hate to sound like an ass, but when you compromise the looks of a unit model just for lower end computer users, your stunting the growth of your game. And, the entire point of me making these 368 models is to attract more players. Given some decent updated graphics, a nice cinematic trailer (which I can provide in a relatively short amount of time), a release with a new name, a nice lobby, and pro-player replays, this game will be a very popular free title.

As for the mention of CA, the problem with that is, even with the graphics turned all the way up, they read horribly from distances (normal overhead view). So, the normal maps and specularity is all out of wack.

Regardless, hardly any of the units are UVWrapped yet, so we can decide what direction the texture needs to be modified into later.

So um...yeah that's my opinion anyway... I dunno. You guys can hash it up while I make them. :D Give you something to think about.

Well, I completely agree with you. You pointed out pretty much the things I tried to say. Compromising between performance and quality is tricky and may finally lead in unsatisfied results. Just wanted to warn that some people may bitch about this.

So guys, turn on the shadows and unit reflections to see how it looks then...

Ya I figure this is a good time to get my philosophy out there before a million 'crappy computer' users start attacking me with an army of geforce 6600 models. :D

firstly that unit will look great with specular and normals applied;

for people who would rather whore performance over eyecandy (which i somewhat do myself but not to the point of disabling shadows or shaders) the models will still be quite recognizable from the shapes of colored panels from overhead

since shaders are expedient in getting your units to look the way you want (as your style of texturing can't really use preshading) then design for the shaders... your models have low enough poly counts and look -good enough- without the shaders; after all spring is CPU bottlenecked so i would assume for most people who have a PC purchased this century would run into CPU lag way before GPU lag

not really worth it at this point to listen to graphics complaints from people without a graphics card... there is an obvious and easy and cheap solution for them to upgrade the look of their game.

so for anyone who conceivably will complain in future when they see the models ingame without shaders and are too cheap to pay for hardware, i have 2 perfectly good graphics cards that will likely fit into their old AGP port computers that you're welcome to have if you'll pay for the shipping. there, no reason for any concern

edit : caldera you want one of 'em?

Btw, DDM looks good, but its missing one gun.
And yea, Its kinda part of the concept that it has extra armor case when closed.

Edit: Ah the point is that in your model it draws the guns inside or?

Which gun? D:

I thought it was:
Two on the bottom
One in the middle
One on the top

Sorry, I almost never use that unit ingame, being as I generally play rush.

I'll add some armor too.

Most people don't have shadows off because of just performance but because it conflicts with seeing LOS probably. But for now I wouldn't worry about it too much, hopefully someone will care enough to fix the engine about it eventually.

And of course people who run low settings aren't the persons to worry about graphics very much, so not too much point to try make it look good on our machines.

there WAS a way for me to fake shadings but at the cost of nearly doubling poly count but that has been ruled out since BA doesnt use transparency.

we could just have both the original model and the new models. then people can choose to use different level of detailed models. just like how wc3 can choose different complexity of models. of course....i dont think BA can do that either, can it? if that can be done, that sounds like the simplest way.

You mean different models for different players in the same game? Shouldn't be possible since it's almost impossible to make them behave 100% the same gameplay-wise.

What's your plan on doing wrecks btw?

Run a warp on the model and apply a big black nasty burnt metal texture.

K here is the tier 1 economic buildings.

Solar panel (Unpacked)
Solar panel (Packed)
Adv Solar panel
Wind Generator
Geothermal Power plant
Energy Storage
Energy to metal converter
Metal extractor (the thing in the middle will pump up and down)
Metal extractor with turret
Metal storage

And I'll tell you now, because I know you will want to know, the solar panel is a little under 2k polies. It can be reduced further. (The little ring around it is excessive.)



And, I know these particular models have a lot of nostalgia juice around them, but I'd ask you to bear with me for a bit here before I texture them.

solars make no sense at all :c remind ventilation more

tbh i wouldnt overkill them with details, solars are basicly flat panels which are supposed to catch as much sunlight as possible

Wombat wrote:solars make no sense at all :c remind ventilation more

tbh i wouldnt overkill them with details, solars are basicly flat panels which are supposed to catch as much sunlight as possible

Well, the idea was, to have the flat panels have a solar texture on them, and then have the "vent" looking things spin around as if stuff is actually being converted. (I know that is not really how it works, but this is sci fi.)

If you guys really don't like them I can always remake them. Doesn't take too long. I'm just trying to get away from that terrible old design in ota, and move to something a little more animated.