Terrain Textures

[Korot]

Perhaps several textures for the same hight and gradient and that the game randomly decides which texture to place on that tile? The textures would have to be able to be used next to each other, but I think that this would allow for a certain amount of randomness.

Regards,
Korot

[tomkeus]

Perhaps several textures for the same hight and gradient and that the game randomly decides which texture to place on that tile? The textures would have to be able to be used next to each other, but I think that this would allow for a certain amount of randomness.

Something like this?



Number of compatible textures is created. For each texture, there is a list of compatible textures for each side which are seamless continuation. So when one texture is laid down, for each side there is a number of choices for neighboring pattern. This would give great freedom to achieve realistic, non-repetitive and detailed looking ground.

[Korot]

Something like that indeed, though I see two problems: a: a huge number of needed textures, b: how are you going to battle hight differences?

Regards,
Korot

[tomkeus]

Something like that indeed, though I see two problems: a: a huge number of needed textures

Define huge. I mean, I don't plan to work on the graphics, but as much as I understand graphics (so I could be wrong), I don't see how applying 10-15 textures on the terrain are going to be a problem. I'm not certain if I understand you well, but if you think that separate copy of texture must be held in memory for each tile, than that is not how things work. If you haven't already, read a little about multitexturing.

b: how are you going to battle hight differences?

Can you be a little more specific, I don' understand what are you trying to say.


And I would also like to make I suggestion about graphics engine. Let's use something that already exists, for example Irrlicht (I prefer Irrlicht over Ogre because it is more lightweight and not feature packed). It has inbuilt terrain rendering and creation from height-maps and provides utilities needed to do 2D graphics and mix it with 3D.

[Korot]

Huge: Hundreds or more, and I mean textures to make, the storage space for them isn't my problem right now.

And by hight differences I mean that a tile at sea level should have another texture then one at 1 km in hight. Also, the gradient (hight differences within the tile) is important, since a tile that raises 10m is steeper and needs another texture then a completely flat one.

Regards,
Korot

[tomkeus]

Huge: Hundreds or more, and I mean textures to make, the storage space for them isn't my problem right now.

You don't need hundreds of textures to make realistic non repetitive terrain. As I sad, 10-15 or even 20-25, but certainly not 100, will suffice.

And by hight differences I mean that a tile at sea level should have another texture then one at 1 km in hight. Also, the gradient (hight differences within the tile) is important, since a tile that raises 10m is steeper and needs another texture then a completely flat one.

OK, I get it now. I think all of that, with a little of thought put into it, can be accomplished with a small number of textures. Besides, we're not trying to make competitor to Bryce. I want to remind you that it would be very smart to try to stick to the KISS principle, since non of us is professional game designer and has 0 experience working on large scale projects.

[JonM]

Ya, I think getting just a basic decent looking ground is key, it may not have height variation and that's probably ok for now, we just need it to not look so repetitive. An old technique for that is to have the textures randomly tile, and each one is slightly different, but the edges are the same. But thats all we really need for now I would say.

[tomkeus]

An old technique for that is to have the textures randomly tile, and each one is slightly different, but the edges are the same. But thats all we really need for now I would say.

We can achieve a lot even with that. Only thing needed is good choice of basic textures. For example, we could have 4 light textures, 4 darker ones and 4 more even darker. They have some edges that match. This way random generator can tile one area with darker, other with lighter ones and so on, giving great appearance both on close zoom, both on far zoom.

[freedo50]

Why don't you guys try contacting someone like Ennedi or C.p. (/Cycledogg) about how SC4's terrain textures work? In my eyes, the SC4 system is more than good enough (with some minor exceptions which could probably be worked out at a later date).

Just my $0.02.

Fred