Outdoor scenes in Sauerbraten

by vinny on 01/31/2013 04:42, 22 messages, last message: 03/28/2013 05:31, 5981 views, last view: 05/05/2024 12:01

As a mapper, i'm interested in working a bit with Sauerbraten, specially games based on it, such as Red Eclipse. However, i noticed that almost all maps are interior scenes. You rarely have something with an outdoor scene, and usually, it's blocky and seems hackish. This reminds of old BSP-based games, such as HL1, CS and Quake.

Is this a technical limitation or a style? Is it possible to create good-looking outdoor scenes with Sauerbraten without losing FPS?

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#3: Re: ..

by Q009 on 01/31/2013 06:18, refers to #2

Unfortunately no

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#4: ..

by Papriko on 01/31/2013 14:00

It's just so that complex geometry takes up lotsa disk space and CPU. In theory it IS possible to make large outdoor scenes, but the bigger it is, the harder is it also to balance between performance and look.

Because most people don't wanna bother with that, they simply make indoor maps. It's easier and looks quite well too without major performance hits.

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#5: ..

by vinny on 02/04/2013 03:31

Do you guys have any examples of good outdoor scenes? Any best practices for mappers out there?

The only one i know is that grassland one that comes with Cube2.

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#6: ..

by Papriko on 02/04/2013 15:41

I guess Justice (map, not edition) has an acceptable ourdoor scene, though most of the trees are "cheated" to use not more polygons than necessary.

Carribean or how it's called is pretty much outdoors.

Guess there are some more maps too...

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#7: ..

by Q009 on 02/04/2013 16:18

CTF Suite is the best

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#8: ..

by Razgriz on 02/12/2013 11:39

If you look at valve's maps, most of the map's exterior is a standalone, low poly model, which makes it ideal for fast rendering. However, neither sauer nor RE support yet dynamic lighting so it would basically look like crap because nothing would cast shadows on it.

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#9: ..

by I.g.(. on 02/18/2013 10:54, refers to #8

the best you can do is smoothing the ground Cube-by-Cube, using a big gird for "quite-plane" surfaces decreasing its size while the surface turns to a rock/strong surface that needs a bit more detalies or curves.

Cube-by-Cube.. yeeeeah

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#10: Re: ..

by suicizer01 on 02/18/2013 14:46, refers to #9

The best you can do is using heightmapping first.

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#11: Re: ..

by Papriko on 02/18/2013 15:54, refers to #10

Correcting the darn heightmaps often turns out to be more work than making it from the scratch entirely......

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#12: Re: ..

by suicizer01 on 02/18/2013 18:34, refers to #11

Then you are using the wrong brush...

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#13: ..

by cmCooper on 02/22/2013 21:32

Also to me heightmaps never seemed useful, seem too inaccurat.

When I create landscape in Sauerbraten I keep in mind a few limitations which are necessary to make the landscape look smooth, for example concerning angles between the surfaces of cubes. Another example are the necessary connections between bigger and smaller cubes. When you do more detailed spots, the arrangement of the bigger cubes has to be in such a way, that the smaller cubes fit and that they do so as smooth as possible, that excludes some shapes.
Unnatural sharp edges, if not avoidable with smaller cubes or only with unreasonably higher wtr, I try to hide with trees, bushes or apply blendmaps, that works quite fine.
Ingame maps with a lot of landscape are xenon and eternal_Valley.
On Youtube you can search for "cmvalley", that is a big landscape map, with a few detailed and a few less detailed spots, if you search for "cphills" you will find another map with very low wtr landscape that still looks very smooth, unfortunately most of it is hidden under trees and it has the same style as cmvalley.
After checking what you were actually asking for: Depending on what you define as good-looking, I would say that it is possible.

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#14: Re: ..

by suicizer01 on 02/23/2013 12:52, refers to #13

Heightmapping is there to save time creating a raw layer whichcan be smoothened by hand. It also isn't existing for detail purposes, rather for creating a landscape for gameplay purposes on a way faster way.

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#15: Re: ..

by cmCooper on 02/23/2013 19:42, refers to #14

That is obviously the intention behind it but in practical use, as Papriko already mentioned, making the landscape from scratch goes faster than smoothing landscape made with heightmaps, assuming that you actually want a good looking landscape or want to make one that you already have in mind.
Also, at least when I edit, besides the mentioned slower editing progress, premade landscape with heightmaps also blocks creativity, the information coming from the eye is usually distracting the imaginary image.

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#16: Re: ..

by suicizer01 on 02/23/2013 19:58, refers to #15

It definitely does not block creativity, as you can even get inspired by the new raw landscape.
And I mentioned that it's faster to use the heightmapping option than actual by hand (which you seemed to disagree). Why it's faster? Because it works over multiple cubes, not just one (which you often are limited to, even you can pull or push multiple at the same time, but you need a perfect planning to get the same or even a similar effect).
You may be have to change it at certain placesby hand, but the overall landscape is made faster by heightmapping than by hand.

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#17: Re: ..

by Papriko on 02/23/2013 20:48, refers to #16

Heightmapping simply creates too many bumbs. Correcting those by hand takes too long and using the smoothing brush totally flattens everything.
When you want something to be at a certain height, then you have to make it like twice as high before using a smooth brush.

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#18: Re: ..

by cmCooper on 02/24/2013 14:21, refers to #16

I said "at least when I edit" it usually does block me. There's is nothing "definitely" when it comes to that topic.
"Because it works over multiple cubes" is what heightmapping very obviously does but as Papriko said: Correcting all the bumps and unwanted formations takes more time and (at least in my case) concentration than making and forming the cubes by hand.
Whenever I used heightmaps I didn't have to only correct certain places but every single cube. When I realized that no cube is shaped in a helpful way, I deleted the whole thing and made it by hand. Using heightmaps is like making something inaccuratly and wrong, afterwards correcting it with unreasonable effort instead of making it right from the beginning on (by hand).
That was the situation everytime I tried to use heightmaps. I guess you need to be in good practise with the editor though, so that you don't get annoyed by shaping every single cube.

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#19: Re: generic terrain generation

by ProtoThad on 03/03/2013 04:19, refers to #18

I'm jumping into this thread a little late, but it seems like a good place to mention a generic terrain generating mod I'm close to finishing. The idea is that you pass it a set of rules that define an arbitrarily complex 3D shape withing the X/Y/Z coordinate system of a map, and it then fills it in with a bunch of deformed cubes that approximate that shape with a bit of randomness thrown in to make it all look a bit more natural. The advantage it has over heightmaps is that it works in all three directions simultaneously, so you can have deformed spheres and leaning rock formations etc, which are tough to do otherwise.

Along with that, I've got a hack that allows you to save off the contents of your cube clipboard into a file, then later load that file back into the clipboard and paste to specific coordinates. This allows one to create a bunch of map components that can later be automatically assembled into a randomized map via a script. I'm still cleaning up the interface for these features, but after a lot of sporadic tweaking I think the core functionality is finally solid.

I'll post here when I have a patch ready for people to try out.

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#20: Re: generic terrain generation

by ProtoThad on 03/03/2013 04:49

I see that eihrul added savebrush and pastebrush commands to the recent collect release. I assume this does same as the clipboard hack I worked up for the old justice version, so that should save me a bit of porting. I'll still release my terrain mod as soon as I port it to the newer release.

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#21: Re: generic terrain generation

by suicizer01 on 03/03/2013 14:21, refers to #20

We (or at least I) can't wait to see it happen.

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#22: Outdoor Gameplay

by Pyccna on 03/28/2013 05:31

Another problem I've noticed with outdoor maps is the lack of pretty cover. With indoor maps you can make a wall/building look absolutely fantastic and fill it with so much detail. With outdoor maps all you can really do is fill the map with geometry that looks like logs, crates, rocks, sandbags, jersey barriers, & cosmetic vehicles. Where's the fun in that?

Plus with some of the outdoor maps I've been working on, it's very hard to balance open terrain with defensive positions without digging trenches, building hills/mountains, or putting up walls.

Point is I don't think outdoor is good for a balanced, entertaining, and fast gameplay.

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