Spring RTS Engine

Elo. I'm making a mod in my little free time, and as i am a high poly modeler, i couldn't waste a chance to make something like to spring. Of course you'll not see units with 80k poly. But i'm aiming 800~3000 tris (i'm using 3Dsmax to make the UVs so i presume that i only can export in .3DS with tris). I want know if someone allready tried to make such heavy units to spring.. and if it'd run confortable on medium (and maybe low-medium) -end machines. I'll also use 2 or 3 'lvls' of LoD.. when i learn how to do ^^

Ok.. here's the first unit. It's a Gun Turret from the game M.A.X. Btw, one the races of my mod will have the whole (funcional) units from the original M.A.X.

It has ~1050 tris. And the mesh is quite heavy on the TURRET due to smoothing groups, i tried to optimise it but some curved surfaces has got crappy. The texture is not finished.. i only did the 'light map' as you see on this upspring screengrab

If you're going to be exporting from 3dsmax to .3ds via triangle export..
Beware smooth groups.. they get removed typically for .3ds exports.

Also make sure that you have the object Origins correct and centered before you export.. this will save you alot of time.

M.A.X. woo! I loved the units. And that turret is awesome.

What do you use to bake the lighting on? Or better yet, could someone write up a tutorial on that matter? Pretty please? :)

Any idea on what the mod will be like, gameplay wise? Or is this mostly just a modelling project?

Its always best to practice making your models as low poly as possible, just on principle. Just because you can use a bunch of polys, doesnt mean you should waste em! So best to keep that in mind.

Sadly, in spring, a lot of smaller details wont even be seen 90% of the time anyway.

If he wants to make a high poly mod with high pollies that are actually well used, he should!!! I'm really curius how it ends up. The only way to really know for sure if it's worth the extra polygons or not in the end is to go trough with it... most of the discussion on this is just specualation and "just in case blahblah" or someone making ubersmoth spheres and other stupid stuff.

If notthing else it will be uber great screenshots/vids!!! And high pollies can be used to make lower pollies textures later.

That is a really nice looking turret. Good luck.

Good luck with your project, it shouldn't cause much lag.

There's some nice things to hear ppl. Thx for the coments and tips. Is also nice see something else that played M.A.X. here.

rattle, the tut is HERE :D

will post some progress as soon as i get. Unfortunately i have no much time to spend here =/

About gameplay stuff. This wont be a flooder mod. No fuel system. No 'equal' factions with diferent 'sthetics' and 10 more or less cost/dmg/range or anything than other.

My purpose is do 4 totally diferent races, but i have my foot on the ground and know that i don't have all time in the world to work on it.

Btw i have some questions that are very critical to put my ideas alive:

Could MEXes have diferent extracting ranges? Ex: the lvl1 MEX with 100 range and the MOHOMEX with 5000. (as range i mean the 'red circle' radius and not the amount of extration)

Anyone has discovered a way to make 'unit requeriments'? Ex: to build a seer (arm mobile radar, i think) you need first build a adv radar tower.

I'll ask some more when i remember

See you

lgustavomp wrote:Btw i have some questions that are very critical to put my ideas alive:

Could MEXes have diferent extracting ranges? Ex: the lvl1 MEX with 100 range and the MOHOMEX with 5000. (as range i mean the 'red circle' radius and not the amount of extration)

Anyone has discovered a way to make 'unit requeriments'? Ex: to build a seer (arm mobile radar, i think) you need first build a adv radar tower.
See you

Not sure about the first one but the second one can be done with lua. As to how ull have to go poke someone with a bit more knowledge in the area.

lgustavomp
Both of your requests can be done using the LuaRules script
(which will be available in the next release).

Mex range and depth can be changed dynamically using the
Spring.SetUnitMetalExtraction(unidID, depth [, range]) call.
Use the UnitFinished() call-in to set it the first time.

LuaRules can block units from being built, but I'm not sure
exactly what you want to do with the unit requirements. Using
your example: do you want to block seers from being built if
an adv rad tower does not currently exist, has never existed,
has existed and been functional?

You could also set it up so that you have spatial requirements
(unit of type X must be built close to a unit of type Y). You could
also do the opposite number to keep things clear of dangerous
objects.

thx for the replyes

trepan. The requirement system would be very simple.

A C&C RA example: You build a War Factory, but you can't buy Mamoths while you don't build a Tech Center.

If you don't played C&C.. maybe you do StarCraft: You have a Factory but only can do Goliaths when you build an Armory.

If you lose the Tech Center or Armory, you lose the ability to build those units.

btw, you have an idea about when you'll release the new version?