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Strategy game (3D Sphere world, GUI graphics, dynamic load)

Posted: 2012-07-31, 00:59
by Paradox
Hi,

I'm currently work on a little strategy game and have some questions to special behaviors.

1. Is it possible to use own graphics in the GUI (not only simple colors)?

2. The world should be a planet with water, where things can build on, is this possible with the Cafu engine? (I played a bit with the CafuWE and couldn't figure out how it could be work)

3. Some of the games features will take an effect to the worlds surface. (Modeller would say, it manipulates the mesh/polygons if you know what i mean) Is this possible?
e.g. There is a digger which is digging a hole...or sth like that

4. Does the Cafu engine dynamic loading possibilities have?
e.g. Simply described, the world is the size of 1000x1000 but at entering the game only 50x50 is loaded. Other parts will be loaded by moving to its position or increase the size of the range.

5. How to make a game for different screen resolutions playable?
I've a screen res. from 1900x1080, but others my have 1024x728...whats the solution? (For each res. own textures?)


Thanks for answering my questions.

I appreciate your help!

Regards

Re: Strategy game (3D Sphere world, GUI graphics, dynamic lo

Posted: 2012-08-01, 22:51
by Carsten
Hi Paradox,
Paradox wrote:1. Is it possible to use own graphics in the GUI (not only simple colors)?
Yes, sure: Each window can have a custom background material.
For example, the background image in the main menu or several of the GUIs in the TechDemo map use this.
2. The world should be a planet with water, where things can build on, is this possible with the Cafu engine? (I played a bit with the CafuWE and couldn't figure out how it could be work)
Uh, sorry, I'm not sure what you mean...?
3. Some of the games features will take an effect to the worlds surface. (Modeller would say, it manipulates the mesh/polygons if you know what i mean) Is this possible?
e.g. There is a digger which is digging a hole...or sth like that
Unfortunately, dynamically deforming a terrain is currently not possible.
4. Does the Cafu engine dynamic loading possibilities have?
e.g. Simply described, the world is the size of 1000x1000 but at entering the game only 50x50 is loaded. Other parts will be loaded by moving to its position or increase the size of the range.
Not built-in.
Please see http://www.cafu.de/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4795#p4795, plus the post it is linking to, http://www.cafu.de/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3706#p3706.
5. How to make a game for different screen resolutions playable?
I've a screen res. from 1900x1080, but others my have 1024x728...whats the solution? (For each res. own textures?)
The screen resolution and the textures are independent of each other.
In fact, the user can choose the resolution that he wants to run the game with, and this work automatically right.
No problem here. ;-)

Generally, maybe this FAQ can provide a little help as well.

Re: Strategy game (3D Sphere world, GUI graphics, dynamic lo

Posted: 2012-08-02, 03:01
by Paradox
Great, thanks for your detailed information!

So the engine downscales a texture if I store it in a high resolution.

To point 2.
I won't a flat platform to go arround.
What I meant is: Take the earth and buildings like the Empire State Building. You are in bird-perspective and can place buildings.
With the cursor you rotate the earth.

Is it clearly now? :)

Re: Strategy game (3D Sphere world, GUI graphics, dynamic lo

Posted: 2012-08-04, 12:01
by Carsten
Paradox wrote:So the engine downscales a texture if I store it in a high resolution.
Depending on the texture detail settings, yes.
And the graphics driver / OpenGL implementation does the rest.
To point 2.
I won't a flat platform to go arround.
What I meant is: Take the earth and buildings like the Empire State Building. You are in bird-perspective and can place buildings.
With the cursor you rotate the earth.
Is this while you're editing the map in CaWE, or do you want to do this while playing (as part of the game, done by the players)?

No problem if this is done in the editor CaWE,
but doing it in-game is more difficult, requires custom coding, and may impose some restrictions (such as mentioned above: terrains are immutable once finished in the editor and processed for in-game use).

For example, with reasonable effort I think that it is possible to make a chess game, where to players see a spatial presentation of a chess board, can rotate it freely, and place/move/remove the chess pieces.

But again, I feel that I don't know very precisely the game that you envision, and the best recommendation (as given in the FAQ mentioned above) that I can come up with, at this point, is that you explore the Cafu programs, code and possibilities by yourself.

The Cafu Engine tends to be capable of more things than there are in the demo maps (because not everything in the code has a correspondence in the maps), but the bigger the desired customization, the bigger the required custom programming effort. (For which, if you decide to go for it, we're happy to provide help and support.)