Ground Combat Game

Summary:

Progress!

Ground Combat Game

Craig Macomber 1239842673|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Here is a planet. The texture is made using the old and slow method. I put in some of my improved code from the planet tool project though to make it faster. Notice how terrain and lines cross the seams without getting totally screwed up. I put a lot of work into making that work right!

The planet has lines on it. They properly follow the shortest paths between endpoints, meaning great circle routes. Also there are some little marker dots. Currently they are placed where you click, and demonstrate the mouse to 3D vector to texture implementation. Eventually it will be used for placing things like facilities, national boarders, and anything else you can click on the planet.

Basic drag navigation and scroll wheel zoom has been implemented and works well.

Where is this going you may ask?
The current goal is to create a ground combat game, which by itself should be somewhat fun, though slow paced and not overly interesting. Once this is done, it will be improved until there is a real economy, somewhat nice graphics, and basic diplomatic tools (setting peace vs. war with various players). Once that is done, work will continue to improve it, but we will also return to working on space combat. The first step of the space based game will be basic colonization of other planets. Once that works, ships, fleets and real space combat will be added. Then you will have ground and space combat. That is when FG will start to be really neat.

Re: Ground Combat Game

Phenoca 1239906376|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Also there are some little marker dots. Currently they are placed where you click, and demonstrate the mouse to 3D vector to texture implementation. Eventually it will be used for placing things like facilities, national boarders, and anything else you can click on the planet.

Excellent!
I would really like to view more stages of your work. This planet looks incredibly realistic, and all that I can suggest would be to add a thin atmosphere (and perhaps mountain ranges (technically, mountain ranges should be on opposite sides of any ocean)).

Basic drag navigation and scroll wheel zoom has been implemented and works well.

Can you 'spin' the planet? I remember having my first globe (yes I have a globe) and just spinning it for hours. That is also one of my favourite features about Google Earth, so I think it should be a feature that goes into the interface - except you would be able to 'spin' along any axis :)
Where is the current discussion regarding the link between facilities and ground combat?

Once that works, ships, fleets and real space combat will be added. Then you will have ground and space combat. That is when FG will start to be really neat.

Agreed. And nice planet-rendering.

Re: Ground Combat Game

Craig Macomber 1239952206|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Can you 'spin' the planet?

You can rotate the camera around it and zoom.

Where is the current discussion regarding the link between facilities and ground combat?

I'm not sure. Maybe somewhere, maybe nowhere.

Re: Ground Combat Game

tbg10101 1240116819|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Devs: http://f-g-dev.wikidot.com/forum/t-144346/ground-combat-plan#post-453398

Nice work Craig!

This is just the 3d math that I need to crete my high-detail 3D render software. I drew up plans for it a while ago. Maybe after FG is completed you could give me a hand.

How easy will it be to add elevation to it? LOD(textures and geometry)? Atmosphere? The water-sphere?

Re: Ground Combat Game

Craig Macomber 1240119447|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Nice work Craig!

Thanks!

How easy will it be to add elevation to it?

Well, I have to set the mesh elevation Boolean to true. Currently it is false because the camera navigation gets a bit messed up if I make the mountains really tall, and if they are realistic, you can't see them anyway until we allow pointing the camera along the surface, and have much deeper zooms.

LOD(textures and geometry)?

I disabled that because I didn't want to deal with it in the GC app (it is not needed yet). Because of some changes it will take some work to get it back in though. The texture does LOD now (it just generates higher and higher rez for the whole planet in the background, it does not specifically improve the spots you zoom in on)

Atmosphere?

Give me a model do display that fits a planet with radius 1 and I will put it in.

The water-sphere?

You can provide a blue translucent sphere with r=1 for now if you want, though I would have to enable mesh elevation for that to work. We might as well wait until we have proper multiple mesh layers to do it nicely, though a temp transparent blue sphere would be easy and look ok.

Re: Ground Combat Game

tbg10101 1240206537|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

What model format? I am running windows so I can only use blender and it can't export 3dmf.

Another advantage to the water sphere is that we can make it shiny and the land dull. (depending on the render software of course)

I can make a water sphere but what did you want from me for the atmosphere? I didn't understand your post.

The atmosphere will need to look like this:

This is a photo from Apollo 16. The parts to look at are at the edge and at gradient towards the point on the planet closest to the camera. Notice how there is still some atmospheric filtering at the clearest parts and it gets stronger the closer you get to the edge. This is because there is more air in the line-of-sight to the terrain below:

[diagram coming soon]

What are we doing for clouds?

last edited on 1240239869|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover by tbg10101 + show more

Re: Ground Combat Game

Matt R 1240285424|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

What are we doing for clouds?

Clouds would just be another slightly larger sphere with a partially transparent texture, if Craig makes them the same way I have made them in scene renders. The trickiest parts for that are making sure clouds don't interfere with terrain if map elevation is turned on (this is easy to do, but also easy to do badly), generating the cloud transparency map, and creating the nice atmospheric effects you [tristan] pointed out.

I'm not sure how to do an atmosphere effect like that in code – maybe Craig knows. For transparency map generation, that is pretty easy but it is difficult to create realistic looking cloud formations. Even the best scene rendering software has trouble with that. On an individual level clouds are easy, but on a planet-wide scale they are tricky because weather patterns create complex shapes, as shown in the image above. The easiest thing to do would be to pre-make the textures, but that would decrease cloud formation diversity from planet to planet.

Also, clouds get in the way of seeing the land and thus the GC info. So, there would have to be options to turn down cloud visibility or to remove them completely for optimal GC viewing.

At any rate, clouds are purely aesthetic. Since we are working hard to do even the minimum, we should not do any cloud work until much later. For now, a basic atmosphere sphere layer would probably do, or even nothing at all. GC is the main focus.

Re: Ground Combat Game

Phenoca 1240509106|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

A spherical water-sphere would look good.

The easiest thing to do would be to pre-make the textures, but that would decrease cloud formation diversity from planet to planet.

This sounds like the simplest approach, and I do not think that we will be able to 'randomly-generate' clouds realistically. Then again, my initial doubts on the 3D planet-generator have been proven wrong also :)

Now are all planets going to be looking like Earth (nitrogen-based atmosphere, with 2/3 of the surface covered in liquid water?

Since we are working hard to do even the minimum, we should not do any cloud work until much later.

Ok, I agree with that, because the planet currently looks very realistic, and detailed clouds would not affect the actual gameplay. Also… Considering the game's time-scaling, the clouds would be moving incredibly quickly across the atmosphere.

Regarding atmosphere, I would like to see the atmosphere "highlighted" when you mouse-over the planet. In 2007, did someone mention "auras" for a planet, in order to easily determine the planet's owner? Sort of like a rectangular flag for a castle, except a planet's aura would be a circular flag. There could be a red aura to tell you if the planet belongs to an enemy, and a blue aura for planets you control. This is how games like "Galcon" and "Stars!" show planetary possession.

Re: Ground Combat Game

Craig Macomber 1240523251|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Eventually we will have realistic clouds that look good from ground, air and space. It will use the same setup that will be used for the water surface, tree tops and other additional mesh layers. Doing good looking clouds is one thing, and making them pretty realistic can be done by using real data. We have a rain fall and temperature layer, though they could use some increased accuracy. Once we have vector layers (for directional things like currents and winds) we will be able to do somewhat realistic weather simulation. Weather and climate will both effect game play (stats such as defense, food production, mining costs will be effected). None of thus will be implemented soon though, so lets not worry about it now.

Now are all planets going to be looking like Earth (nitrogen-based atmosphere, with 2/3 of the surface covered in liquid water?

No, only a tiny minority. Each planet will have some stats that describe the environment (solar input, green house effect strength, surface gravity, season strength, day length etc.) Some even change over time or based off of players actions (you can cause global warming and boil away all the oceans and everything will get covered in deserts). Potentially we could have weather control techs that would alter vegetation and related stats.

Re: Ground Combat Game

aaabronco 1241593151|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Hmm, this game looks pritty neat.

Re: Ground Combat Game

Craig Macomber 1241660342|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover

Thanks. I sure hope it turns out neat!