Spring RTS Engine

split from http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=29000

Forboding Angel wrote:Well, thanks to knorke, if you looked at the map development page in the wiki, you would have gotten no decent information.

hurr durr. you deleted the "navigation page" for map making and overwrote it with your own unfinished tutorial.
So I moved your text to its own page, restored the navigation page and added a link to your stuff.
(like you should have done it in the first place)

knorke wrote:hurr durr. you deleted the "navigation page" for map making and overwrote it with your own unfinished tutorial.

God, you are so clueless. Everything on your little "new" page was already on the original page that I did.

EVERYTHING

Now, stop fucking with the map development page unless you have something useful to contribute.

Sidenote: Ethernu, you are a badass, a gentleman, and a scholar! Thanks for all your work on the mapinfo.lua page!

Everything on your little "new" page was already on the original page that I did.

As I wrote: I moved your text to its own page because you overwrote another page.

Map_development has always been a page that links to other pages about mapping.
Navigation page, landing page, portal start page, whatever hip name you want to call it:
It linked to programs, tutorials, description of files etc.

Then you replaced it with a tutorial, that describes one way to make maps.

What you did was like going to AI:Development and replace it with one text about Lua AIs.

That is excactly the reason why the wiki is/was so shitty, people throwing in their random stuff but never bother to link it together with some structure.

But you won't understand anyway, you have shown enough times you are unable to use a manual so how should you be to write one.
Or use a preview button and not fuck up history of all pages when you click save 3 times a minute. Makes it superannoying to follow edits.

Clicking save 3 times a minute?
I thought emmanuel was using the wiki in a funny way but I dont even know what that is.

Forboding Angel wrote:Sidenote: Ethernu, you are a badass, a gentleman, and a scholar! Thanks for all your work on the mapinfo.lua page!

why thank you :D, you should see the work that flozi has been putting into the other pages, he is a machine.

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the way I see it is there are a few different types of documentation
* reference/factual/dry
* howto/guide/tutorial
* tips/advice

A mix of these ways would cover most people's needs.

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http://springrts.com/wiki/Enetheru:mapping2
this is something I had been working on for my own purposes because I needed to collect my thoughts, and didn't want to have to trawl the forums, or the docs every time I wanted to double check something specific.

but yeah, work has been busy so I haven't had time over the last few weeks except to put in my useless 2c on a subject that already has too much blah..

Not even going to address knorke's post other than in passing, because it's a load of BS.

@ethernu, I agree.
In the case of mapping, it's a little different from any of the other sections, because when it comes to mapping, there isn't a whole lot of information needed.

You don't need to know the entire history of mapconv, or how we figured out that compression is bullshit, or how "sm2" (btw, knorke, it's "smf", if you want to argue about silly shit), almost became sm3 but then that was abandoned and then how ssmf came to the fore.

Or how back in the day we had to generate maps in tilesets and then stitch the tiles together using grout, being careful to never actually try to load up the texture map in an image editor because it required too much memory.

No, we don't need any of that shit.

What we need is a listing of what you need, and how to assemble it, which is exactly what I wrote. I didn't explain how to make a texture, or what tools to use on it (other than passing references).

@everyone
It isn't our job to teach people how to use an image editor, or terrain generation software. It is our job to explain how to assemble what you have into something that will help you reach your goal (in this case, a working map).

A map development page full of useless as shit links is NOT the way to do it.

This is previously what the map development page was (this is after I added the outdated and deprecated tags): http://springrts.com/mediawiki/index.ph ... ldid=25080

For those of you not logged into the wiki:



An entire page of links. 95% of which were bullshit and useless.

I do think the page needs to be re thought. I didn't find it useful beyond initial basic map making. it is windows specific. and a pain to use as a reference when you forget something. and it deals with a very small she set of map capabilities.

Just for the record, I learnt how to make maps during the last few months and I was very glad of having *lots* of options for tutorials, rather than just one.

Heres why: These tutorials invariably contain mistakes, things that doesn't work on some computers, pieces of commercial software that only some people have bought, things only some mapmakers want to use, information only some people need etc etc.

So basically, +1 to knorke. @forb: Your guide is useful and it should be online but THE OLD FORMAT FOR THE MAP WIKI WAS BETTER!

Here's a list of some things I don't like about the map_development page currently up.

1) One of the first steps is telling you how to compile a map. This is pretty confusing for someone reading about mapmaking for the first time.

Also, the example commandline for mapconv should be as simple as possible, so remove -z -sinc and -l. For example, beheriths example.bat:

mapconv --help
MapConv -i -c 0.7 -x 500 -n -100 -o "Map name with spaces.smf" -m metalmap.bmp -t texturemap.bmp -a heightmap.png -f features.bmp
pause

2) I don't think its very helpful to start talking about the correct dimensions of texture/height/metal maps etc before you've actually explained what each one is for.

3) Many people make maps and don't use blueprint to do it and your tutorial gives barely any descrpition of the many other ways - see above about the problem of only describing your own way of doing things.

4) Having stuff about ssmf in the first (and only :/) available tutorial people will read is ridiculous - you don't need or want it around to bother you while you're learning how to make maps.

5) You're advising people to use springfeatures.sdz - in practice nobody uses this except mapmakers. If people want their map to be played atm they need to not depend on it.

6) The guidance on mapinfo.lua is very useful but much too complicated for someone trying to get into mapmaking.

7) The 'minimal bare bones template' you describe at the end is, imho, well after the point at which a newbie (like I was, the first time I read the map wiki) would have given up. Also, if you want to offer something like that (and it would have been very handy) don't insult your reader with a wall of text and offer then a download link to a bare bones example.

I'd never have figured out how to make maps with the map_development page that's there right now. You need to (1) teach newbies and (2) offer reference pages for experience people - this is not possible to do in a single 'tutorial'.

Don't make me stab you. It's not a fucking tutorial.

If it was a tutorial, it would actually teach you how to do shit.

The advantages of ssmf mapping are far superior to anything else. Pushing the old method is idiotic. Newbie mappers need to learn how to do it right.

Sounds like you learned how to do it wrong.

What is described on that page, is exactly what you need, in the order that you need it.

@everyone
It isn't our job to teach people how to use an image editor, or terrain generation software. It is our job to explain how to assemble what you have into something that will help you reach your goal (in this case, a working map).

Its funny how you get it right, when you try to teach everyone what is wrong! More lectures from Forb, if we glue them together, delete the !s, and line them up a decent tutorial on doing tutorials might come out of this.

Nobody is telling that ssmf isnt ruling the day currently, and yet it has also certainly worked like a shrink ray on the mapping comunity. Which is not a good thing, because of many shots fired, only small fragments and shrapnells hit the target, and as dsd, hot stepper and speedmetall showed, what people percive as fun.. is not always related to stunning visuals.

OK so I want to see what people think of these perspectives..

spring engine is generic. what is 'needed' is whatever is the most minimal subset of features to get something functional. ie loaded without crashing.

the exiating games however define much larger subset of features to make them functional. ( sometimes unique to a game)

and what's accepted as average quality map defines even more.

exceptional maps go beyond all of that with Lua scripting etc.

at the moment would you agree that the page serve for average quality maps for existing games for windows only? and does not yet serve a greater purpose of teaching/informing about the other perspectives?

and how should the other perspectives be represented?

what about people wishing to develop original project that doesn't relate to existing games. I know its a rare niche.

I should learn to stay away from this topic :) since it elicits such strong reactions. sigh. oh well.

@forb:

It's not a fucking tutorial.

Then, as knorke said, don't remove the tutorials because otherwise no one will learn to make maps.

As I said above... what you've written is useful and should be online somewhere. But it doesn't do the full job of the wiki and no single document ever will. See http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=27779 for instructions from on high.

The advantages of ssmf mapping are far superior to anything else. Pushing the old method is idiotic. Newbie mappers need to learn how to do it right. Sounds like you learned how to do it wrong.

Insulting me won't make your wiki better. If you read with more care you'd spot that what I said is: it's unreasonable to try and teach newbs ssmf at the same time as making their first map. I didn't say that I, or anyone else, should not use ssmf, nor did I push the 'old method' (whatever you think that is). The point is that mapmakers DO need to learn ssmf, they just don't need to learn it early on.

Most of the regularly played maps online don't use ssmf. Your opinion that ssmf is a necessary part of every map is not shared by the community.

What is described on that page, is exactly what you need, in the order that you need it.

I make maps which are currently played online. I am one of the (few) target users for this wiki. What you have written is not what I need.

The name of that page is "Map Development"
It is not "How make a map with SSMF"

The "Map Development" page can link to "How make a map with SSMF", but should not be replaced by it.

I do not understand how that can be discussed?

http://springrts.com/wiki/Spring:SiteMapThoughts

^ By no means an exhaustive sitemap but rather the overview of a proposed structure.

A top level 'Mapping Portal' page is a necessity imo.

Vote FLOZi for Wiki Dictator.

SIEG... FLOZI FOR MIEN KAMPFY CHAIR

whoever has edited it last (or somebody at some point) removed a lot of the "baby steps" information that i used to create my first maps, and a lot of the tutorials.... unless they are somewhere else... but I don't see them

If we were to send the wiki page back in time, all of my maps would never have existed, because there is no practical demonstration on the page.

Simply put... I want:



But instead there is:

It isn't our job to teach people how to use an image editor, or terrain generation software. It is our job to explain how to assemble what you have into something that will help you reach your goal (in this case, a working map).

Why not? It's too much to expect someone to look at a spring map and immediately grasp the concept. Even with many years of mapping experience in other engines, I didn't have a clue about how a spring map worked before I started. The mapmaking wiki should contain ALL relevant information. "Outdated" links all contained important and relevant insight into how the map format works, and how it has been improved over time.

This statement also assumes that someone is coming to the wiki page with all of the required elements already made. It makes no allowance for people arriving with no completed textures or heightmaps and little-to-no knowledge of the format.

I can appreciate that the wiki needs a lot of work, but I'll never be in favour of streamlining and culling information.

edit:

The advantages of ssmf mapping are far superior to anything else. Pushing the old method is idiotic. Newbie mappers need to learn how to do it right.

why? I honestly don't know... seems like a case of opinion/method. And I've made an assload of maps and been happy with the results. Maybe writing about the differences between the formats would be a good idea; It's silly to say something is "far superior" without justification.

edit: I realize I may be coming off as a pompous ass demanding what -I- want but I figure this thread has diverged into an assessment of the current state of the mapping wiki, and as someone who's had to refer back to it on every map I've ever made I have to get my opinion in the pile. Everyone wants different things; No reason to exclude anything as long as it's all nicely organized

Certainly I appreciate the effort to update and work on the wiki pages

FLOZi wrote:Vote FLOZi for Wiki Dictator.

You have my support!

I just tried to follow it and it gave me a headache... and I actually knew what I was doing at some point.

also WTF is this about?

Imo, (and I'm not a map maker), we should just build a tool that allows users to edit maps ingame, much like most other popular games do it (and not just AAA ones, new open source ones like 0AD as well f.e).

I've already toyed with doing something like that, creating a heightmap editor is easy (I've done it), texture editing seemed a bit harder so I postponed that part, but it seemed doable (Pako sent me a mostly working implementation of his). Features are also easy to manipulate (I've done that too). Setting starting positions is also trivial - just haven't bothered with it as skirmish maps weren't my main goal.

I haven't touched that part a while now, but I think I predicted some potential limitations of engine control over maps (correct me if I'm wrong):

• Cannot modify map size once it's loaded.
• Cannot modify metal map.

Also not sure about what this SSMF is or whether Skyboxes can be changed.

Main benefits of building an ingame map editor are full platform support and WYSIWYG view. Also, code you create may get used in other projects.

It e iulf requir being able to use meshes for cliffs etc. Also the way spring maps are done rihht now is hugely bloated.. spesking of that I need to play with some of the new map lua

so basically a 3d editor (like zero-k) and some decal dropping brush, who stores the dropped data, and compiles the resulting heightmap into something ssmf like?