Spring RTS Engine

What's up? I created SharpMap awhile ago, the format changed and I got really busy so I couldn't bring it up to date with the new format... I fully expected some young genius with more time to swoop in and create an updated map compiler by now...

What gives? You all are content with the command-line based version?

Maybe I SHOULD work with mother and create a new GUI program. Although isn't the format soon changing yet AGAIN??

And yes, if I do get around to updating SharpMap it would remain in C#.
:D

-Buggi

Buggi wrote: Maybe I SHOULD work with mother and create a new GUI program.

I assuming that this means the new GUI?

YES

WHOA WHOA WHOA

nonono

Not a GUI for the _GAME_... crikey. As this is the map forum I was referring to a GUI for the map conversion pipeline.

One death leap at a time please.

IIRC, the format is not going to change ...

But a new one is going to be added, wich use a totally different system : texture splatting.
Speak with jcnossen to have more info. Perhaps a gui for this format could be more usefull ?

I've been trying to talk with the J man about the new map format, but he has no internet at his new house so it's tough to catch him online.

I've known about the new map format for about 6 months, even have a few of the early demos he did.

Maybe I could convert the maps mentioned in my other thread to the new format to show how much SMALLER the new format is going to be. :D

Buggi, if you're going to overhaul our current map compiler, I have two requests. Fix the geovent placement bugs, and allow mapconv to accept texturemaps over the current 600mb(?) limit. We would love you for it. We'd love you for just getting fixed geovents.

Didn't you ever use my original SharpMap?

It could use texturemaps into the gigabytes. I had re-written the tiling algorithm entirelly.

Geovent placement on the new format will be point-and-click. As will the rest of the features.

What specifically are the bugs for geovents you speak of?

Buggi,

An updates would be a plus ... to the Mapconv util ...

I also, have a request too ...

Can you incorpotate the metal splats back in.

Can't those be features? Like geo's?

Or can we not have features that "lay" on the terrain? This would save a ton of work, btw.

Otherwise you must include your metal things on the original texture, which can be difficult if it's uber large.

600MB?!?!

Why on earth would you use such an INSANE amount of texture data on the landscape?
You could get 10x more detail with 1/30th the texture useage.


Are you only speaking of the heightmap used to generate the terrain? if so, I could understand that, since it's discarded afterwards.

Because the current map format is just one giant bitmap.

The new map format mentioned up a few posts is supposed to be much more modern, with proper tiling and all that. Mostly like Unreal's terrain, as far as I understand.

Not sure how Unreal's terrain system works.

I'm assuming it's going to be akin to something like Command & Conquer Generals? Where we can lay swatches of texture down, and then alpha blend them together?

Sounds like the same process, yeah. Just a few tiled 1024x1024 (or whatever) textures blended.

Vassago wrote:Not sure how Unreal's terrain system works.

I'm assuming it's going to be akin to something like Command & Conquer Generals? Where we can lay swatches of texture down, and then alpha blend them together?

There is a new format that supports that alpha blend method known as alpha splattering. However, at this point in time the new format is not in. When it is we will have something similar. However at the moment all we have are the giant bmps that are run through a crude compression algorithm that breaks the texture into tiles .

_Smoth

I've known about this format for over 6 months... not sure how long it takes to get implimented though.

Is mother even still alive? He was posting nearly once a day and then all of a sudden he dissappeared for the last 3 months. Haven't seen him since. If you have contact with him tell him we miss him

@buggi

That was a reply to vassago.

I don't know how long it will take either.

Buggi wrote:I've known about this format for over 6 months... not sure how long it takes to get implimented though.

jcnossen wrote:Nah, not 6 months. I can't really give a date, but I hope to finish it this summer. Also, when I think the texturing specification is stable, I'll put it in spring even if there are some bugs (It won't affect any maps anyway). The current spring version already has the map abstraction, so including the new terrain renderer in it is really simple.

@buggi:

if you want suggestions from mappers as to how they want this tool to work I would suggest you ask us mappers for suggestions... because you making a tool that just continues to be awkward for us will make life better obviousely, but coulde be a lot better.

What Goals I would like you to address:

- ability to place and rotate and scale all features (arbitrary corpses, trees, grass and geos) anywhere on the map, with the option to filter out underwater trees, grass, and geos under a specific height (to prevent water from ending up underwater) or filter out geos placed on uneven ground.

1. - This should be available by point and click interface or read from an indexed colour map or metal or feature map.

- ability to preview the heightmap would be a boon, possibly just running the spring executable with script and command line parameters to load up the map with no texture.

- ability to see the texture in it's entirety overlayed with heightmap numbers, also the ability to manually import tiles (multiples of 8 dimentioned images) and import entire tilesets from other maps (would allow the creation of new maps from the tile sets of old maps... spring supports multiple source tile sets), also the ability to select groups of tiles and copy and paste them.

1. -ability to import an indexed colour image and assign tiles to the indexes to build entire maps without having to acctually edit the 16000x16000 image you are starting with

- corpse FBIs are easy to build, so a quick editor that would allow you to create new features from 3DO or S3O files.

-Ability to export raw data but organized into the corect folder structure aka: ready for quick "right click folder 7zip compression".

- ability to stick multiple textures and heightmaps together when creating maps on systems with low memory or with bits of textures exported from trial versions of LDT3D (or whatever it's called)...


I know this is a wish list, but I have thought about it and these are really essential to whatever final mapping tool (for the current format anyways) is produced.[/code]


EDIT: also, if you don't make it possible to open up and edit a current map file, I'll cry.

EDIT2: - Ability to manually set grass colour, or load an image and use it as a "grass map", using the images colour to assign the color of the grass.

SinbadEV wrote:EDIT: also, if you don't make it possible to open up and edit a current map file, I'll cry.

+1

At the very least, you absolutely MUST allow mappers to recompile the heightmap or metalmap without having to recompile the whole damned thing. Pretty please with a cherry on top?