Steph's next great project announcement

[Steph]

I worked a bit on the river. Now, if you have two adjacent hills / mountains, but they are separated by a river, the render use the 'independant" picture for the hill, creating a kind of valley.

This means that you cannot have a river that just crosses hill.

I still have some default here with things that should be behind but are in front. I will correct this later, when the save is done, so I can work on pre saved map, instead of having to recreate the configuration that gives problem everytime.

 

[Sir John]

very nice.. that looks great.. Firaxis should look to u for ideas and such

 

[Jimmyh]

Going back to the rivers on forest problem, u could always have new terrain that actually have forest and rivers on the same, maybe even a complete new set of gfx for rivers.

So you could have a desert set for rivers, of course they would be dry river beds.

Just a thought, I know it would mean a **** load more terrain gfx and would hike up the memory usage quite a bit more.

J.

 

[Steph]

I'm almost done with rivers. In fact, it was a lot simpler than I thought.

A few things are worth noticing on this screenshots :
- The rivers are always above the forest
- They are above the mountains only if on the south side
- When going "through" a mountain or a hill, it creates a kind of narrow valley.
- You can have rivers on 3 sides of a square, without creating a "river circle". Obtaining this very natural feature can be done if you explicitly put rivers on the 4 sides of a square.
- You have major and minor rivers
- You have deltas.

I'm still working on delta, they give some weird result from time to time (when trying to create a river that is parallel to the cost). I think I will not allow this kind of river, it looks to strange, but I need to deactivate it properly.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

sry if i sound stupid for asking this, but what is this. i havent been following the thread, but it looks like an improved editor, am i right?

thx in adv.

 

[Warlord 101]

It's not just an Editor. It's a whole new game, based originally on Civillizations 3, but taken several steps up. And, from what I've seen and read, this is sometihng to certainly look forward too.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

when you say "whole new game" do you mean as in download and never have to have CIV 3?

sry if i worded wrong, smthing doesnt seem right.

 

[Warlord 101]

Well, I'm not sure, ask Steph. When I said it was an excellent mod he said it was a whole new game.

 

[kryszcztov]

Steph, that's what I was thinking of, about the delta going weird into the sea, along a coast... You could have a special little set of tiles to make it look nice, though. Let's say every part of any river MUST have 1 land tile on its left and 1 land tile on its right. That way, the river can't go along a coast. You would have to make the delta look different so it curves itself by 45°... Otherwise, if you disable this, no river could end in every part of coast that looks like stairs...

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by Mr. Dictator
when you say "whole new game" do you mean as in download and never have to have CIV 3?

sry if i worded wrong, smthing doesnt seem right.

I can't tell yet in what form it will be available, but yes, you don't have to have civ3.

However, the game should come with its "own" graphics ("own" because I hope modders here will agree to have their graphics included in it). But it should be fairly easy with the included editor and with Flicster to transform a CivIII units into a SSS unit. I won't include CivIII units in a download for evident copyright issue (except if Firaxis contact me and we reach an agreement).

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by Mr. Dictator
sry if i sound stupid for asking this, but what is this. i havent been following the thread, but it looks like an improved editor, am i right?
thx in adv.

It's a new game with an improved editor.

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by kryszcztov
Steph, that's what I was thinking of, about the delta going weird into the sea, along a coast... You could have a special little set of tiles to make it look nice, though. Let's say every part of any river MUST have 1 land tile on its left and 1 land tile on its right. That way, the river can't go along a coast. You would have to make the delta look different so it curves itself by 45°... Otherwise, if you disable this, no river could end in every part of coast that looks like stairs...

I had something similar in mind. But it's true this part is a bit tricky, because with the way graphics are done, when following a coast the hedge is land for grassland or desert, but is sea for plain and tundra.

 

[Kal-el]

of course you could change that so that the edge is the same for all terrains.

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by Kal-el
of course you could change that so that the edge is the same for all terrains.

Do you volunteer to change the graphics?
Anyway, I prefer to have different graohics, the map just look nicer.
However, if I find someone to make the terrain graphics, and he can make it so:
- The map are not to monotonous
- The edge is always on the same side

I would be happy to adapt my program so it has better rivers

 

[kryszcztov]

Originally posted by Steph
I had something similar in mind. But it's true this part is a bit tricky, because with the way graphics are done, when following a coast the hedge is land for grassland or desert, but is sea for plain and tundra.

Hey, I've never noticed that ! I guess I should look more closely to the Civ3 terrain set, to know what kind of tiles hide behind the fog over the sea... Anyway it doesn't change what I say : with the rule of a river that must always have land (ie. a land TILE) on both sides, there could be a test to try whether this tile is land or not, and so find if the terrain random generator (and the editor too) allows the river to be here or there. But now I don't know. I don't know how the code is for the terrain... Maybe my feeling is wrong.

 

[Steph]

No, it is right. It's a bit more complicated because it must work both way : ie when you add a river, there's a check to see if the river is allowed, but when it's placed, and then you move the coast on square away (ie you had coast - land - land, and after you have sea - coast - land), then the river should disappear.

The difficult is indeed the "stairs". Deltas do not work well here for the moment.

 

[Sir John]

isnt it possible to have a smaller delta or something if the river goes along the coast and then inot the water? That could make the trick..

Very nice work inded with those rivers. But is it possible to make mountains that go into eachother and that is not parted by a river seem more like one mountain? So that a chain of mountains would actualy look like a chain of mountains.. That would be nice...

 

[aaminion00]

A bit off topic but I thought you could help me with this.

What's the French word for "Crossbowman".

 

[Steph]

Originally posted by Sir John
Very nice work inded with those rivers. But is it possible to make mountains that go into eachother and that is not parted by a river seem more like one mountain? So that a chain of mountains would actualy look like a chain of mountains.. That would be nice...

But it's already the case. See the difference between the two set of hills and mountains.

You may find that the transition between adjacent mountains is to low, so it doesn't really look like a chain, you just have to find an artist to make new graphics : at least the gamer engine includes it.

 

[Steph]

No new screenshot, but I've manage to reduce memory usage for big map by 33%.

Next step is to make the X continuity, shouldn't take to long