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planets as maps

Posted: 08 Jun 2013, 20:37
by jamerlan
Would be AWESOME to play not on flat maps but on planets as here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omg0JWIgJv4

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 08 Jun 2013, 20:38
by smoth
Do Not Want.

Also requested before, would require massive reworks.

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 08 Jun 2013, 21:00
by Silentwings
Hmm .. what's so good about spherical maps? (& while we're at it, why not make a circular map and implement teleportation on the boundaries so as we can play in the projective plane...?)

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 08 Jun 2013, 21:30
by AntiAllez

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 08 Jun 2013, 22:21
by luckywaldo7
How about support for hyperbolic maps?

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 08 Jun 2013, 23:56
by PicassoCT
There was a shadder that made the map look like a sphere..

Also please dont take any hostility personal. If we could change without a complete rewrite- i guess we would. So its demanding from a plumtree to grow banannas.

Still if you have interesting gameplay ideas, we would love to hear how you would realize them. Posting codesnippets is always welcome.

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 10 Jun 2013, 04:59
by Forboding Angel
I want elliptical maps!

Jesus, when are people going to figure out that playing on planetoids is going to be the most epic pain in the ass?

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 10 Jun 2013, 09:13
by PicassoCT
Eppileptical maps- if you look on the water, suddenly your mouse spasms and you wake up with game over and foam on your mouth!

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 10 Jun 2013, 10:02
by jamerlan
We had strategy with planets already: Populous the Beginning
and it was AWESOME
http://youtu.be/7eqvOsZlEcc

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 10 Jun 2013, 11:16
by PicassoCT
a wild AF appears..

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 12 Jun 2013, 18:52
by Google_Frog
jamerlan by planet do you mean a torus or a sphere? This feature request is ambiguous so lets just go an implement spring on an arbitrary manifold

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 12 Jun 2013, 19:18
by SinbadEV
Why do a spheroid or toroid when you can have Klein Bottle Maps! Non-Euclidean Surfaces FTW!

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 18 Jun 2013, 00:24
by AF
jamerlan wrote:We had strategy with planets already: Populous the Beginning
and it was AWESOME
http://youtu.be/7eqvOsZlEcc
As Picasso has predicted I arise again for the annual sphere world populous thread.

Populous did not have spherical maps

Go look at the maps outside of the populous engine, they're square. Try playing the game at a high resolution, you'll see how they do it.

Even try to figure out how they got a world built on squares where the squares aren't deformed in any way, it's not possible.

Populous maps are square, and they wrap around at the top <->bottom and left <-> right. The terrain is then rendered curved on screen while making sure you can only see so much of it to preserve the illusion of a sphere.

Ofcourse with some sim modifications, a bit of rendering, and hefty limitations on the camera, we could do this in spring, but it would be weird and silly.


PA maps are a bit odd, I played a game, it was deceptive, the map was big yet it didn't look big, and I underestimated the size of what seemed like a small planet.

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 18 Jun 2013, 00:50
by PicassoCT
I feel like a sole survivor of a nuclear sphereocaust..

We couldnt avoid it, and all we can do is lament it, the monthly topic rotation drawing us inward, chewing us too bits.

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 18 Jun 2013, 00:56
by Silentwings
Next thing you'll be trying to tell me the earth isn't flat.

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 18 Jun 2013, 01:05
by PicassoCT
In the beginning there was only water - and then it splashed, and there was land. The first toilett!

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 18 Jun 2013, 01:07
by jamerlan
Silentwings wrote:Next thing you'll be trying to tell me the earth isn't flat.
no they will tell you that earth is a square but with some camera and gfx effects (rendered as curves)

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 18 Jun 2013, 01:10
by luckywaldo7
jamerlan wrote:
Silentwings wrote:Next thing you'll be trying to tell me the earth isn't flat.
no they will tell you that earth is a square but with some camera and gfx effects (rendered as curves)
And then they will tell you that the earth could be spherical for real, but would require massive reworks.

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 18 Jun 2013, 10:26
by PicassoCT
and then they will give you a stick and a sheet of metall, and call it a a shovel, telling you to start digging. And you dig. And you realize the enormity of the endavour you ask, no matter the scale - be it "lifetimes", "codercatpats" or the rather expnential "Pissed off GF scale"
And because people who are not even willing to participate at the most basic construction work, demand that stuff from you, will develop some scorn that gets hard to swallow- but all the time you will fight the bugs, and you will either get insane or a budhistic calm person. And the world will become a background nuissance.

Re: planets as maps

Posted: 18 Jun 2013, 18:17
by SinbadEV
A true sphere is plausible (for example one could store the map texture, height map and unit locations on a series of logically connected triangles that mapped to the surface of a geosphere) but for a game like Spring I don't think it's desirable... that said, the populous style "connected edges square map + fish-eye lense" idea could be an interesting option to make the maps "seem" more round...