Direct Memory Access (beta)

[zwzsg]

Direct Memory Access 0.5c ---------- Direct Memory Access 0.5e

[AF]

Very nice

[Boirunner]

this map is great! i love the blue highways, the cool texture you get when you zoom close in. It also play really nice. the geos being on hills makes it a real investment to kill them.

it has too many geos for 1vs1 play imho, but 2 vs 2 and 3 vs 3 are both terrific. a++ would play again.

[AF]

I like the heights specifically, it looks more 'realistic' than the shallow maps forced on us by certain mods.

[zwzsg]

Kinda forgot the text:

This map was designed for the mod Kernel Panic.

The idea was to have a medium-large map, geared for team games, with some interesting ramps, and a good use of the typemap:
Black/Yellow is normal
Red gives /4 slowdown
Blue give x4 speedup
It is to be noted that while the blue lane is often the quickest way between two points, Spring's pathfinder often fail at realising it (known bug, it handles slow terrain but not fast terrain), so you may have to issues some extra waypoint to take full advantage of it.

As I was making it, I genuinly couldn't decided if the green thing should be inside or beyond the large yellow ramp, so made the two variants. I had put them both in same sd7 for more convenience, sadly I realised right before uploading that the lobby doesn't support two maps in same archive, so add to split. Sorry about that. It's named beta because before proper online testing I thought my ramps were too simple and thought about redoing a more complex multi-level ramp system, with less cliffs and more "flat pyramids" / "ramps in all direction", but after playing quite a lot of KP:C games on it, I realised it plays very well enough, the ramp were large enough for units to not clog them up, and having only one way to attack the geo made for more interesting tactical choices than geo spot you walk through anyway. And since I currently don't see what else to add, it might actually be the final, once you help me decide which layout gives best gameplay, make the tunnel be used most, etc...

Also, while designed for KP mods, it should be playable under any other mod, as I took 1 min gaving it metal: even concentration, large radius, +1.4M with standard mexx.

Oh, and filesize is extra super small, about a THOUSAND time smaller than your standard EESF map.

[Forboding Angel]

You probably aren't aware that typemaps severely screw over springs pathfinding.

BTW, nice stab with the filesize. Congratulations, you can make a grid in photoshop, gee, I'm proud of you.

[Peet]

I saw the name of the thread and I thought you'd made some sort of bos witchery to act as a memory offset editor >_<

[zwzsg]

You probably aren't aware that typemaps severely screw over springs pathfinding.

As my previous post clearly indicate, I am aware. Althought I disagree with the "severely".

Slow terrain is handled perfectly, the pathing choose the fastest path even if it requires going out to yellow and back to red.

It's just that the pathing ignore the benefit of speedy terrain. But I figured having to manually direct unit to the speedy lane was ok, offer a reward for the tricky players. During the games I played, I even had a few people telling me that I was wrong and that units did use the blue lane by themselves....

[rattle]

Wrong thread sorry.

Nice map by the way, the detail texture is neat.

[tombom]

During the games I played, I even had a few people telling me that I was wrong and that units did use the blue lane by themselves....

It's definitely used a lot but might not be used all the time when it should be.

Great job on the map. It looks really nice, the typemaps are interesting and the design is pretty original.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

great map, good job

[knorke]

grid lines that are further away from the camera get all funny and flicker when you move the view around.

its also visible on this screenshot:
http://spring.unknown-files.net/picture/2871/4/

also the grid on the cliffs looks ugly, maybe make it just one color there?
http://spring.unknown-files.net/picture/2871/4/

[hunterw]

good ideas, ought to offer the most varied games yet for kernel panic

[aGorm]

grid lines that are further away from the camera get all funny and flicker when you move the view around.

its also visible on this screenshot:
http://spring.unknown-files.net/picture/2871/4/

also the grid on the cliffs looks ugly, maybe make it just one color there?
http://spring.unknown-files.net/picture/2871/4/

Depends on how good your graphics card is (and probablie what make)

aGorm

[knorke]

some 6800.

but not sure if thats an excuse?

[smoth]

it is the mip levels changing in and out man.

[Cabbage]

any chance of releasing some of these KP maps with a normal metal map aswell? Won't affect KP games and will allow us to plai BA etc ^^

[zwzsg]

Nice map by the way, the detail texture is neat.

I made it myself!

grid lines that are further away from the camera get all funny and flicker when you move the view around.

Until someone code us some trilinear refiltering or whatever the proper name is, this is inevitable with any kind of textures with patterns. But when actually playing, as opposed to screenshoting, I have my resolution set high, my camera turned to top-down view, and not too high, and there it doesn't show as much as one those screenshots made at ground level. Oh, and possibly Spring already has an option to enable filtering, in in settings.exe or buried in some commands or for certain cards only.

also the grid on the cliffs looks ugly, maybe make it just one color there?

Yes, I'm aware vertical cliff looks ugly. On that map, I tried to limit the uglyness by making sure cliff are actually spanning one "yellow square" wide (32 pixels on texture map, 4 pixels on heightmap), and even two "yellow square" (8 pixels on the heightmap) for the high towers. I guess this wasn't enough and I'll have to widen them more. Also, I made sure most tall cliff have an added yellow 1 pixel line in the middle of the "yellow square", to counter the grid being overelongated on cliff. However, the stretchcing on the cliffs still is ugly. Indeed, using flat color on the cliffs would solve that. However, I decided against it, because otherwise, in a "from below" angled view, you wouldn't be able to see the top edge anymore, especially if both the cliff and sky are flat black. Still, I almost used color for the inside the green-blue tunnel (which account for very few of that map cliffs, I reckon). Also, it should be noted you don't have to use full flat, the vertical lines can remains, a they'll remain crisp, it's only the horizontal lines that needs removed. Anyway, I think the best option would be to make beveled edge at the top, just so I can paint my yellow line in such a way it can be seen from below yet doesn't stretch mutch, and only have the full vertical cliff, with no horizontal lines but still the vertical ones, for the rest of the cliff. Would take some more work, but good maps come at that price. Whatever the way, the detail texture still would show stretched, but hopefully the detailtex is light enough that when stretched it blurs into nothingness. And of course, there's still the option of covering cliff with feature, but I'd rather not.

any chance of releasing some of these KP maps with a normal metal map aswell? Won't affect KP games and will allow us to plai BA etc ^^

I gave it some metal, so it should be playable with other mod. I'd like to have the other KP maps with metal distribution, however, I don't have the source image used to make them. Marble Madness should be very easy to remake, and I'd even improve it. But for major madness, unless Runecrafter gives me his tex, I can't edit it. And then, I'm not sure it's worth the confusion that would be created by releasing new versions of them.

I still don't know which between e and c I should keep, and am under the impression people d/l E more only because they think it's a version number letter. Maybe I shouldn't bother with such a silly question and simply flip a coin, as even after playing some real games I failed to feel how they differ.

[Erom]

Just wanted to let you know, the pathfinding is def. using the blue speedup on my computer. If you order a bot to move on flat ground in a straight line near the blue, the units divert to the blue, move, and back to the yellow, making a U. So I'd say it works fine.