UFO:Alien Invasion
Development => Mapping => Topic started by: H-Hour on October 23, 2009, 07:23:45 pm
-
I've been looking through the list of maps and the suggestions for new maps, trying to decide what I should work on first. Ideally, I'd like something comparatively simple so that I can start to get a feel for how it all works before getting too deep into complex geometry.
Since I'm new around here and others have a better sense of what's urgent and what's not, I thought I'd post up the few things I'm considering at first to hear what people think is most urgent (also, if someone else is working on it, let me know). They are:
1. Working on the Desert or Ice RMAs. I imagine the geometry would be pretty simple for these and it would give me an opportunity to learn how to set up RMAs. Right now they've each got very few tiles.
2. Working on a map for one of the terror sites/infrastructure attacks -- probably government offices or a big factory.
Any suggestions on which is needed more? Is there something else I've missed that would be a better place for me to start?
-
I would think offices/factories/heavily populated maps would be in higher demand. After years of peace, one would assume that there would be massive city growth, and so a diminishing of rural areas.
-
True, we don't really have much as far as maps of skyscrapers or big city buildings or anything...
If you do make new maps, it would be nice to have some that really look like they are from 80-some years in the future, which is when the game takes place.
Many of the maps right now are old and from back before the plot was set in the future as it is now.
-
You can start from RMAs tiles. And we really need RMA for urban, big city.
-
Thanks guys. One problem with urban big city is what to do about language? Store-fronts, advertising, they all need signs and text. How should that be handled? Should there be one language per culture and we have to create different maps based on different cultures? Or is it not that big of a deal?
-
Well.
the map can be binded to 4 cultures (eastern, western, oriental, african). And I don`t see a problem if eastern city will have hieroglyphs, oriental some arabic texts and so on. Also english should be spread enougth all over the world. And I don`t see a problems in some stilisations (mixed japan|chinese|corean ideography for example).
-
Another thing to consider, regarding language/localization:
In real life, there are companies working today on "smart" street signs, store signs, etc., that automatically interface with portable cell phones, portable PDAs, computers, etc. I don't know a lot about this technology other than it currently hasn't really picked up steam yet, but long before 80 some years hopefully in urban environments one could walk down a street, and as they pass a restaurant, their cell phone or earpiece (with a computer in it) would chirp and tell them what they are walking by and if their favorite dish is being offered as a special that day or not.
One could also walk by a newspaper stand and get similar information.
Of course it would transmit in whatever the person's native language is.
I don't know if it would ever make real signs obsolete or not though...
Also, here in the United States where I am, there are plenty of stores with signs in more than one language in addition to English - Heck, I live across from (can see it from my window) a Chinese restaurant, they have signs in both English and Chinese.
I've heard that up in Canada, just north of where I am, signs are in both English and French.
-
I'd say that the languages in signs depend on the nation (official languages), local population and target audience.
At least in Canada they most likely need to write in two languages since there are officially two languages and the target audience is most likely to speak at least one of them as a native (any better word for "the first language a person learns, usually as a kid"?).
Also I don't think signs themselves are going anywhere but they may not matter as much in the future if everybody has access to "smart" signs. Most likely they will stay to pinpoint the location of the store or restaurant or something but they no longer have to be that big for people driving cars and such.
Advertisement for different products might be an exception though.
-
Thanks everyone. I guess the consensus is big-city urban, so that's what I'll work on. For now I'll try to do a set of RMA tiles for streets so that there's a skeleton form to build off of.
Regarding languages, for now I'll probably try to minimize the text on billboards and ads. But I don't see visual signs of all sorts going away any time soon. I see them proliferating, but who knows in 80 years.
I'm also planning to build first in a more western style and later we'll see what can be done about creating different city styles for the different cultures.
Looking at other RMAs, I've got a maximum of 12x12 256 tiles. If we're talking big, tall buildings, that only leaves me with space for a couple city blocks down one main thoroughfare. I'll do my best to design it so that the tactical options for maneuver aren't channeled too much down the street, but may need to find some creative solutions.
-
I dont know if its supported, but something I've been fiddling with is textures using video files. A sign could be made thats snappy, eye-catching, and poly-lingual, using this.
-
I'll do my best to design it so that the tactical options for maneuver aren't channeled too much down the street, but may need to find some creative solutions.
That's easy - just use some type of (police) barricade or something - local forces seal off the area and let Phalanx handle the aliens. It can be that simple. Some video games with urban/city settings also use parked vehicles to block off areas, etc.
I dont know if its supported, but something I've been fiddling with is textures using video files. A sign could be made thats snappy, eye-catching, and poly-lingual, using this.
Yeah, I've done that before in Blender, as Blender has supported that for some time, although maps are in .bsp format.
Actually, IIRC bsp shaders do support animated textures, usually for bodies of water, lava, acid, etc. Not all bsp files are the same as they can very depending on the game engine using them, but I think UFO: AI does support this because of the animated textures in the alien bases.
If you want to create new animated shaders for additional map textures, I'm sure we could use them, although I don't know how bsp shaders are constructed, its probably different than using any standard modeling program.
-
animation is supported via materialsystem.
-
If you want to create new animated shaders for additional map textures, I'm sure we could use them, although I don't know how bsp shaders are constructed, its probably different than using any standard modeling program.
Well, Im not sure about Blender, or about .bsp files, but Maya accepts a wide variety of formats. If you already know how to do this in Blender, Destrucavator, then some hints would be awsome. As for the file itself, depends. We could either get someone to draw it, or someone to model it (A personal project of mine will be using videos for people walking behind windows, which will be modeled and animated sperately)
-
More experienced hands can correct me if I'm wrong, but the animated textures for maps don't actually use videos. They just cycle through a series of image files. I'm basing that on this info (http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Mapping/Materialsystem#Parameters_for_property_textures) though.
-
you are quite right :-)
And information about animation isn`t stored in bsp, it`s stored in .mat file.
-
either way, it can still be done, and would be an interesting thing to use.
-
Here are a couple of shots from Radiant on the street/rail section that I've been working on. I plan for it to be the base for a mid-to-large city street grid that we can then plug buildings into. The stairs in the middle of the rail platform descend to an underground street crossing.
The street lines are blended on using the material system, that's why they don't appear here. And the emergency sign will have a flashing ALL TRAINS STOPPED text over the red part.
(http://notthisway.com/temp/shot1.jpg)
(http://notthisway.com/temp/shot2.jpg)
(http://notthisway.com/temp/shot3.jpg)
Feedback and suggestions welcome.
-
It is very nice; but the railroad isn't it too much loud?
-
Bayo, thanks for the feedback, but I'm not sure what you mean "too much loud"...
-
Perhaps "too large"? As in too large for a random map assembly tile?
-
Ahh, yes. It's 3x256 wide and 4x256 tall. But I don't see any way to do big city with little tiles.
This is the widest avenue I'm planning. I'll also be making street tiles that are just 1x256 wide, and possibly a tile with the rail and streets that are one lane wide, making the whole thing 2x256 wide.
Also, what you see here will eventually be two tiles, that can be matched together or not if they're on the edge of the map (the rail stop can be split in two vertically).
But I am planning city blocks to be about 4x256 squares, and if we're talking about tall buildings, that means that each block will probably be one tile, though I've thought of a few minor exceptions.
-
Sorry, it talk about that pink distance
-
Ahh ok. Yeah, that's a fair point. I went back and forth on it. The more height there is the more noticeable the detail under the rail will be. But it is quite high and it presents a practical problem in terms of how the streets will cross the rail (not much space to the right of the rails for the road to rise).
I'll play around and see if I can come up with something else.
-
I`ve thought about monorails, when looked on the screenshotes. Are we in future, or not? :-)
-
That's a good point - the game is supposed to be close to three-quarters of a century in the future. Perhaps it would help to do a little quick research on emerging technologies with trains and subways, and think about what type of trains would likely exist in such a future. I've heard of the start of high-speed levitating/hovering trains and such, but don't know too much about them.
-
i already like this map very much, h-hour.
the rails are too high like bayo said (and maybe a bit too wide).
if u want to use a maglev - the transrapid is great ^^.
http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Datei:Magnetschwebebahn.svg&filetimestamp=20070730120548
-
Sure, I can make it a monorail. If I use the image Bartleby posted as a reference, I would probably embed the v-shaped rail into the ground, because the rail can't be too high off the street (cars still need to pass over it).
I don't want to get too crazy about future technologies, just because I think people often exaggerate the pace of change. In the U.S., we're still driving on road infrastructure laid down in the 1930s and the New York subway was first built in 1869. Though technology has improved both, cities are essentially spaces in which technology is pasted onto existing infrastructure. I'm planning to try and build the city as a mix of new and old building styles, as most cities are today.
-
maglevs shouldn`t cross via normal roads. It has very precise dimesions.
-
Thanks for pointing that out, Kildor. I just had a scan of some monorails on Google Images and I'm not sure it will really fit here. It doesn't seem to play nice with streets. They all seem to be raised off the ground. Perhaps I could make a monorail for the eastern culture's RMA when the time comes.
-
A few more options for the rail line. It's now only 4 units above the street level, an incline that will be fine for making a smooth road/rail transition.
Option 1
(http://www.notthisway.com/temp/rail1a.jpg)
(http://www.notthisway.com/temp/rail1b.jpg)
Option 2
(http://www.notthisway.com/temp/rail2a.jpg)
Option 3
(http://www.notthisway.com/temp/rail3a.jpg)
(http://www.notthisway.com/temp/rail3b.jpg)
-
The 1 look very nice :)
Another thing, but maybe more a problem about the game engine.
We will have problem to move from the rail to the station, no?
Is the planning algorithm will work here? Can/must we add a jump animation?
-
Another thing, but maybe more a problem about the game engine.
We will have problem to move from the rail to the station, no?
Is the planning algorithm will work here? Can/must we add a jump animation?
The platform is accessible from the other side via a wheelchair-accessible ramp, and it is accessible from both sides of the street via an underground passageway with stairs.
But I envisioned the platform to be inaccessible from the right. There's even going to be a small railing fencing off the train tracks area (although it will still be accessible from the street level on the top and bottom). This is a) about realistic urban planning that would try to prevent people crossing the tracks and hopping up to the platform and b) meant to offer a tactical obstacle to both vision and movement for the player.
This, of course, brings up a bigger issue that bayo raises. Why should a meter-high platform stop a specially trained soldier? I'm new to UFOAI development, so I'm not going to be the one to make the call on these sorts of things. I'll just do my best to design around the problem whichever way it falls.
I think there are two ways for this to go: a) designing out these kinds of obstacles but reducing the tactical complexity of the map, or b) including them as realistically as possible but recognizing that sometimes the player may be annoyed that he can't access something he feels he ought to be able to.
My own feeling is that you can never design out everything like this, because at some point a player will think: why can't my sniper climb up to the roof of this shed/bus stop/etc? I think it's fair enough to prevent players from certain kinds of mobility, so long as the conditions of access and the visual cues used are consistent throughout the game.
-
there is currently no jump or climb or something like that implemented. As a workaround you can add a small stair at the start and end of the plattform (like they are there on real-life stations, too)
maybe when Destructavator is ready with the models and they are animated and we are able to replace the existing models with the new ones... we will also get a climb or jump animation. but for now, work around it please.
-
As a workaround you can add a small stair at the start and end of the plattform (like they are there on real-life stations, too)
The only concern I have about that is that it undermines the reasoning behind my underground passage. I think the underground passage plays a key tactical role in that the long avenues will be a kill zone with long sight lines. The underground passage will allow a player to cross the street and close the distance to any alien without exposing themselves to too much fire.
Just to clarify, the platform is accessible from underground as well as from the top-left ramp. It's just not accessible from the right side...
-
maybe i didn't understand you correctly - can you show a sketch or something like that of the layout of your map? or at least from the part we are talking about (underground, ...)?
-
+1. Don`t forget, passable part of the map must be upper zero on Z-axis.
-
Here's an outline of what I'm planning to accomplish. In my mind, the underground section provides important tactical options, and I'm just worried providing street-level access to the top and bottom of the platform will undermine the reasoning behind the underground crossing. In my mind, I envisioned this as a main avenue that might not want to have too much pedestrian crossings to stop for.
-
i thought you were searching for a way to allow the walking from rail line onto the plattform... of course you must not allow the pass from rail to plattform. it looks like i just missunderstood you. sorry.
-
i loke option 2 =).
-
maybe when Destructavator is ready with the models and they are animated and we are able to replace the existing models with the new ones... we will also get a climb or jump animation. but for now, work around it please.
When they are ready, yes, there are animations planned for climbing ladders and other things, as well as crawling, lying prone, etc. Jumping - perhaps across two squares at once and also vertically? - should be easy to add as an animation, adding that would really be a question of if the coders can implement it in the game for the actors to do such things.
Side note: I haven't forgotten about the soldier models, I'm just waiting on the MakeHuman team to finish with the new and much-improved base model that should make building the female version much easier. The MakeHuman project page was hacked a while back, putting them off schedule and delaying their development, but if they don't have the new mesh ready soon I'll just try to grab a nightly dev alpha build from their website and start working with it - all in the interest of getting things moving.
Edit: @vedrit: If you're reading this, how's the animating going for the male soldier model? Any new progress?
-
Ok, I'm short on inspiration for movie posters and advertising billboards. Anyone got any ideas? I'll need a bunch. You can see the /tex_misc/ folder in the trunk for two examples of movie posters and one static billboard.
Couple of things to remember with suggestions to make my life a little easier:
1) No humans (unless you have an appropriate GPL'd photo to use): I can't really draw, I can only make basic shapes and dirty things up.
2) Some animation is good (I'd like most to be flashing or moving in some small way), but try to think about how many frames it would take to make a certain motion realistic. If it gets more than a dozen it turns into a lot of work and a lot of images for the game to load. See the adverta* files in /tex_misc/ for examples of basic animation.
-
havent time to search and watch ure examples atm, but its always funny to take known movie posters and modify them....... a poster from "back to the future", "star wars ix" or something like that might be an idea.
.... i would like to see a poster of sam & max - THE MOVIE :).... or monkey island....
not movie:
-warnings because of ozone, the sun, water, hurricans or something like that with articles of newspapers right beside that say something about an alien invasion or conspiracy theorys about the existance of aliens.
- er... or even an advertisement about ghost busters... ok... thats maybe a bit too heavy :P.
-
movies are not really possible as we have to use copyright free material to be able to release it under the terms of the gpl
-
er... why not? ok.. other name: "back to the real future" or "star fights ix". thought would be enough to modify them a bit. enough that ppl know what u mean ;). like in a humorous spot on tv.
-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31192713@N03/sets/72157622828179733/ ;D