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Author
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Topic: Generic terrains
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STef
Pilot
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posted 03-07- 06:19 AM
   
Yep, another thread...What about making generic maps. I mean here, to just have maps with rivers and roads. Then we would place towns, airfields and such as ground objects in the mission editor.
Wouldn't it cause excessive cpu calculations?
It would allow greater freedom for scenarios, and if we started to export current towns and other sceneries, we could use Tundra terrain very quickly. What's your opinion? Inertia/Parsoft people's comments are welcome! 
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P/O STef
Editor
http://stephan.bondier.free.fr/gazette.html
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DanW
Pilot
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posted 03-07- 07:09 AM
I think it would help this game out immensly to have new terrain added. It would need to be a lot larger than the 40 x 40 maps that it presently has available. This could be done with clever use of repeating textures....to trim down that massive download size. Of course, it would take a very long time to construct and texture all the piece.I would even like something like a 'fantasy land', where its not modelled after an exact area on Earth, but something that is unique and interesting, such as a waterfall, a big canyon to fly through, volcano, or some caves or tunnels to fly through. A few new .sm objects could be created and mixed with the default objects and would give the game a completely new look. IP: Logged |
Royohboy
Pilot
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posted 03-07- 07:33 AM
I like the idea, even if the terrain would be the same size. I'm living in the Rhineland, and I must say compared to the real thing SDOE's Rhineland looks more like a grassy tundra. There's fields and forest and villages almost everywhere.
One thing about building the terrain: That's rather easy if we can get our hands on DEMs (digital elevation models) of sufficient resolution. Buying them would be VERY expensive.IP: Logged |
gterl
Pilot
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posted 03-07- 09:14 AM
good point roy...but I think if we add more houses, trees, etc the performance of the game would rapidly degrease!
I don't know how to add more objects without havin an impact on the game. ...well don't know ;-) cheers
gt
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Diego Lozano
Pilot
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posted 03-07- 10:48 AM
We dont need elevation maps for the Pacific ocean just the islands and these can be eyeballed cant they? The FPS will be way low as there arent any ground objects other than the occasional carrier group.IP: Logged |
Tailslide
Pilot
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posted 03-07- 11:26 AM
I have some detailed DEMs of the grand canyon I poly reduced and converted to .obj files but I had trouble getting them into a terrain.. at the time I would have had to position each tile by hand in OPS. I think some canyon fights would be very interesting.. throw in some 'hoodoos' to dogfight around. TS IP: Logged |
Jaguar
Pilot
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posted 03-07- 05:23 PM
I don't think we'll see any totaly new maps any time soon (unless a tool is released), because there is just too much to edit, and because of the shear size of the terrain....... Then if you went bigger than 40x40, you would haveto adjust the border winds, and calculate how many lods you want to have, then position all the lods, then make a texture for it.......blah blah blah But hopefully I'm wrong, and sombody knows something that I don't about this.BTW, I'm still trying to figure out how to specify a lod as water or land for the pacific map..... anyone have any ideas about this? ------------------
Cheers!
Jaguar
The FS Hangar
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Tailslide
Pilot
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posted 03-07- 06:21 PM
Could it be a material attribute like glass or rubber? Is there a water material? TS
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Nat
Pilot
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posted 03-07- 06:49 PM
Jag, I know you've been through the "re-texturing" process aswell... just think about doing that for bigger maps... damn, it's tedious enough as it is!!! LOL but still, I have to agree that larger maps would be good, but I think only really for bomber missions, but who knows, atleast we'd have the option. The point on making forests though is easily dealt with... you build the shame of the forest direct into the shape of the terrain, and just texture it correctly, I dob't think we need many individual tree models to make it look good, making a full forest should realy be a simple matter of shapeing the ground to look right once the texture map is overlayedIP: Logged |
Spanky the Mad Dog
Pilot
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posted 03-07- 09:01 PM
Spanky here... I don't think trees and buildings are to crazy on the FPS if they are spread out. If it was like a village all over the map THAT would be a drain on the system. I don't think the polys are the killer in this game its the Calculations. and how many is there for a tree or house. IP: Logged |
Nat
Pilot
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posted 03-07- 09:51 PM
true true... and with good use of filters from Adobe on the textures, you need less than ppl think, and get a really good effect, that skin I did for the Saratoga had pretty neat lookin shiny windows, just by using the right filters IP: Logged |
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