Spring RTS Engine

I love the maps in TA and I would like play a few of them in Spring. But I don t know how I can do this. Is this simple? Or is this very difficult?
Or can someone create me a few maps?




PS: Sorry for my English

SevenArm23 wrote:I love the maps in TA and I would like play a few of them in Spring. But I don t know how I can do this. Is this simple? Or is this very difficult?
Or can someone create me a few maps?PS: Sorry for my English

There are already a few that have been adapted to or recreated for Spring. Unfortunately, TA maps are ugly compared to spring maps... there would be a lot of finessing and processing required to actually make them look as good as your nostalgia-coloured memory imagines them to have been.

That said... if you can figure out how to extract the texture and height map from an existing TA map (I think Annihilator MAY have had a texture and height map export option) it would be relatively trivial to process them into a Spring compatible map format... If you can get to that point and still need help there are many people here who would be able to help you do so...

SinbadEV wrote:Unfortunately, TA maps are ugly compared to spring maps...

Bollocks. TA maps are much prettier than most spring maps, even though they have less colours details. But there is no way you can recreate e.g. those sharp cliff edges that some TA maps have in spring. The problem I think is the mapconverter, it applies too much smoothing on the heightmap.

SinbadEV wrote: (I think Annihilator MAY have had a texture and height map export option) it would be relatively trivial to process them into a Spring compatible map format

Annihilator can indeed export the heightmap and the texture map. It's not hard to make a spring map of it, but it doesn't look as good in spring as in TA because of the way the water is applied in spring, and because of the smoothing of the heightmap.

Jools wrote:

SinbadEV wrote:Unfortunately, TA maps are ugly compared to spring maps...

Bollocks. TA maps are much prettier than most spring maps, even though they have less colours details. But there is no way you can recreate e.g. those sharp cliff edges that some TA maps have in spring. The problem I think is the mapconverter, it applies too much smoothing on the heightmap.

SinbadEV wrote: (I think Annihilator MAY have had a texture and height map export option) it would be relatively trivial to process them into a Spring compatible map format

Annihilator can indeed export the heightmap and the texture map. It's not hard to make a spring map of it, but it doesn't look as good in spring as in TA because of the way the water is applied in spring, and because of the smoothing of the heightmap.

Incorrect.. Smoothing is optional.. and is only advised for people who use 8bit greyscale images instead of the 16 bit ones so as to remove the banding you may see.

from what i remember of original TA maps, the banding can be seen in the texture map aswell.

because you can zoom it in appears that spring maps are less detailed(if they dont use detail maps) but the opposite is true.

the other factor is that the ground in TA was a single image with locked perspective, so there was no texture stretching to fit the polygons. they maintained their graphical consistency.

its a completely different kettle of fish when you need to be able to rotate around hills.

behe's and forbs work on spring maps outstrip any old TA maps that existed.

A straight port of TA maps to Spring is relatively easy, all you need is to understand the tools (Annihilation and Mapconv) enough to extract from ones and recompile in one.

But a straight port of a TA maps to Spring looks ugly.

So in order to achieve a visually pleasant result, you need to remake the map from scratch with new techniques, and that takes lots of works and skills.

Jools wrote:

SinbadEV wrote:Unfortunately, TA maps are ugly compared to spring maps...

Bollocks. TA maps are much prettier than most spring maps, even though they have less colours details. But there is no way you can recreate e.g. those sharp cliff edges that some TA maps have in spring. The problem I think is the mapconverter, it applies too much smoothing on the heightmap.

I did qualify that with:

SinbadEV wrote:there would be a lot of finessing and processing required to actually make them look as good as your nostalgia-coloured memory imagines them to have been.

but you are right that I wasn't being fair... should have said what zwzsg just said.

Afaik its possible to recreate basically anything a TA map could do within spring. But the maps don't just port without looking wrong; and re-making a map is a fair amount of work so its unlikely that you'll persuade anyone to do it for you. Your best bet is probably searching springfiles.com.

I have ported some TA maps to spring. These already exist:

- Anteer strait
- John's pond
- Centre command (spelt center command in TA)

TA maps have a different kind of retro appeal with their 256-bit palette graphics.

Cheesecan wrote:TA maps have a different kind of retro appeal with their 256-bit palette graphics.

Oh man. I totally intended to mention that and forgot, thanks.

I love the maps in TA and I would like play a few of them in Spring. But I don t know how I can do this. Is this simple?

Yes, simple. There are plenty of remade maps.
These are imo some of the better ones:
http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-maps/deserttriad
http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-maps/hundredsisles
http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-ma ... remake-v3c
http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-ma ... tcherredux
http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-ma ... iangle-v02
http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-maps/metalheckv2
http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-ma ... highground
http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-ma ... turemakev2
http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-ma ... rtremakev2
http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-ma ... rtetremake
http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-ma ... stremakev2

Maybe there could be a wiki page with a list of all TA maps? Wiki-people like to arrange information in lists :)

Jools wrote:Maybe there could be a wiki page with a list of all TA maps? Wiki-people like to arrange information in lists :)

I would normally agree with you.. but it has been my impression that the wiki is trying to move away from game specific information.

instead i would suggest that BAR would like to reload some maps.. hint hint Behe

Problems with TA ports:

• TAs terrain was a 2D image with a 3D heightmap that assumed an angle that wasn't top down. So any hills in TA look weird in spring with a shallow slop on one side, and a sharp cut off at the other side
• Terrain elevation differences in TA were tiny, so when a mountain or a large mesa is ported to a full 3D engine, such as spring it looks silly
• TA didn't render the water itself, it was a texture. Does your sea floor look like the surface of the ocean? No. Neither is a second set of water rendering applied over the top
• Many details in the TA maps were purely visual, and when they're brought over to Spring they're flat and look odd, e.g. the geothermal vents in metalmaps.
• Many details in the TA map were integrated deeply into the heightmap, e.g. the areas you couldn't build on in the red planet maps. Loaded in spring they look mad as units are literally walking on top of a field of spikes
• TA textures don't handle cliff texture stretching in the 3d engines
• A lot of features that make a map either have no equivalant or their equivalants don't look the same in 3D.
• Even with the water texture replaced with ocean floor, the water rendering and lighting means the map will never look the same. This applies mainly to water maps.

To top this off none of the mods are using original TA values, and if they did, the units wouldn't work the same anyway or they'd be broken in subtle ways. TA ports are poor and to get the same gameplay and expected visuals requires a rebuild

Whoa whoa whoa... crazy idea for playing TA maps in spring.

First, render classic TA map height map as a spring map with a blank texture

Then, in the Map's LUA:

Disabled Terrain rendering
Lock the camera to the correct angle (zoom could still work)
Draw an classic TA map texture to a flat surface "below" everything in the z-index

Bonus points if you can include multiple classic TA maps from the same tileset as map options (such that the heightmap is adjusted and the map texture is drawn on-load)

TA Maps were really simple, it wouldn't be hard to whip up a procedurally generated texture, including all the splatting, normal map etc.

(such that the heightmap is adjusted and the map texture is drawn on-load)

This will drive the poor Standard Pathfinder nuts.

And QTPFS will devour all of the memory you have, even while causing units to derp for hundreds of milliseconds thinking about each order you issue.

I know that in Spring are old TA maps but I miss maps like Trout Farm. Eastside westside or Assault on suburbia. I love this art of maps and wonder if you can create such maps?

I was working on east side westside but spring people get thier panties in a knot about maps with loads of reclaimable metal. So after releasing gunmetal harbor(my test map) and getting many complaints about all the features as resources, I stopped working on maps like these. Spring players are only interested in samey maps as far as metal output levels and map wide resource distribution.