Wanted: Deciduous Tree Models

[Argh]

Thanks. Keep in mind that it won't be long before I will be putting out the first public betas, and then you'll get to play with it. It's sort've like using L3DT, in a way. It's not terribly hard to adjust what it does or anything, the main challenge was getting it to bloody work in the first place.

I just want to get a few more pieces of content done (namely, some generic buildings) so that we can have some "towns"... then, it's pretty much up to the mapping community to start getting together and making content for this. If that happens, we'll have fairly detailed procedural stuff combined with custom stuff to make some really interesting, professional-looking maps.

[Forboding Angel]

Daddy Liek!

[LOrDo]

I look forward to the public release.

[LathanStanley]

AAAAHAHH!!

you farmed all the trees off me swamp!



nah its cool, I'm loving the ability this thing can do argh! ubar cookie to you!

and I'm re-building my computer this weekend... the quad core Q9450 I was gonna get was effing backordered til march .. grumble... damn you Intel!... but alas, the prescott I still have will fit in the socket for now good enough to hold me over for the next bit..

but yah, when I get the computer running this weekend, I'll catch you on TS or TeamTalk or something, and I'll set up "most" if not all my buildings... I've got about 18 or so if my memory serves me right, and they are all textured...

(they are still missing destruction sequences though )

[smoth]

so we are getting you sexy texan voice in TT once again?

[Gabba]

What would be wonderful (one of my old dreams for Spring) would be if some of those features provided some cloaking, radar cover or something of the sort. It would make maps more interesting tactically because you could set up some small units in ambush in a town or woods.

Maybe that implies some size check, though, because hiding a Krogoth in a village would definitely be weird.

All in all, very nice work, I love procedurally generated stuff.

[yuritch]

What would be wonderful (one of my old dreams for Spring) would be if some of those features provided some cloaking, radar cover or something of the sort.

That would mean features (and units) effecting LOS. Currently only the terrain can do that AFAIK. Can be rather interesting as well, but I'd imagine CPU load for that would be heavy - it's comparable to complex shadows, only it runs not once per frame per unit/feature (only 1 sun in the sky), but once per frame per unit/feature for every unit that has the feature in LOS.

[Guessmyname]

radar cover is easy: make the 'feature' a unit with radar jamming capabilities

[Gabba]

radar cover is easy: make the 'feature' a unit with radar jamming capabilities

interesting: I wonder if Spring allows for a jammer that jams units from all players.

That would mean features (and units) effecting LOS. Currently only the terrain can do that AFAIK. Can be rather interesting as well, but I'd imagine CPU load for that would be heavy - it's comparable to complex shadows, only it runs not once per frame per unit/feature (only 1 sun in the sky), but once per frame per unit/feature for every unit that has the feature in LOS.

Actually, one of my other ideas was to have a stealth/cloak map layer. More or less the same idea as the current terrain type layer (that I suggested back then) that can affect unit speed. You'd set specific zones that give you cover, and you'd put features on top so it would make sense to have that cover.

[Peet]

radar cover is easy: make the 'feature' a unit with radar jamming capabilities

interesting: I wonder if Spring allows for a jammer that jams units from all players.

They all do that.

[Gabba]

radar cover is easy: make the 'feature' a unit with radar jamming capabilities

interesting: I wonder if Spring allows for a jammer that jams units from all players.

They all do that.

I should have remembered that: I think I was pushing for that feature too.

Hopefully a mapper will pick up the idea and make a prototype to see if it makes for fun gameplay. Does Spring:1944 use radar at all?

[Saktoth]

CA has cloaking fields, that cloak all units within the field. You could stick that on a gaia tree unit and have areas that cloak any units entering them. It would be nice as a 'gimmick' but id be careful of overusing it, i dont know if its a dynamic that would benefit every map. Usually its better to just rely on good design.

All we need now is a randomly terraformed map so we have a random height map, and we're set (Ive been trying to rope one of CA's lua devs into doing this for ages).

[Argh]

All we need now is a randomly terraformed map so we have a random height map

This is already "possible", and I've messed with it a bit, but it won't run at a technically-acceptable framerate, because you can't just "terraform"- you need to vary the textures being displayed, or it'll just look lame. Therein lies the rub.

I've already looked at this a bit, and wasn't really happy with it as a solution. Maybe with Trepan's very fast drawing stuff he's introduced, but I haven't got the time to look into how to use that to draw a decal right now.

[Guessmyname]

It could work if the texture was very simple, ie a desert sands map with varying hills etc, or a woodland map with a grassy texture, random slopes and this random feature placer

[Erom]

Or if you use features for edges. Drop a "cliff face" feature wherever the slope map exceeds a certain value.

EDIT: If I was making some building for World Builder, what texture size should I be using? Are 4 structures using a 512x512 better or worse than using 4 256x256's?

[Vadi]

I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but did you check out this?

http://dryad.stanford.edu/

It's designed to generate realistically looking 3d trees (they have a huge scientific database that they generate they from)