Updated Mapping System

[enetheru]

why not a wiki article listing the requests, their desired outcomes, the challenges they face etc. then you can always link someone to it when they request something.

[zwzsg]

I dunno, I feel wiki are better suited to reference manual, stating undisputed facts, while feature requests need the fluidity and the accountability of a discussion.

But then I also agree with Silentwings that the rubbish has drowned the useful suggestion in that thread. Then maybe it's presumptous of me to believe that adding the two Lua hooks I requested (one to edit minimap pic, one to refresh unsynced terrain view through fog-of-war) are "better" than the suggestion to rewrite everything terrain related and throw away axis conventions.

Ultimately it doesn't matter, I don't see any dev posting here, so it's all wishfull thinking for a situation that won't bulge the least.

[Jools]

There is no standard convention (not between professional standards, not amongst academics, basically nowhere). But iirc both DX and OpenGL use the y axis for up, by default.

You just disputed the existence of landscape architects, GIS-engineers, surveryors, etc. These are large academic fields, which you just contrasted to two small fields under computer science. Maybe you should not talk about what conventions exist in a field you have never studied and never worked with.

In geodesy, remember that someone mentioned GIS, you have the coordinates x,y, and z representing longitude, latitude and elevation. Note that x by convention represents the longitude and not latitude, so even that convention is different from normal engineering conventions, including computer science, where x is usually the horizontal axis and y is the vertical.

When you go from two-dimensional cartography systems, such as the UTM to three dimensional systems used for GPS like the WGS 84 datum, then it's more convenient to just add one variable at the end and keeping the longitude and latitude. The elevation parameter is also the least precise one, whereby it makes sense to group it in the end and not in the middle.

By the way, I'm not saying we should switch to having x denoting the longitude instead of latitude in spring, as it would probably mess up too many things. I was just saying this convention is non-standard, despite what opinions some people have. Neither am I saying we should use gradians as the angular unit, but surveyors do use this unit.

I've always thought that the only reason that y-up in 3d space even exists is because someone didn't quite understand the difference between screen space, world space, object space coordinate transforms.

Yes, my point exactly.

[zwzsg]

You just disputed the existence of landscape architects, GIS-engineers, surveryors, etc. These are large academic fields, which you just contrasted to two small fields under computer science. Maybe you should not talk about what conventions exist in a field you have never studied and never worked with.

OpenGL and DirectX are way more related to 3D games, and so Spring, than the academic fields you listed.

It maybe non-standard in the science as large, but it is standard within the videogame industry: I am not aware of any 3D rendering API beside OpenGL or DirectX. Btw, what does Playstation 3 use?

[Jools]

well you and jools are arguing the point. So I am rather curious as to why the argument needs to be made.

I didn't really mean we should change the coordinates, I was just pointing out the conventions. Changing something this fundamental just introduces a lot of work for no big gains. But I also think that the current map format works just fine, at least for my needs.

[Silentwings]

Maybe you should not talk about what conventions exist in a field you have never studied and never worked with.

Maybe you should not make assumptions about what people you have met and never worked with met might have studied and worked with. But more importantly, you should read what they write, carefully, before making profound assertions such as

You just disputed the existence of landscape architects

...
Let me repeat it, if you need more help. What I disputed was the existence of a global convention between the various professional standards, academics, etc etc, for which label the vertical axis receives. The key word is between. Between.

Btw, what does Playstation 3 use?

They use a modified form of OpenGL (reportedly, at least).

OpenGL and DirectX are way more related to 3D games, and so Spring, than...

This. And since thread is now 100% hijacked with crap, I might throw my hat in and suggest we adopt the standard convention from the glorious world of aviation, where the z axis is the vertical axis and points directly downwards.

Helloooo, pedants. Take the yaw to be whatever you feel like.

[gajop]

Well this thread was unclear to begin with, so I'll let crap pile a bit so people can get their thoughts out of their system. People are free to make a new thread once they have concrete, realistic requests - seems like nearly everyone here wants a different thing :)

[Silentwings]

k, I have some more ideas. Surface waves are sooo last year. Running water is 2014. Also units should be able to dig burrows. There should be kiicthenchens volcanoes and earthquakes and ash clouds that make planes crash. And it should be possible to flip the minimap when you flip the camera.

[zwzsg]

And since thread is now 100% hijacked with crap, I might throw my hat in and suggest we adopt the standard convention from the glorious world of aviation, where the z axis is the vertical axis and points directly downwards.

With distances in the x y plane measured in miles, while z is in feet.

[Jools]

And since thread is now 100% hijacked with crap, I might throw my hat in and suggest we adopt the standard convention from the glorious world of aviation, where the z axis is the vertical axis and points directly downwards.

With distances in the x y plane measured in miles, while z is in feet.

Yes, but that makes sense in aviation, because you usually talk about flight levels, so flight level 120 is 12000 feet; in metric it's not as convenient because 100m difference in flight level is too much and 10 m too little.

Edit: I'm sure you mean nautical miles and not 'vulgar' miles...

[smoth]

Z, I agree with your lua requests earlier. This entire coordinates thing is silly and I have no idea why jools is going there.

[zwzsg]

You make a good point: the value of "miles" should differ between ground units and air / sea units.

[knorke]

what about maps as planets use spherical coordinates like pa

[Silentwings]

Waaaaaait why did i never think of this before. All we ever see on screen is a local view. So screw 2d minimaps, they are totally backward. I want to fight in/on a Klein bottle. Now, goddamnit!

Or rather, I will be generous and accept to play on any non-orientable paracompact two dimenional smooth manifold. The first person to point out that I can already do this with lua and appropriate Spring.SetUnitPositions at map edges gets a cookie.

[enetheru]

what about maps as planets use spherical coordinates like pa

See now that might be seen as far fetched, but I kind of think this kind of thing would be a lot easier given that there is clear abstractions in place.

I think there is a lot of structural work to be done to support any feature requests.

Running water is 2014

I had an idea to fix that a while ago, http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=30705

[enetheru]

there's no reason AFAIK why the size of the roam patches are the size they are other than some arbitrary reason.

what I mean to say is that you could scale up or down the terrain size without effecting pathfinding complexity, texture, memory etc etc requirements.

in essence it would look like you have scaled down the size of the units and features on the map, but it would be the other way around and controlled by the map.

you could even optionally scale the features of the map too and have like a "mini" battle, or a "maxi" battle on your fav maps.

hmm found the flaw.. the ground grid for placing buildings is tied directly to the roam patches, poo..

[smoth]

That is an interesting point maybe start a thread in mapping about it? I would love to be able to scale my maps! Sometimes the polygonal detail is not needed

[SinbadEV]

x and y are the original coordinates of a screen so z became the "depth" so I think that the concept up y being "up" in game-graphics is a symptom of almost all the original 3D games being First Person... I would hazard that the first game to look "down" on 3D things might have been Total Annihilation.