Spring RTS Engine

On some maps when you turn los view on both the minimap and the map itself look very dark.
BD made some color alterations to Zergling's Obama shader and i was thinking if maybe the modified shader would be a better solution to LOS view.
Here are 2 comparisons on a dark map,without minimap though cause its still a shader and not the los system:

With regular los view turned on:


TA shader:


With the TA shader everything in los will have normal bright colors.

bigger:
http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/552/tashader.jpg
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/8720/losji.jpg

Source? How does radar look like?

I like this, but what about comet etc?

SirMaverick wrote:Source? How does radar look like?

It doesn't look like anything.

http://pastebin.com/m1053c572

Saktoth wrote:I like this, but what about comet etc?

It's less promising on comet although maybe the colors can be played with to achieve a stronger contrast even on grey maps.
Needs testing but it has to first be implemented as the losless view otherwise its hard to see how contrasted it is,

i dont understand? it makes it black and white?

its kind of racist imo...

Gota wrote:

Saktoth wrote:I like this, but what about comet etc?

It's less promising on comet although maybe the colors can be played with to achieve a stronger contrast even on grey maps.
Needs testing but it has to first be implemented as the losless view otherwise its hard to see how contrasted it is,

Id suggest less contrast, duller.

This needs an engine patch.

Why in the world are you saying that?

lurker wrote:Why in the world are you saying that?

How will you insert it into the los system?

You wouldn't insert it into anything, you'd use Lua.

Forboding Angel wrote:You wouldn't insert it into anything, you'd use Lua.

Yes youd use lua to replace or "insert" the ta shader instead of the current way the los works.
However I was told its not possible to do cause of engine limitation.

You have already shown the shader on the map in game... Lua has access to LOS details... why not use Lua to apply the shader to parts of the map not in LOS?

sure it wouldn't be tied to "L" view but just having it as a widget that get's turned off an on should be good enough.

basic use my configuration for loscolor-widget, it shows radar red and jammer blue. but u dont see the los now (lil bit pitty, but looks better than the original)

I don't like the idea of radar and jammer view..
Those 2 can be estimated easily and only on the rarest of occasions do i find myself in need of a "radar view" not to mention is makes it ugly to play the game and takes away from the map's feel.

Gota wrote:I don't like the idea of radar and jammer view.

I like to know my radar coverage without pressing a button.

SirMaverick wrote:

Gota wrote:I don't like the idea of radar and jammer view.

I like to know my radar coverage without pressing a button.

in 99% of cases i know how much i cover with my radars.
Even on Comet 1v1 i can estimate my radar coverage based on the locations of my radars...
In team games the amount of space you usually posses is not big thus 1-2 radars will cover your entire front lines.Obviously hills will block radar...
If the game could read my mind and in that 1%,when I need to see radar coverage, toggle radar view on,that would be cool,but I don't think its worth destructing the visual feel of the game otherwise.

Spring is already representing LOS, Radar Etc. as a 2D mesh... there is a proposal that would also be helpful to this issue too...

What I think would be kinda groovy was if you had a "hovering grid" rendered one elmo over the map... basically a duplicate of the map itself, except instead of a texture you would have "LOS" represented by clear squares and not LOS by a 50% Alpha Gray squares. Other sensor coverage would be the lines of the grid... red for coverage type 1, green for coverage type 2, blue for coverage type 3... so unsensed terrain would be black, coverage type 1+2 would be yellow, 1+3 would be magenta, 2+3 would be cyan and 1+2+3 would be white... one would need to get a little more creative if you had more then 4 sensor types... also, being able to hide some or all of this grid (for example a square covered by ALL available forms of sensor might just be no lines no texture instead of no texture and white lines)

Gota wrote:in 99% of cases i know how much i cover with my radars.
Even on Comet 1v1 i can estimate my radar coverage based on the locations of my radars...

I don't remember where I placed my radars and when the enemy kills which radar. All I know is the current radar coverage.

If the game could read my mind and in that 1%,when I need to see radar coverage, toggle radar view on,that would be cool,but I don't think its worth destructing the visual feel of the game otherwise.

I don't have any destruction of the visual feel of the game.

los view is a wonderful tool
radar coverage isnt always obviou if youre concentrating on something else
and once in a while i get curious to see if my dsd teammates up north put up radar

besides
los view + semicolonlooks nice enough for me