Tree control?

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 08 Mar 2007, 17:48

Does anyone know if its possible to set how much health the default trees have, or where I can edit the models they use (to scale them up)?

I'd like to make them signifigantly tougher and bigger with my mod only..but I haven't seen anything that would let me do that.

Thanks.

AF · Post by AF » 08 Mar 2007, 18:26

The trees are features tree1/tree2/ etc.. to tree16

The trees are procedurally generated. tree1-6 uses a texture in the spring bitmap archive to create leaves, see gundam for an example of changing that texture. trees 7-16 have procedural textures.

It is not possible to create a new feature called tree1 and replace tree1 using that feature. It isnt possible to remodel tree1 either. The only option is to replace the trees by recompiling the map to use a different set of tree textures.

jackalope · Post by **jackalope** » 08 Mar 2007, 18:40

I didn't read any posts in this topic, only the subject so I'm gonna reply to that:

A controllable tree unit sounds awesome.

Caradhras · Post by **Caradhras** » 08 Mar 2007, 22:33

lmao

/sorry for spam

Strategia · Post by **Strategia** » 10 Mar 2007, 22:45

jackalope wrote:I didn't read any posts in this topic, only the subject so I'm gonna reply to that:

A controllable tree unit sounds awesome.

Mm, we have an RA2 person here

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 11 Mar 2007, 12:12

Yeah, scaling up trees to make our infantry scale more realistic would be great. The unit's scale can't go any smaller for collision reasons.

FLOZi · Post by **FLOZi** » 11 Mar 2007, 18:22

Cue Smoth.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 11 Mar 2007, 18:39

blarg scale in TA

Relative · Post by **Relative** » 11 Mar 2007, 18:41

I say we need Speed Tree

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 12 Mar 2007, 06:16

Relative wrote:I say we need Speed Tree

Should I read this as you volunteering to pay the $8,495 license fee?

Strategia · Post by **Strategia** » 12 Mar 2007, 14:50

Felix the Cat wrote:
Relative wrote:I say we need Speed Tree
Should I read this as you volunteering to pay the $8,495 license fee?

as well as the money needed to buy new cpu's and omgwtfpwn graphics cards springers would require to view even one tree ingame

AF · Post by AF » 12 Mar 2007, 15:00

Trees are in the mappers realm not the modders realm, and as such the modder shouldnt be replacing the trees.

However ther should be more discussion on fixing collisions at smaller scales rather than discussion on ramping up tree scale.

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 12 Mar 2007, 19:14

Well, mods can already control map aspects like the detailtex. Why not trees?

Besides, there are other reasons against scaling down (such as visibility). I'd like to scale the trees up by 150% or so, then scale my units up by 100%. That way it makes sense when a tank can't drive over the tree (because it looks BIG), and the units are easier to tell apart too.

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 12 Mar 2007, 20:19

AF wrote:Trees are in the mappers realm not the modders realm, and as such the modder shouldnt be replacing the trees.

However ther should be more discussion on fixing collisions at smaller scales rather than discussion on ramping up tree scale.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Some mods are at different scales than other mods, or have a different feel. The mod, being the end user experience, should have every tool possible in its box to create the appropriate atmosphere for the mod - and this would include scaling trees or even replacing them with, say, cacti.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 12 Mar 2007, 22:27

The mappers will be losing a lot of power with OSRTS. Leave it be for now.

aGorm · Post by **aGorm** » 13 Mar 2007, 00:00

What do you mean we will lose power? I didn't know we had any (or any great amount) so how much more can we lose?

aGorm

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 13 Mar 2007, 00:21

neddiedrow wrote:The mappers will be losing a lot of power with OSRTS. Leave it be for now.

untill OSRTS actually exists how about we just forget about it? What is the point of even mentioning that? It does not exist yet as far as a possibility. It will take some amount of time. Now, let's concern ourselves with the current issues.

Felix the Cat, Nemo,
We should not scale the trees UP we should scale all things in spring down so that we can have larger maps. We need a working SM3 format before we can see anything worthwhile and frankly yeah, having smaller units working would help. WHY? you say? As the ONLY moder with a unit that is 40X40 it took a lot of work to get that unit to work well in spring. LARGE units have such a variety of problems that it is not even funny. everything from the fact that spring uses hitsphere to the way it draws line of sight/line of fire(center point to center point).

I am going to be adding more and more large units in the future of my mod but what I HATE, I really HATE is people thinking the default trees should be scaled up. We have the ability to make custom map features IF X mod needs new, larger trees then you can MAKE THEM and USE THEM on a MAP FOR THAT MOD.

We are not without options here. WHAT IF I went and made some nice trees using transparencies and all..are people actually going to use them to make maps? Scale them up etc? THEY CAN! You can scale up a feature anytime but increasing the precision of collision so 1X1 units are feasible is IMPORTANT. Right now we are looking at 2-16 as a reasonable size for a unit. AND THAT is pushing it because of the problems that you WILL have with units >10X10.

We need more precision! I want to be able to have 1/2 X 1/2 units moving around!

Trees are EASY just get off your butt and make them. getting smaller units to be vaible and making >10X10 units not a pain is not easy.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 13 Mar 2007, 00:39

Essentially the modularity of the engine makes mappers lose their monopoly over resource distribution, among other things. The engine should technically allow you to modify any aspect of the game with an overriding package, if all goes to plan.

Smoth, I brought it up to remind Felix that his battle is already won.

AF · Post by AF » 13 Mar 2007, 01:10

I disagree wholeheartedly. Some mods are at different scales than other mods, or have a different feel. The mod, being the end user experience, should have every tool possible in its box to create the appropriate atmosphere for the mod - and this would include scaling trees or even replacing them with, say, cacti.

MWHA

So you're saying you as a modder would like to have the option for forest maps with cacti? I'm sorry btu that was just absurd.

If I ahve a map with trees that're so big, and 2 mods. One mod has giant units bigger than skyscrapers, the other has tiny human sized units. You do not scale the trees to fit the units, you scale the units to fit the trees,

If you dont like that a map uses trees of a certain type tough, the mapper chose those trees and not all mappers use tree1-16, there's nothing you can do about that but provide your own trees and ask mappers use them, or re-release a mod specific version with your trees.

If you want a particular scale but your collision is messed by the engine at that scale, then the answer is not to scale the gameworld up, its to fix the problem causing the problem in the engine todo with collision.

I have a big pie. But I want half a pie. I'm saying you get half a pie. Your suggesting I make a second pie then double the size of the first pie.

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 13 Mar 2007, 01:14

Smoth,

I must disagree with you about wanting yet smaller units, at least without good LOD. Small (1x1) units become ten pixel blobs when zoomed out enough to see a worthwhile section of the map, and icons are not nearly as satesfying. A 40x40 unit is impressive, but that is an extreme that a mod such as mine is never going to reach, even with a doubling in scale. The fact that hugely massive units don't function well is not a reason to forbid ALL mods from tweaking apparent indicators of scale to suit them.

I felt that it would be the most straightforward if the modder could specify a replacement to the default tree in their mod folder (much like the detailtex). This allows them to customize the scale to whatever they like, AS WELL AS making the trees more difficult or easier to destroy. Yes, I could ask a modeler to make a new tree at whatever scale, and then try to make a series of '44-specific maps. HOWEVER, that is a huge deal of work for what should be a fairly simple process and aim (that is, infantry being able to use trees as proper cover, with the new collide feature tags). In addition, then my mod is only playable on whatever maps are constructed for it, which is a poor solution.

I don't want them scaled up for all mods, just my mod.

I understand that you feel strongly about this stuff, and I too would love more specificity and flexibility in the engine. However, something simple like giving the mod the ability to specify tree size and health would let them easily tweak apparent scale to suit them on *every* map, rather than doing a large amount of work and then having the mod only play properly on certain maps.

Edit:

AF wrote:

If I have a map with trees that're so big, and 2 mods. One mod has giant units bigger than skyscrapers, the other has tiny human sized units. You do not scale the trees to fit the units, you scale the units to fit the trees

The problem is that currently the engine cannot handle units below a certain size, AND that small units are too hard to see at normal game distance. By making the trees bigger, you can scale up the units of your mod to the point where they're easily distuingishable and still retain the illusion of scale! That's all I want to do with '44 and the default trees of the maps it is being played on.

If you dont like that a map uses trees of a certain type tough, the mapper chose those trees and not all mappers use tree1-16, there's nothing you can do about that but provide your own trees and ask mappers use them, or re-release a mod specific version with your trees.

Yes, but the default trees are by far the most common. Maybe a mapfeaturescale tag in the mod rules would be best?

If you want a particular scale but your collision is messed by the engine at that scale, then the answer is not to scale the gameworld up, its to fix the problem causing the problem in the engine todo with collision.

Of course AF. I'm not trying to say that we can ignore hit detection because the trees are bigger. HOWEVER, given the load the dev team is already under, and the huge project that improving hit detection would be, this is a work around. Not to mention that scaling units *down* would make them nigh-impossible to see.

I'm going to let that pie comparasion go because it doesn't make sense.

Spring RTS Engine

Tree control?

Tree control?