Spring RTS Engine

On planetannihilation there is a topic about a TA3D version for linux. When I was checking the screens, I noticed that the creator added lava sprouting from lava-pools.

I thought maybe such additions would be nice. Not nessecarily gameplay-wise, but just to add a little more life to the world battles take place in.

I was thinking about:
- Lava jumping from lavapools/oceans
- Small dustclouds blowing on sand-terrain
- Simple foamwave-effects in oceans
- Falling rocks in mountainous terrain, where slopes are steep
- Maybe thumbleweeds blowing around
- Snowclouds blowing around on Icy terrains

- Sounds of howling wind, or waves, rustling leaves when x number of trees are x distance from the camera, that sort of stuff.

These things might add to the atmosphere of a map. Maybe later on other things can be added like sandstorms, or the icehail you'd sometimes get in the origional TA.

So, what do you think? These things might not be too hard to add, and they'd make the game-world a lot more life-like.

Some of the stuff can already be implemented, albeit in a round about way.

- Lava and dust COULD be implemented with a feature with an sfx emmiter that spurts the lava or blows the wind. Go ask in the Mod's or Map's section about moddeling features.
- Waves would REALLY add to the effect of the game. This would be VERY good. ALl that would be needed for basic waves is an extra layer on the water layer that's alpha is dependant on the terrain height. So the closer to 0(water level) the height is, the less transparent the wave layer is. Of course this would not give directional waves, but if the layer was an animation, then it would give the appearence of moving water
- Dunno how well this would work, but might be interesting
- Tumbleweeds and other plant stuff, while looking nice, would not be easy. They would look weird blowing up a cliff side, and if their stopped by cliffs, they would all gather in the dips in the walls. Again, would be interesting to see, but mabey not.
- Weather effects would be GREAT. Rain, snow, dust clouds, that type of this can really add to the experience
- Ive heard somewhere else that they are not considering ambiant sounds anytime soon, but again this could possibly be achived by a feature emmitting a sound, placed in the middle of a forest.

Over all good suggestions that definatley warrant a look over.

I want:

-Snow, Rain, Hail and Thunder, maybe meteor strikes.
-Lava Spouts would be nice
-Night/day effects, I'd really like night and day effects that are kinda crossing over like WC3 did, but much better, slower and more dramatic, wouldn't it be neat if it looked at the clock of your computer and based on that it decides what the time of day should look like, I.E. in real life it's 7:30 PM, the sun will go down and the sky will change colors accordingly, like WoW does, this could be an option in multiplayer, either default for the map, fast progressing time and real time, that'd be sweet! ofcourse the host's time will be used.
-Swaying trees, c'mon!
-surface water that can be created by rain, will slow down units, if the terrain is softer than normal the terrain will become soggy (depends on the hardness on the typemap)

The interesting thing is, implementing a day-night cycle would be totally easy if the game doesnt use a custom skybox.

Just time-dependingly animate the sun-position and adjust ambient.

Maelstrom wrote: - Tumbleweeds and other plant stuff, while looking nice, would not be easy. They would look weird blowing up a cliff side, and if their stopped by cliffs, they would all gather in the dips in the walls. Again, would be interesting to see, but mabey not.

Could the direction of the tumble weeds be the same as the direction the wind generators are facing, and the same speed too?

you could have both a sun and a moon, might get a little confusing though trying to implent that...

Anyway, i'd be all for it :)

IMSabbel wrote:The interesting thing is, implementing a day-night cycle would be totally easy if the game doesnt use a custom skybox.

Just time-dependingly animate the sun-position and adjust ambient.

It would still be possible with custom skyboxes. Just have a mapper defined sun decal paint on the custom skybox from lighting origin. Clouds will still paint infront of the sun just like they would with without the skybox there. The biggest problem would be skyboxes with planets and terrain scapes on them would have the sun paint over the image of solids, so mappers would need to learn to choose between skybox image features and dynamic time passage features.

Or position their light source on the skybox correctly so it didnt cross planets when ti went around.

allow .smd's to create multiple 'suns' or other terrestrial objects with their own orbits or whatever. Then someone can make a map of the desert planet in Pitch Black with the 3 suns!!!

FizWizz wrote:allow .smd's to create multiple 'suns' or other terrestrial objects with their own orbits or whatever. Then someone can make a map of the desert planet in Pitch Black with the 3 suns!!!

3 suns?!?! Ludicrousy. The hoards of alien hunters raging out of the little molehills would make base construction so difficult.

SwiftSpear wrote:

FizWizz wrote:allow .smd's to create multiple 'suns' or other terrestrial objects with their own orbits or whatever. Then someone can make a map of the desert planet in Pitch Black with the 3 suns!!!

3 suns?!?! Ludicrousy. The hoards of alien hunters raging out of the little molehills would make base construction so difficult.

IS that a refrence to some movie or somthing?

the first riddick film (Pitch Black) tbh i think that chronicles of riddick was way better :) is there any other riddick films? :D

Yeah Pitch Black ... was good one ... and i like story different from usual holywood schemes :)

Min3mat wrote:the first riddick film (Pitch Black) tbh i think that chronicles of riddick was way better :) is there any other riddick films? :D

No there isn't. Chronicals or riddick killed the series with it's suckiness... It's too bad, the xbox game was the first good game based off a movie ever made.

that escape from bucthers bay games is good? damn i wish i had a x-box... :/

It's available for PC too.

escape from butcher bay = best FPS game i ever played ! and i played em all :)

played it with PC and Xbox

was it made in sweden ? IT IS MADE IN SWEDEN :D