Polygons and microterrain

[Gary Thomas]

Actually I was wrong in saying it would look like an atlas map - I was forgetting that we view the terrain at an angle. So hold the atlas at an angle...

are they mostly for Gary's map or against?

How could anyone be against my map?

how "big" would/could the map be (in feet and inches! or 14" screens)?

The question is meaningless. If you zoom in to the limit, so an object 1 metre across is just visible (say one pixel), and allowing 1024 pixels for a 17" screen (which is 320mm wide), we have, near enough, 1 km per screen. The diameter of the earth is around 13,000 km, so we have 13,000 screens wide, or about 4160 km wide in the real world.

On the other hand, zooming out to the maximum makes the Earth a single pixel or around 300 microns.

Pretty scary, eh?

Cheers

[yellowdaddy]

this is sexy!

but, are you going to have a standard zoom level? and what will it be?

[Gary Thomas]

Your smilie link was broken.

The standard would be about what Clash looks like now.

Cheers

[yellowdaddy]

are you gunna put up any screenshots?

(I ask because I've offered to do gfx for the game, and I'd like to come up with a few mock-ups of screens for people to peruse)

[Gary Thomas]

No screenshots yet. To my deep regret, polygons is still at the conceptual stage.

I did forget to mention one aspect of polygons, they can include altitude as a variable. Generally a polygon will have a geographic location (arctic, tropical, etc), altitude, ruggedness, fertility, amount of water, and ground cover as variables. The idea for graphics is to have a small number of small icons for each type, and randomly draw them on the polygon, taking perspective into account.

Cheers

[yellowdaddy]

sounds groovy!
if you know of any other games which have anything similar, let us know (it sounds a bit like the latter version of Populous and Powermonger).

I'm working on an graphical interface, and I will put a rough sketch on a new thread to let people throw tomatoes at it! but if any agreement is reached i'll be trying to come up with a screenshot of what i think a map will look like...

[Lord God Jinnai]

well while seasonal changes i think may be a bit too much, it was always planned to have changes based on long-term effects, mostly through human expolitation.

You haveto remember Gary, we aren't dealing with a civ clone where stategic warfare is key and strategic placement of cities is done 100% by players.

In every other respect i'm with you though.

[yellowdaddy]

ok seasons is a lot to ask - how about clouds?! that'd be nice (they had some in Pirates!)

---------
Gary,
i really like to get some clarity about this map...
...might you be able to make a simplistic sketch to give an idea?
is it going to be 3d in any way?
will there be visible differences in heights of mountains and hills, plains, gorges and vallies?

Is it the plan to just have slightly different hues of green and brown, and then overlay trees and stuff?
what angle are we viewing from? 3d-iso or south to north... imagining a map of New Zealand - would the north island be smaller in the distance with the chatham islands disproportionately large? or is it just dead on, but looking down at a angle of 60 degrees?

is it anything like this raised relief map of norway?:

http://www.geosmile.com/product800RELIEF.asp?URL=MenuTyp1.asp&k=/physical/map/362331021_Large_size_British_Isles_physical_map.asp&pid=510000008&p=1&oid=&cid=&us=&pa=&pe=&up=&s=1277223

is there a list of anything like biomes and icons that are required?
(is there a list of anything graphicswise?!)

----------------------------

I'd like to make a set of resized units (including your ancient transport) - 48 x 48 pixels is that OK?

[yellowdaddy]

any chance of a visual example of the "Gary Map"?

[Lord God Jinnai]

Clouds would probably be one of the last things implimented...if at all, unless one of the graphics coders really feels bored.

[Gary Thomas]

any chance of a visual example of the "Gary Map"?

I will see what I can do, but as I said, the priority is not high. The actual coding load of implementing polygons will be very considerable, and I use my normal criterion - it is better to add a new (and necessary) feature, than to spend the coding time improving one that already works.

Cheers

[yellowdaddy]

...still dreaming of an example of the Garymap... (not nagging or anything, just bumping!)

[Gary Thomas]

Like I said, the priority is not high...

Cheers

[yellowdaddy]

compared to what?!
i'm not suggesting you program the whole thing just for my benefit, just a sketch - it would help immensely with things like overlays for instance, and might stop me asking stupid questions!
unless you want gfx done all over again once the map is changed from a grid to a polygonal one - or am i misunderstanding?