Spring RTS Engine

Let me preface: I despise remakes. They are an absolute waste of my time. Ota Heightmaps SUCK in spring.

Muffy, you have a lot to learn. If you choose to argue with me, you will only end up pwning yourself.

Quanto, you're a great guy, just misguided at times. THis is not a slap in the face, it's an attempt to help through example.

Quanto's work that was used in this map is as follows:

Feature map
Features (I am very well aware that quanto did not make them)
Metal Map

The heightmap was taken from the ota map, then redrawn by me, then redrawn in 32bit by L3DT.

I made all the textures myself (That is to say, I chopped parts of the texture from the original map in ota and used me ub3r photoshop skills to make them a viable texture) except for the flat ground texture.

Quanto, I am happy to attempt to help you, but you have to allow me to help you first.

Here are screenshots and a link.











Download Here:
http://www.bestsharing.com/files/ms0019 ... 1.sd7.html

Edited for Cursing
Edited, for sounding nicer.

BTW, I forgot to mention, the l3dt climate used to make this is available upon request.

The first version (of your post) was more amusing I definitely agree with all your points. After a little bit of effort you not only have a sweet looking map, you have a L3DT climate that can be used to create other quality remakes (of the same tileset of course) with very little effort.

As usual FA has shown us the way

The grainyness seems a tad overplayed.

Das Bruce wrote:The grainyness seems a tad overplayed.

Grainy because it was derrived from an ota texture, and a tad overzealous normals(bump) map, however, I didn't think it was anything worth redoing the entire thing for

IF you are going to do a remake make a proper one... This one is just a rush job.

The texture is fugly, the texture on the rocks don't match. The metal patches are ugly for this map. Some alien plant features are on the slopes which looks bad. The Heightmap is still OTA, it should be redone it shows way too much on this map. The starting positions are wrong (according to the OTA version).

I didn't tried quanto's one though as the OTA texture scares me.

EDIT

i tried it now and these are both not very good maps IMO.

Am I the only one thinking the port looked better than the remake?

NOiZE's mars tilset remake are the best ihmo.
They keep the original feeling and are good looking from each directions.

Torrasque wrote:NOiZE's mars tilset remake are the best ihmo.
They keep the original feeling and are good looking from each directions.

Have to say, NoiZe has made some very nice remakes. I agree with NoiZe on a few of those points. With something like the Annihilator, you don't need to go into the game and screenshot to know where all the mex spots are, and it also gives you other info like global feature position and start positions.

It isn't RT without some corrections but it it does "look" better. When I'm playing though, as with most people, you usually play with the TA style camera so it's not always noticeable. Nice camerawork though.

I was told using the OTA heightmap was suicide? :\ I do edit the heightmaps from OTA maps to make them work, which is exactly what you've done here. I think I explained that in the other post. I don't see what I was doing differently?

PRO_Muffy wrote:I was told using the OTA heightmap was suicide? :\ I do edit the heightmaps from OTA maps to make them work, which is exactly what you've done here. I think I explained that in the other post. I don't see what I was doing differently?

Ota heightmaps are flat, and don't do well at a height over 300. OTA as you prolly don't know yet was very very flat, didn't look like it because of the angle, but when you look at the heightmaps in spring it's very apparent.

As you all can see and as bruce pointed out, the bumpmapping on this map is a bit too much, thats because it was done in a hurry. I have already toned down the bumpmaps and assuming I got it correct this time I will re-render and make another version. Along with that version I will happily release the climate, which means you can do high quality texturing with a minimal amount of tediusness(and yes, I will replace the metal patches with the ota looking patches, as I said, I was in a hurry).

I can also make climates for the other tilesets I suppose, however, be forewarned, the bumpmap must be processed or else the fact that the texture is 256 colors will be very appearant and you really won't gain much.

Speaking of which, I will have to redo the attributes map as well, due to the fact that ota heightmaps gain some quirks in l3dt (as with just about any other rendering software). I'll take the time to give it a proper metal map and feature map as well (I used quanto's).

As I said earlier, this map "Release" was only for the sake of proving a point, and I hope that it is abundantly clear. I will be happy to assist you guys with any of this. And btw, NOiZE is the king of remakes and will not be dethroned any time soon; maybe he has some suggestions and tips that he could share with everyone *hint**hint*.

FA, your version looks like a blob. Quanto's at least had definition.

Michilus_nimbus wrote:Am I the only one thinking the port looked better than the remake?

Nope. Sorry FA, but quanto outdid you on this one...kinda.

Dude, it is not a point of outdoing anyone, it's simply an example, which is why I didn't really put any work into it. It's not even going to be there after tonight. Im just wanted quanto to see it for the express purpose of understanding that there are better ways of doing ports than resizing an ota texture/heightmap.

Read.

You didnt prove anything besides tthe fact that your method is worse


+1 for Quanto

To be honest at the end of the day, with maps for me it's like music. If I like it, I like it. I don't care who created it. I wanna see how it plays. In the old days I spent days playing maps and tweaking to get it right. Sometimes simpler methods work better than the more complex ones, and sometimes more advanced methods allow you to do more

FA, I never checked the amount of metal on your version, but will each mex output the same as the original map? Different mex spots give you different ouputs, and thats one of the most important things about the map, and was a deciding factor in a lot of OTA maps. I know Quanto's didn't take that into account.

Forboding Angel wrote:Ota heightmaps are flat, and don't do well at a height over 300.

If you wanted more definition on a section of the map couldn't you just enhance the contrast of the section of the black and white image you want to edit and then run a smoothing filter over it to remove the irregularities?


(On a side note, I was wondering if someone could point me in the direction of a resource that might help me get custom features pointing upwards the same way trees do, regardless of the angle of the ground beneath them. Not sure if it's possible or whether it would just be a tag in the .tdf file, but atm, the feature I'm using appears to be attaching itself at a normal to the ground beneath it. Thanks in advance!)

(On a side note, I was wondering if someone could point me in the direction of a resource that might help me get custom features pointing upwards the same way trees do, regardless of the angle of the ground beneath them. Not sure if it's possible or whether it would just be a tag in the .tdf file, but atm, the feature I'm using appears to be attaching itself at a normal to the ground beneath it. Thanks in advance!) in each feature definition
-Smoth

Dude, you rock! Thanks.

no problem, what are you making btw?

Jazz is modelling some very nice looking gasplants in a (nice legal) copy of Rhino at the moment. Low polygon count, but looking rather sweet. I understand at the moment theres no such thing as an animated feature, or have I just been looking in the wrong places?

nope, no animated features and exploding features do not work.