Massive Terrains

[TseTse offline]

Hmmm.

Well. I've been playing around with this since the moment Capt Radium release those maps. I had been playing around editing the Rasp terrain (i workship that heighfield script), and decided that I needed to explore the wider scale.

I was just trying to kinda make some observations with the latest terraforming procedures i've conjured, and realized that 8,000 visible distance just wasn't enough!

TIP #1: do not set vis to 18,000

OK, there are a number of really interesting issues that come up around >8 sized terrain blocks. I wanted to start a discussion just on these issues and how to deal with them. Anything from texturing complications, negotiating visibility and effect, through making viable waterblocks.

The first real obvious issue is visibility. If you want decent gameplay, you really need visibility to be 800 or less. This flies in the face of having eye candy terrain.

I'm personally making a very large desert map (16), which has kinda different sectors & levels (rasp-like terraces). At the lowest level it is a flowing river, with lush green terrain. As you go up steps, you end up on wide desert flats. The highest levels will be very large mountain ranges capping into snow.

In playing around with this idea previously, i split the visibility between the "lush" river valleys and the wider desert through the use of a THICK fog layer. This really seems to cut down the FPS when you are in the valleys. Depending on how thick, it can also cut down on the FPS hit when you are up in the desert area. As I develop this more, I may end up with a number of intense mountain ranges further breaking up the visible areas into "zones" maybe cutting FPS a bit more. My goal, of course, is to having viable FPS while allowing as much eye candy as possible to be taken in at once.

I am also curious about how the use of overlapping and multiple terrain textures impacts FPS.

I'll upload my heightfield and texture scripts as i get a little closer.

[TseTse offline]

PS.

Has anybody EVER gotten a waterblock to work on 16 or 32 size terrainblocks?

[Star offline]

You know, it's a pity the t2 engine can produce things so far ahead of a lot of the graphic cards out there (probably all). It would be nice to be able to create a map at the size you're describing but it seems too such creativity is lost because of the sad state of people's computers. It would be incrediable to get 60+ fps on a map like that with no fog. However, probably no single graphics card can do that at this time.

[Captain Radium offline]

I haven't been able to make water blocks work with the large maps. I tried and tried but the only water I could make consisted of my own tears.

[TseTse offline]

I cant even get a waterblock on one specific area

Wow, that sucks

[Rufe_Brushtail offline]

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggghhhhhhhhhtttttttt, i just came to this thread to find out how to build custum terrain

[-ChAo$- offline]

is there ANY possiblilty of modifing the engine to allow 512x512 squares? If this could be done with a custom bit of scripting, it would be awsome to say the least.

[[AFT]SONOFMAN offline]

tse tse you will probably corretct me here but,

i believe the water blocks are read from the heightfield.cs of the map.

look at riverdance in a different terain square setting like 4. and if you lift the water up it leaves tears where the terrain would still be if the terain were set at 8. Or so it looks to me, in Riverdance it is really apparent because it is simple to judge where that big hill was and where the river was.

I was able to make small puddles or ponds in a setting of four but none would go in a strategic spot.

I am tempted to e mail garage games and ask them what the tip is on tweaking the water and removing some of its annoying characteristics. Like the underwater hue! And underwater damage!

sonofman

[Captain Radium offline]

[[AFT]SONOFMAN offline]

[[AFT]SONOFMAN offline]

[[AFT]SONOFMAN offline]

[-ChAo$- offline]

maroon bells has a visible distance of like 5000 if i remember correctly...