Wesnoth II - Wesnoth 3D.

[johndh]

Seeing johndh's mock-up, I thought the little units inside the same larger terrain-hex were actually just a single unit... Or am I wrong? I'm not sure it would look so bad to have units significantly bigger than the terrain anyway: look at Civ IV (agreed, units don't go over mountains in there, though).

I meant each man to be a unit, but I have no objection to multi-person units.

My concern wouldn't be so much units being occluded behind a terrain like a mountain; if this is a truly 3d system you should be able to rotate to find them easily. My concern would be units being lost *inside* something like a forest hex.

Hmm... yes, I'm thinking the forests would have to be fairly sparse and the trees rather small.

Just as a note, I'm not sure it's going to matter whether you make the unit smaller or the mountain bigger regarding occlusion- the relative size difference between terrain and unit is going to ultimately be similar.

Yeah, I was more concerned with it looking silly to have a so-called mountain that's rather small compared to the people standing on it.

[Darker_Dreams]

Just as a note, I'm not sure it's going to matter whether you make the unit smaller or the mountain bigger regarding occlusion- the relative size difference between terrain and unit is going to ultimately be similar.

Yeah, I was more concerned with it looking silly to have a so-called mountain that's rather small compared to the people standing on it.

This is why I'm thinking making any real judgement on the look is pretty pointless until we start seeing some kind of mock-ups on actual terrain.

[Gambit]

This is why I'm thinking making any real judgement on the look is pretty pointless until we start seeing some kind of mock-ups on actual terrain.

I agree completely. People seem to have forgotten about my post several pages ago.

This is going nowhere fast. Soft lock until someone has something useful to add such as actual 3D models, discussion of code that might allow us to use these 3D models, or other technical discussion (like artisticdude's last one).

Guys at hold off on critiquing the idea until you've actually seen it. You're being completely unfair to Dipseydoodle & Co.

[johndh]

Better?

Units standing on a mountain, amongst some trees, and waist-deep in water.

[Darker_Dreams]

as much as this might sound like me just being difficult, can you bring the water hex to the front?

The trees look like they're 2d, which is bad (I know there are open source blender files of trees around that would just need resized, look at this )

[johndh]

This is just a very rough mock-up of the concept. I'm not going for realistic trees or environments or... well, anything, really. It's just to show a general idea. Don't worry -- nothing you see here is anything resembling a real effort except the human model, which I had lying around from another project. If I take it to the next level of realism, I'll probably just sprinkle in some trees, rocks, and environmental objects from Glest.

A closer view of the water? Sure, just a matter of moving the camera.

[dipseydoodle]

cool. maybe that some transparency would look better.

EDIT: I think since most of the terrains would desert terrains, I believe that a mountain like this would be greatest

I will try to draw up some sketches for myself today if possible.

EDIT 2:

Please excuse the huge image... I'm relinking it.

Here it is

EDIT 3: sory gambit... It wasn't that big before.

[Darker_Dreams]

A closer view of the water? Sure, just a matter of moving the camera.

I just figured I'd take a moment and point out that this is both the answer to the concern about mountains occluding units *and* the answer to why 3d is cool- want a closer view of this part of the map? zoom in. Want a larger view, zoom out. worried you're missing something at *this* angle? rotate the battlefield.

EDIT: I think since most of the terrains would desert terrains, I believe that a mountain like this would be greatest

I guess I missed the point where this became a post-apocalyptic thing. I think you're probably putting yourself into a corner market (and thus reducing the number of people who might be interested in helping in the long run) if you do that. I'd do essentially what wesnoth has done- something generic and get it out, worry about specifics, improvements, and stories later.

[dipseydoodle]

I see what you mean.

[johndh]

I just figured I'd take a moment and point out that this is both the answer to the concern about mountains occluding units *and* the answer to why 3d is cool- want a closer view of this part of the map? zoom in. Want a larger view, zoom out. worried you're missing something at *this* angle? rotate the battlefield.

I see what you did there.

I'd do essentially what wesnoth has done- something generic and get it out, worry about specifics, improvements, and stories later.

QFT.

About the transparency of the water, that's a design issue that would have to be decided later, as it would require a layer of terrain underneath, so it depends on how the terrain will work in the engine.

[dipseydoodle]

so it depends on how the terrain will work in the engine.

I still have to figure that out... Any ideas???

[Darker_Dreams]

it depends on how the terrain will work in the engine.

I know this is going to be a horrific simplification of the actual technical task, but take the wesnoth back end, an open source 3d front end, and weld them together.

I guess I'm not understanding what you're saying needs figured out. I suppose I don't get what options there are. I've played with blender and made scenery for an open source project that pretty much directly imports blender files into a 3d world (a crystalspace derivative project), and I know there are others out there, so I assume that's not the issue.

[johndh]

it depends on how the terrain will work in the engine.

I know this is going to be a horrific simplification of the actual technical task, but take the wesnoth back end, an open source 3d front end, and weld them together.

That's what I've been thinking. Wesnoth + Glest = Glestnoth? The next version of GAE is coming out in a few days, with a UI overhaul and sweet particle effects, and new stuff is being added constantly. Plus, there are plenty of terrain surfaces and "embellishments" as they'd be called here, both in the default assets and in several user-generated add-ons, not to mention all of the units and buildings. As far as generating terrain goes, we'd still need to sculpt the mountains and whatnot, and come up with a few things that aren't included (swamp, reef, ford, cave, void, etc.), but it would be a very good starting point.

http://glestmaps.wikia.com/wiki/Glest_Map_Objects
http://glestmaps.wikia.com/wiki/Glest_Surface_Textures
http://glestmaps.wikia.com/wiki/Glest_Tilesets

(Note: These wiki pages are maintained mostly by one person, so there's a lot more content out there that isn't seen above, and surface texture photos are readily available from public-domain sites like BurningWell.org)

I guess I'm not understanding what you're saying needs figured out. I suppose I don't get what options there are. I've played with blender and made scenery for an open source project that pretty much directly imports blender files into a 3d world (a crystalspace derivative project), and I know there are others out there, so I assume that's not the issue.

I mean that there are two ways of doing water terrain that I'm familiar with. In Wesnoth, you say "this tile is water", and that's all it is, so you wind up with a tile of just water. In Glest, you say "this tile is grass", and then sink it in water, so you wind up with a tile of grass under a surface of water. So it's just a map-making thing, I guess. Since a Wesnoth-style game is concerned with distinct terrain types rather than subtle sculpting of topography, I'd be inclined to expect a Wesnoth-style map. However, I would think that it wouldn't be too much of a challenge to have a solid bottom beneath the water, and there could be different tiles like "shallow water on dirt", "shallow water on stone", etc. On the other hand, it might be easier to simply take a regular terrain tile and sink it, so we could have water on dirt, grass, stone, or anything else we want (within reason).

Regarding game-ready model formats, the only one I've used is Glest's g3d format. I've been told it's similar to Quake 2's, and it's somewhat limited in some ways but gets the job done. On the plus side, there are plenty of models (units and terrain) in g3d format that are ready to be plopped down into a game. All of the Doom/Quake series' model formats are open-source, so if we need something more advanced, there's always that.

[dipseydoodle]

I know this is going to be a horrific simplification of the actual technical task, but take the wesnoth back end, an open source 3d front end, and weld them together.

That's what I've been thinking. Wesnoth + Glest = Glestnoth? The next version of GAE is coming out in a few days, with a UI overhaul and sweet particle effects, and new stuff is being added constantly. Plus, there are plenty of terrain surfaces and "embellishments" as they'd be called here, both in the default assets and in several user-generated add-ons, not to mention all of the units and buildings. As far as generating terrain goes, we'd still need to sculpt the mountains and whatnot, and come up with a few things that aren't included (swamp, reef, ford, cave, void, etc.), but it would be a very good starting point.

http://glestmaps.wikia.com/wiki/Glest_Map_Objects
http://glestmaps.wikia.com/wiki/Glest_Surface_Textures
http://glestmaps.wikia.com/wiki/Glest_Tilesets

(Note: These wiki pages are maintained mostly by one person, so there's a lot more content out there that isn't seen above, and surface texture photos are readily available from public-domain sites like BurningWell.org)

I guess I'm not understanding what you're saying needs figured out. I suppose I don't get what options there are. I've played with blender and made scenery for an open source project that pretty much directly imports blender files into a 3d world (a crystalspace derivative project), and I know there are others out there, so I assume that's not the issue.

I mean that there are two ways of doing water terrain that I'm familiar with. In Wesnoth, you say "this tile is water", and that's all it is, so you wind up with a tile of just water. In Glest, you say "this tile is grass", and then sink it in water, so you wind up with a tile of grass under a surface of water. So it's just a map-making thing, I guess. Since a Wesnoth-style game is concerned with distinct terrain types rather than subtle sculpting of topography, I'd be inclined to expect a Wesnoth-style map. However, I would think that it wouldn't be too much of a challenge to have a solid bottom beneath the water, and there could be different tiles like "shallow water on dirt", "shallow water on stone", etc. On the other hand, it might be easier to simply take a regular terrain tile and sink it, so we could have water on dirt, grass, stone, or anything else we want (within reason).

Regarding game-ready model formats, the only one I've used is Glest's g3d format. I've been told it's similar to Quake 2's, and it's somewhat limited in some ways but gets the job done. On the plus side, there are plenty of models (units and terrain) in g3d format that are ready to be plopped down into a game. All of the Doom/Quake series' model formats are open-source, so if we need something more advanced, there's always that.

I was thinking about using pngs for the terrain and units... Like I posted before... Maybe be a bad idea tho...

[johndh]

I was thinking about using pngs for the terrain and units... Like I posted before... Maybe be a bad idea tho...

Err... how do intend to make a 3-dimensional environment using only 2-dimensional images? Billboarding, perhaps? That sounds like a terrible idea.