Thoughts about the Map description Field / introducing cliffs (DONE!)

[ElimiNator]

So I just add a 6th texture type and it will work? How will it know to use the new one I added?

[Omega]

So I just add a 6th texture type and it will work? How will it know to use the new one I added?

Just add a sixth texture to the XML. The map editor can't place that surface, but the game will automatically use it.

[titi]

right

[-Archmage-]

Nasty show of the tile system. Awesome cliffs though!

[ElimiNator]

Some more shots:

When no units are there but fog has cleared, cliffs go transparent:


Bodes hang over cliff:

Guys stuck (Fixed!)


Cows can fall of cliff (JK):

[titi]

Yes I know about the transparent cliffs .
Its related to the way the fog of war is made, and I have absiolutely no idea how to fix it.
Anyone has suggestions?

I think at the moment the fog of war is done by raising the transparency. Maybe we can add more black instead?
( I forgot the OpenGL technic name of the FOW at teh moment )

[softcoder]

I've updated some things in the pathfinder in svn, so anyone who can compile please try it out. So far it works much better now with cliffs and I hope the performance is still ok.

Thanks

[titi]

any idea about the transparency problem?

The fog of war is made with a texture from the minimap. But it affects the alpha channel of the rendered terrain! So the terrain gets more and more transparent and by this more background black is shown.
Objects however are made black in another way, they are really painted more and more black ( as long as they are rendered ) .
We need the same black rendereing for the terrain instaed of manipulating the alpha channel.

Any idea?


ha I didn't saw the cow joke 

Nice one 

_{Edit by Omega: Merged double post.}

[titi]

Tileset evergreen has new texture for cliffs in svn!
Additionally here is a map to test the cliffs:
http://www.titusgames.de/maps/highcliff.mgm

(@Omega: meant as double post to pop this up again!    )

[Omega]

Tileset evergreen has new texture for cliffs in svn!

I'm not to handy with SVNs... Can you post just the texture, for those of us who can handle a tiny XML fix and already have evergreen? Especially if their version of evergreen is modified...

(@Omega: meant as double post to pop this up again!    )

Double posts are fine as long as they're at least 24 hours apart. If I recall, the one I merged was only a few minutes.

[titi]

Without MG from svn its quite useless ...
So you need both MG(svn version ) + textures

But to show you a screenshot:

[james876]

nice work, titi!

[Omega]

Wow, looks very impressive! I suppose I'll just have to wait on it though...

[Gabbe]

NICE! I cant wait to make Starcraft-like maps!

[ultifd]

Wow, looks very impressive! I suppose I'll just have to wait on it though...

Nope, here it is: http://www.mediafire.com/?bxd7jbu5xc1exw5
Maybe in return lets try Project Green

[titi]

Attention current svn version changed the map format again!
If you want you can set the camera heigth now in the editor.

But this also has the bad effect that you maybe have to fix maps that were made with cliffs before.
Open them in editor and set camera heigth to 0.

[ultifd]

@Conzar: didn't saw your cliffs yet, is there already something you can you show a screenshot?

I haven't yet added any graphics in the glest game yet.  I have added it in the editor though.  See the screenshot below.


The map format I think changes due to adding 1 more object.  I had to change several places in the code that differentiate between objects and resources (changed from 10 to 11).  In fact, I created a variable for this very reason (so that the numbers are defined in a meaningful way).

I haven't released the code yet, but if your interested, I can update the git repo with the branch I am working on, or create a patch.  Let me know.  Also, I like the way your cliffs work in game, I think that will work better then what I was planning on doing in game, but maybe you can use my map editor code?

Yes please do! That would make it much simpler when editing!  

[Zoythrus]

Now the merge just got a lot more interesting! cliffs look like fun.

also, remember the thing that Conzar was talking about? i like the Starcraft 2 cliff "definitions." do we have those yet?

[titi]

@ultifd: I cannot add this. Its another way to create cliffs and its not backwards compatible like mine. Cliffs are currently not some kind of objects that are set in the map! Its something else.

[Omega]

@ultifd: I cannot add this. Its another way to create cliffs and its not backwards compatible like mine. Cliffs are currently not some kind of objects that are set in the map! Its something else.

I prefer Titi's method, to be honest. Backwards compatibility wins. No need to break older versions of MG/GAE that don't support cliffs.

[ultifd]

Right...too bad.  :'(

[-Archmage-]

Now mapmaking has gotten a bit more complex. "Fluidly" integrating cliffs into Glest landscapes will be challenging to do well. Fun!