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Well if you see him tell him to come to the forum here...
Anyway, what we're set on right now is getting some modelling done. So, since we're in desperate need of a modeller, I'm going to post in chit-chat. Igor, I know you are a good modeller but I don't think you can handle this load yourself!
Okay, I'm doing this now.
We need a texture artist as well.
Z.
Laetum Novum Annum, or Happy New Year to all non-Romans in the crowd.
Happy new year!
And, where can I find DirectX 7 SDK?
Happy New Year =).
Z.
Happy New Year!!
I can't find anyone for either... :(
Darn.
Okey, I guess I could be the texture artist, but I don't know if I have the patience or tools to do so. I'll probably be able to though! ;)
Now, I am going to go back into VRML (it's been a long time!) and I'm going to make a wall section.
iM ALWAYS THE LAST ONE BUT
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, Ive got my own Perspective projection, and lookat camera matrix functions going =). Slowly but surely, I am getting rid of the D3DX library =).
Z.
Hey, Zaei, were you going to post some stuff about DX8 for me? your notes or anything?
I know. I havent forgotten yet. Tomorrow, I will write up a quick thing on vertex buffers for you, to explain the various uses for them. Once I get started, it should be fairly easy to keep going... you know how it is... =). Sorry I have been keeping you waiting on this one.
Z.
Hey, I didn't even say Happy New Year :) Oh well, Norman you're not the last!
So, the site's going well, I just don't know how to arrange the main part of the page (not the logo/links). So I'll be doing that for a bit.
We should have a wallpaer for the site, it looks so dark and gloomy.... I m no the last one eh..... I fell better alas
No, I scrapped that design long ago. It's just that I haven't finished the new one. If you give me a moment, I may be able to upload the new design..
Do it. I wanna see =).
I got an idea today, that will help me out a bit. For a while now, i have been trying to think of a way of handling walls (connecting them, etc). Well, the idea is this:
In the main area of the game where you would maneuver your troops, the representation of a town is one of several models that show the basic size of your town. If you click on that representation, you go into another area, which IS the town itself. This is the area that you can build stuff etc. When military units from other civs get close, and are told to attack your town, you go into this town area, and do battle there. This may reduce the clutter in the main screen, as well as making my job a bit easier (simplified building, because I can force buildings, walls, etc onto a regular grid). We could also allow certain buildings (guard towers, outposts, etc) to be built in the main area, etc. Any comments on this?
Z.
I don't agree on it at all. I like the traditional RTS idea better because it shows the units and buildings in better size comparison. Plus it would be hard and tedious to continually switch from town views to the over map. That's more of a TBS element than an RTS element.
[EDIT]
And remember, we're striving for any possible way to keep realism.
Alright. Just wanted to throw that out there.
Z.
How would you feel if I started a total overhaul on the story? Right now, what little we have in the way of a story seems cobbled together. If it is all right with our team, I could start right now.
Go for it. Sounds great to me.
Ive got the window working correctly so far, more coming along.
Z.
The joys of writing engines eh? ;)
Aah, alas, I haven't been able to get too much done on the site but I have altered the module files I made for Igor's music for quality and fidelity, and then converted them to 192kbs (as opposed to the original 32kbps that I had previously encoded them to). They are all tagged and ready to go.
Well, to start off my new story, I decided to make new maps. On paper, I have a map with the plate tectonics, volcanic activity, weather patterns, and water currents on it. On the computer, I have made a simple physical map and a climate map. Enjoy!
And now, the climate map:
That looks great Jorj - It'll be even better once turned into a full 3D landscape!
Awesome :)
What if I used a height map, mapped onto a sphere for the terrain, then used a fractal to generate terrain details at a higher level? I think that would make it much easier for Jorj to create the story around, instead of me having to come up with something that may or may not be compatible with his ideas?
The only thing is that it means that you (Jorj) will have to create a map that is distorted at the poles, and regular at the equator (the bottom and top rows of pixels will all be mapped to a single point, etc).
Sound good?
Z.
Oh, at school, I am working on a boids thing (flocking), that I hope to convert into a formation algorithm.
Z.
What I was thinking was that this is not the entire world - that this is only a small part of one, so it would not be feasable to use an entire sphere. Plus, since this won't span an earth sized field, it may be noticeable to the player that the world is round- that's just my insight to this however. On a brighter note it would then be possible for expansion packs to build right on to the end of the campaign.
I would have no objection to mapping on a sphere (the present map could be considered a Mercator projection), but I don't think the player should be able to know that his or her units are walking on a curved surface. We know Earth to be a sphere, but we don't notice this when we are walking down the street. If the curve is unnoticeable, then, as I said, I have no objection.
I'm with Jorj on this one.
From an Isometric viewpoint, the player wont be able to notice at all. Combined with the shape of the terrain, it should be unnoticeable. I can do some tests as the engine progresses.
As to the engine. Im sorry its coming along a bit slowly. The reson is that, since it was fairly built up the way it was, many of the sub systems rely on each other. To put it simply, Its like building Rome all at once. I have 40, 50 some functions in a single DLL that all have to be moved into a class, and some of them have to be changed around a bit. I also need to move the implementation for almost all of my existing classes into other files so that I can export them from their various DLLs. So, Its slow going, but Ill get it done =).
Anyway, just want you all to know whats going on at this end. I dont want you all to think that I am slacking off here =).
Z.
What gave you that idea??? I don't think you're slacking off at all!
Oh, and if we wanted to not use the entire sphere, Jorj could just complete that one continent, then just use part of the sphere.
Z.
Just wanted to let you all know whats going on on my end =).
Z.
That idea sounds great; I'm all for it then.
One more idea before I get off of here =).
When I used to play MechCommander online, there were several player leagues that you could join. If you wanted, you could play against other playesr in your league, and report the results on the league's website. If they were confirmed, you eould get points, etc. My idea, is basically to build some of this functionality into TOW multiplayer. A player would join a league, and download a set of "League Settings", which is simply the name of the league, an ID number (later), and settings for the match. The settings would standardize games. When the match was over, a result file would be placed on the players hard drive, with a unique match ID, and the player results. These files would be exactly the same on all computers (perhaps generate it on the server, and transmit to the other players...). Then, the player could send this file to the league. If enough people submitted these files, the game would be logged.
The ID number in the Settings would be used to verify the validity of the settings. If any of the user IDs dont match, the game is invalid, and reverts to a regular game.
Comments?
Z.
Yeah, but we should have a more hacker-proof system, because they could just change everything but the ID.
We could easily compare the entire settings file, instead.
Z.
I think the idea of that is good too, but we don't have the server space here if ToW multiplay becomes very popular. Also, it would be too much server load, so we'd have to find some place else for the master server.
We will NOT be hosting these league pages, etc. We will only provide a safer way of making sure that games are valid, through the game result file, as well as making league games standard.
Z.
Ah I get you. I was thinking in a Starcraft sense rather than a Counter-Strike sense (ladders and leagues vs. clans and teams).
I like it a lot! Good work, Zaei!