2 replies to this topic

[Exilyth]

Planets in battletech are as varied as can be.

unfortunably, we currently have a bunch of maps which provide a limited number of environments and making new maps takes quite some time.

I would like to suggest decoupling biome and map geometry to allow the creation of multiple maps at the same time.

Taking Canyon Network as an example, the layout would be the same for each biome, but there could be

• temperate: just like Canyon Network is right now
  
• cold: snow texture, water replaced with ice, snow meshes added on top of some terrain features
  
• hot: volcanic rock texture, water replaced with magma
  
• desert: sand texture, rocks replaced with crystals
  
• dessert: pudding texture, rocks replaced with tufts of whipped cream (halloween event map, anyone? )
  
• swamp: mud, muddy water, stone bridges replaced with tree roots
  
• alien landscape: like one of the others, but with hue shift, slime for water, e.t.c. (e.g. like that one FW map with the pink trees & gras)

So, "cold canyon" and "sandy canyon" would have the same layout as Canyon Network, but look completely different.

The idea is that the map geometry only needs to be created once, and assets are placed on top of the map which are replaced automatically with similarly shaped variants. This guarantees that balance stays mostly the same, but eases the creation of maps.

For each asset, there would need to be different versions for each biome, which could be as simple as differently textured versions (e.g. a bunch of rocks with lava, with ice, with moss) up to something complex like complete replacement (e.g. a building could switch to a scorched ruin in a really hot biome).

The common destroyable tree, like the ones we love to run over on maps like river city (the stick with leaves on top which falls over when hit by SRM and stuff), could be replaced by their variants like this:

• temperate: just like it is now
  
• cold: no leaves, some snow on branches
  
• hot: just a small ash pile with a stick of coal
  
• desert: dried up tree (I think this is in already in one of the hot maps)
  
• dessert: jelly trees wobbling in the wind
  
• swamp: like temperate, but with lianas and a mossy trunk
  
• alien landscape: hue shifted (or really bizarre shapes, e.g. trunks like lucky bambus)

While there is a certain difficulty in realizing the variant system, adding new assets and maps would become easier and existing assets could be reused over a larger number of maps.

As a side effect, each new map geometry would automagically generate [num of biomes] new maps and each new biome would automagically generate [num maps] new maps.

Of course, unique maps like HPG could still stay unique.


PS: I don't know exactly how cryengine does terrain texturing, but if they blend a bunch of repeated textures over the whole map with an index texture indicating what texture is shown in what location, replacing textures would be trivial (just substitution). If terrain texturing includes some customization of the UV mapping, a non-trivial workround would be needed. But, no need to bore people with implementation details in this thread

[Livaria]

Seems cool. Though I wonder how much resources it'll take to make something like this happen. Not to mention if map balance is going to be an issue or not.

[Nesutizale]

I don't think that the envoirment will be much of an issue because the maps gets hotter or colder. The geometrie still is the same.

Beside that I would welcome this as it gives a bit of a refreshment to the gameplay...exept for NighGyr pilots