Some things concerning environment

A forum about everything related to the Cafu World Editor CaWE: mapping, editing, scripting, making GUIs and fonts, using the BSP, PVS and Light compilers.
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Beef
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Joined:2012-07-16, 22:47
Some things concerning environment

Post by Beef » 2012-07-16, 23:17

Hi! o/

I just downloaded the engine and I'm pretty impressed actually, since it's more or less just what I wanted from an engine for a little private project I recently decided to do. But there are several things I keep thinking about, that don't seem to be adressed by the engine as it is.

- Holes in terrain.
I read a post about this being an important feature to add in the future, but that was 2 years ago. It doesn't look like a possibility for implementing holes in the terrain has been added by now? I don't want to leave the impression of being impatient - especially as a practically unknown person who just registered his account and never contributed to the project - I just want to know, whether I need to think of possible workarounds for bigger interior/exterior tunnel systems within mountains or underground passages between two places in the landscape. Sorry if my inital formulation seemed kind of impatient or impolite ^_^'

- Water.
I read several times here, that adding special physics to water can be done via scripting? What about complete underwater levels? Shouldn't be too hard, if I don't need to give the player the ability to move freely along all three axes? I could imagine a terrain for the ground of the ocean and higher than that let's say an invisible layer on witch the player moves, while his ingame character is replaced by a model of a submarine, and on an event triggered by the player, he switches to a boat on a seperate level above, so he can sail over the ocean.
What about filters, so that the overall color palatte is changed?

- Sky.
Is it possible to get an animated sky? Is it possible to manipulate weather conditions ingame? Or at least by events that are triggered by the game, so the players don't need to be the ones in charge? Fog? Maybe one could realize a fog-like effect with a filter like the underwater scenario, or with a GUI object that stays fixed to the player, is only visible to him and is semi-transparent? If placed in some distance to the player, this could generate a fog-like effect. How could I implement seasons? It'd be okay, if I had to change them manually on the server as the admin, but to create seasons for the players, I'd have to create every map in 4 variations according to the seasons, am I right?

EDIT: Another question that just popped up in my head: with the engine given at the moment, is it possible with scripting, to send a player from one place - e.g. a map that contains a part of a cave - to another map - another corridor in the cave - but have this second map be randomly chosen? So, the player enters a cave through the entrance, this cave is put together as he explores it, randomly. The separate parts wouldn't hinder each other, if they were separated maps. The cave looks always different, and to leave the cave, the player uses, say, an item, a rope from the inventory or something. This would need more complex C++ manipulation of the source code, I guess?

EDIT: Just corrected a rather embarrassing typo ^_^'
Last edited by Beef on 2012-07-18, 13:24, edited 1 time in total.
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Carsten
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Re: Some things concerning environment

Post by Carsten » 2012-07-17, 23:18

Hi Beef,
welcome to the Cafu forums! :welcome:
Beef wrote: - Holes in terrain.
I read a post about this being an important feature to add in the future, but that was 2 years ago. It doesn't look like a possibility for implementing holes in the terrain has been added by now?
Sorry, not yet.
I don't want to leave the impression of being impatient - especially as a practically unknown person who just registered his account and never contributed to the project - I just want to know, whether I need to think of possible workarounds for bigger interior/exterior tunnel systems within mountains or underground passages between two places in the landscape. Sorry if my inital formulation seemed kind of impatient or impolite ^_^'
No, no problem, questions and constructive criticism is always welcome!

However, our priorities are usually on structural enhancements that help the project as a whole, are relevant for a large base of users, or ease future development.
For example, right now I'm doing extensive changes to the engine core, networking code, map scripting, build setup, and relates issues. These changes don't immediately add new features, but they make the code a lot easier to understand than before, and (more importantly) make it possible to expand it further and add new features in a useful manner.

So as I'm pretty occupied right now, the best suggestion that I can make is to look yourself into the features that you're missing. I'm happy to assist in any way I can!
- Water.
I read several times here, that adding special physics to water can be done via scripting? What about complete underwater levels? Shouldn't be too hard, if I don't need to give the player the ability to move freely along all three axes? I could imagine a terrain for the ground of the ocean and higher than that let's say an invisible layer on witch the player moves, while his ingame character is replaced by a model of a submarine, and on an event triggered by the player, he switches to a boat on a seperate level above, so he can sail over the ocean.
What about filters, so that the overall color palatte is changed?
From your description this sounds more like a design question rather than technical. If your textures, light colors etc. are designed like an underwater world, it should work.
Fog would be helpful, too, but unfortunately that's another feature that we don't (yet) have.
- Sky.
Is it possible to get an animated sky? Is it possible to manipulate weather conditions ingame? Or at least by events that are triggered by the game, so the players don't need to be the ones in charge? Fog? Maybe one could realize a fog-like effect with a filter like the underwater scenario, or with a GUI object that stays fixed to the player, is only visible to him and is semi-transparent? If placed in some distance to the player, this could generate a fog-like effect.
The above applies to this, too: We don't have built-in code for animated sky effects or fog. At this time, you'd have to add it yourself.
How could I implement seasons? It'd be okay, if I had to change them manually on the server as the admin, but to create seasons for the players, I'd have to create every map in 4 variations according to the seasons, am I right?
That would be the easiest: With four different maps, each with the same geometry but with a sky matching the desired season and with appropriately set lights (e.g. bright high sun in summer, low orange sun in fall, snow-grey light in winter etc.), this would be the easiest to achieve.
EDIT: Another question that just pooped up in my head: with the engine given at the moment, is it possible with scripting, to send a player from one place - e.g. a map that contains a part of a cave - to another map - another corridor in the cave - but have this second map be randomly chosen?[...] This would need more complex C++ manipulation of the source code, I guess?
Well, I think of all of the above points, this would be the easiest to implement. I also like this idea generally, it's a generalization of the frequently asked for "at level end, automatically transfer player into the next level" scheme, and I've just filed ticket #119 for it.
Best regards,
Carsten
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