Spring RTS Engine

Ok guys this thread is very simple. In the latest version of spring we were given proper support(I have not tested it but hear it works) for map dependencies. Which means a feature library can be created and more importantly that means that that I can break feature placer out of gundam so you guys can use it all you want for other things.

What the fuck IS feature placer, why do I care?
Feature placer is 2 parts, the actual in game placement tool and the actual lua to place features in game.

how does it work?
It pulls any and all features in from your feature dir and will allow you to place them as in game units which immediately die and give you the feature desired. These features can then be exported as a feature file which can be loaded by the actual placer lua which will place your feature in game.

SO here is the deal, I am not working on it right now but probably will be after next gundam release.

So currently it has the following features:

() You can setup randomized spawners
() random rotation support
() cluster placement with jitter
() export feature placement file functionality
() creates features at map load meaning you can work with map options to have different features based on the map options.

currently planned additions to feature placer:

() Auto save
() load features from file
() ui for save buttons
() scale settings, being able to show only specific features in a specific scale set so you can better craft your world without having to sort through features that do not make sense next to other features.

Limitations

() feature placement in game is set to place in the same grid the player has. The mapconv tool can place in 1/2 footprint units. This is something I cannot help. Sorry.


here is a video showing some of the features available.


Mods/games, will be refereed to as projects for simplicity's sake.

If content creators integrate it into their project you will be able to setup projects specific features(such as corpses for say ba) or neutral units in the case of gundam!

So thing is I have not really suggested anyone integrating feature placer into their project as it has been a work in progress. Before I expand feature placer further help the other content devs support project specific files I want to see what features the mappers are looking for.

Limitations on requests: Try and avoid anything that would a unit requiring cegs and weapons as these things run into issues with mod specific content and for ease of use I will not support them. It is not impossible but I feel it should be on the project specific spawner stuff.

This is not a thread to hype people up about feature placer it is one that I am trying to create a dialogue with mappers so I can see the sort of things you will need.

So what sort of functionality would you guys like to see?

I would like random rotation of features enablable with a toggle button.

Also, you may somehow get past the 16 elmo grid with placing in /cheat. /give places down to the elmo.

() export feature placement file functionality

This file can currently be directly fed into mapconv, so that no additional script support is needed.

Beherith wrote:I would like random rotation of features enablable with a toggle button.

already is :)

Guys, I cannot be SOO brilliant that I just have all the ideas here. So come on throw some ideas out there for stuff you might be able to use/want.

i dont make maps but maybe thats usefull:
maybe an option not to spawn features on specific terrain?
ie no trees in water, cactus only on "sand" terrain, no buildings on cliffs etc.

after some consideration...

"feature by color"... define a color... lets say green... and then feature placer will look across the map and randomly place some plants in some green areas

perhaps something along the same vein for "underwater" features

also something for me that would be super duper useful would be a "files list" for when im done; something like a text file to tell me "ok you need to put x file here and y file here" for the dumped tdf to work (for making standalone maps)

maybe its already that easy, idk, but when i mucked with FP before i couldnt figure it out

well the hope is that I can setup a feature pack to release with feature placer. that way we can cut our map file sizes down. i don't know about you but I have gigs of maps.

as far as auto placement by elevation or color, I am pretty sure I can do elevation but color I am not so sure of.

I'd suggest livestock, but I guess that comes under 'neutral units for gundam'

Thing is floz, you can add live stock units into s44, then add a feature placer mutator for s44 and if you set them to custompara.faction=neutral, they are going to show up as placeable units in feature placer.

@kai, no need for random areas, it's actually more simple to use the built in cluster function.

Also, what smoth is talking about is an FP dependency, so there would be no need to find the objects/textures/defs. All you would need to do is call the FP as a dependency in your map.

Well I was going to do something like a sort of "spring unified feature pack" similar to the feature packs we had in ota. The idea is that in order to do such a thing I need to go ahead and decide on tags so that I can add them where appropriate. That way we can have all features available if we want but strict control on scale if we also want.

Adding grass would be nice, if it's not in already.

I think I can place grass. How would you want it done? like squares or circles?

Circles could probably help it look more natural. Squares would look too artificial.

Circle might be best yeah... And some random varying of the amount of grass within the designated area would be cool.

If you want to include grass placer then you really need to add opacity and jitter, otherwise its just better to do with photoshop...

opacity?

Yes I mean, Isn't the density of the grass defined by the color tone?

Things like density and jitter can be done easily. I already did it(see video) for features.