World Scenary, how to solve this?

[Santiago]

Hello, how are you? Soon I must solve if I want land to be seen in my game, I must do something that is automated, perhaps using scenario generation using elevations, and have cities, ports, and predetermined air bases, all the same .

I have not yet resolved what visual style I want to give to the terrestrial scenarios, but without a doubt, at some point I must solve it.

And those little points on the map are huge islands if we talk about modeling them, so I will look for a very simplifying system.


For what the gameplay is, I also thought about doing a generic scenario, as in the "Carrier command", that the islands were rectangular, maybe I can apply some system like that, using some predefined shapes ...

Everything would be easier if the earth were flat and smaller.

This is AGK.
On Blitz3D for naval simulator i create a terrain in the zone i sailing, using a very low definition elevation data, with a definition of 1km or more, very triangule world.

like style of Silent hunter 3 but worst

[Matty]

As I see it you have options:

1.Full procedural - build ground, add vegetation, add structures

2. Part procedural - hand model some islands and merely place them randomly

Note: how much effort you spend on this compared to rest of game ought to equate to how much time players spend in these environments compared to rest of game.

[blinkok]

Have you looked at these commands
CreateObjectFromHeightMap()/CreateObjectFromRawHeightMap()

[Santiago]

yess, excelent functions!!

i have a fist step on world scenary, with a very low low quality , but is a world.

Note: how much effort you spend on this compared to rest of game ought to equate to how much time players spend in these environments compared to rest of game.

It is something very important! I will keep it in mind!




One problem that I don't know how to solve is that the stages are very large, and the coasts are usually very flat, low in height.

and being very high, the image of the land mixes with that of the ocean and a rendering disaster is generated, it always happens when there are large distances, and precision is lost.

I have been looking at other simulators, and it is very incredible how the coast is clearly defined no matter how far they are, I don't know how they will do it, it seems that the distances for them is a resolved matter.

in each render is a random shake like crazy

[iWasAdam]

Here goes... 

Beware of 'feature creep'. The core mechanic is ocean based combat. bringing land into things sounds like something easy "just add some land". But you are adding another exponential level of complexity.

E.G.
You want to add some islands - but how accurate will they be?

The more accurate - the more work. And not simple work. how much will you need to model. if accuracy is your main thought - then a lot. a HUGE amount of models, textures, buildings, etc. This work will HAVE to match the general standard you have already got with the planes, carriers, etc.

Most of the models will have to be very specific and match details 'of that time' - again very time consuming and not something I would recommend. You are talking known cities, harbours, landmarks, etc


If you are NOT going for accuracy - then the question is "why are you doing land at all?" - does it match what you already have?


ok. ignoring the pros and cons for land. Here's the most important thing to think about:
Scope
Get what you already have, polished - fix reversed and low quality textures, models. Make everything look and work brilliant. A small scope will allow you to do this.
What you have is already complex enough but needs some polish.

Adding land is potentially more complex and time consuming than the work you have already done. You are talking world building. the maps you show are HUGE. You would really need access to geo-location data to begin to model this sort of stuff. Only the most recent MS flight sims do this and their teams are in the hundreds of staff if not thousands!


My suggestion would be to possibly have one small island with an airfield - and model some sprite based trees and a few buildings (as a single model - atolls if you want. Then place at one or two locations and treat them like your carriers. if that works and is not too time consuming. then do a few more and place around the map. They could even be used for camera or torpedo/bomb runs...

Have a main map - but if you get too close to land then destroy your plane with heavy flak. You can even use the height model displacement. have the land but never allow you to be too close to the land - it will solve all those issues and allow you to focus on what matters \o/ 

[Xaron]

I have some AGK code going which streams geo data of the earth (1.8GB GTOPO30 radar data with a resolution of 30 arc seconds: ~1km per point). This is a port of my Unity code but I have to admit I never finished it for AGK. Mainly shader stuff is missing, beside that it works pretty well. But it uses C++ (Tier 2), so I should make a plugin to have it going for Tier 1...

Actually that would probably solve every terrain issue one could imagine.

Edit: This is Japan btw, what you see is underwater terrain as well...

[grindalf]

If you are using heightmaps you could texture the edge(where it is causing the tearing effect) the same texture as the water so although it will still be doing the tearing it will blend in together and you wont notice. May cause other issues, but its a thought

[Kris]

Everything would be easier if the earth were flat and smaller.

You've got some very good advice so here is mine along those lines.

I hope you don't want to implement the curvature of the earth. Make your global environment flat. If objects have to disappear behind the horizon just fade them out or lower them below see level. When they are that far and still visible better use sprites with pre-rendered images in my opinion.

I think in the case of your game the priorities should be:

1. Good airplane handling, related "physics" working well, damages, distruction of both player and enemy planes "real" enough to give a good feel that the player is part of the environment.
2. Ships behaviour, interaction between each other once they get close enough, damages, destruction, on fire, explosions, sinking should look good.
3. Good water. How good? As good as you can make it.

If these elements work together well and all you have to do is to build balanced missions with the right amount of rising difficulty as you progress (number of enemy units etc.) you already have a winning game without any land!!!

Just think about it. If you put some lowpoly people onboard the ships who are doing stuff, running to AA guns to destroy the ZERO sneaked up on them, running on deck and jump in the water etc. adds so much more to the game because it adds the details where it matters the most. You could easily "waste" more time on land than on some key animated people and could still not look good enough...

All the missions could have a common element that the Japanese try to attack the US ships where they can't escape, survive, repair damaged ships etc...far from islands. What do you think?

Adam mentioned feature creep. Very common in both hardware and software development. Biggest mistake when they try to put every feature in the upcoming product but there is not enough time. In your case I would already think in more than one game. Leave out the islands in this first installment and implement land in the next one when your basic game engine is proven and battle tested. 

Just my two cents. Sorry if I stated the obvious too often or repeated things others said already. Tried not to...

[Santiago]

Hello, thank you for your words!
I will take your sayings as a reference to continue working

I'm always doing the same thing to make everything as complicated as possible. and as in previous projects, I see that I may be deviating from the goal ...

I agree to polish what has already been done, and not continue adding the scenarios in this case.

If necessary, for example, in the maps, you could use the islands that you had before, which are super basic and polygonal, islands that are generated using models of already defined pieces of islands, "volcano", beach island, aerodrome island , mountain island, and each object is a sector of the island ...

This happens to me for not knowing how to simplify things ...

I have to get this in my head and do it ...

I imagine that it would be ideal to focus on what they say, polish, and then in the future, working with time, have the scenarios in future versions, if the future points that way.

well, I thank you again, I think you are right!

In the image you can see the islands that I made in the Blitz version.
A basic lowpoly model, which represented all the islands.

I hope you don't want to implement the curvature of the earth

, no no!, im terraplanist in my games

Xaron!, It is incredible how that scenario is generated!


Every week, I generate a TO DO list, to organize my work and not mess around so much.

I will take all of this into account to generate my list on Monday morning!

Thanks guys!

[grindalf]

I hope you don't want to implement the curvature of the earth.

What are you talking about? we all know the earth is flat really

[iWasAdam]

I went and did some quick research and found these for you:




This one i find very interesting as it sorta matches the atoll you showed plus it had bombs going off to give an idea of scale of explosion, etc