[discussion] Cliffs

I've searched through the forum quite a bit and looked up as much info on PA's terrain generation as I could, but I still have a few questions, especially regarding cliffs. If I'm not mistaken, all current 'prop'-like and hole-like terrain details are done with a combination of additive and/or subtractive boolean operations. While a lot of these details are very cool, creating cliffs along shorelines or other areas where terrain height changes seems beyond its limitations (thanks to the discussion in this thread, I've since been convinced otherwise).
While I understand concept art is concept art and nothing is set in stone, I would very much like to see options for cliffs implemented into the terrain engine to some degree (like what is demonstrated in the lava biome concept). Is it known if cliffs are a confirmed feature or are being worked on? If so, what is the likely approach to implement them? I'd also like to know how other players feel about cliffs, and what impact they may have on game strategy.

I'd settle for cliffs functioning properly. I ran into one game where a player was building a nuke inside a metal planet "crater", and all manner of gun, artillery, and even orbital fire failed to damage it because it was treating the airspace above the crater as the ground, which all the shots exploded against harmlessly.

Basically it seems only catapults and nukes will handle that

The terrain of PA has a lot of improvements yet to be made.

Uber has been focusing on other features rather than biome generation.

This is technically possible using the current system, it might require that the systems at play have more "depth" than they currently do thought.

Mike

We've got a few little cliffs and ramps going on in the desert biome so far. Hopefully we'll end up with these sorts of features across all the biomes eventually.

To preempt the people asking how the current system can do seaside cliffs, let me show you guys;



On the right you see the current way shores seem to currently be handled, a gentle slope that just goes below the water level.

On the left I have the way I think the current system could handles seaside cliffs, you need a bit of s steeper slope leading up to the water, but you end up essentially 'hiding' it being a brush of a cliff. Obviously this is much more complex than the current uses of brushes seem to be, combine that with the potential need for greater 'definition' in the planet's base mesh to accommodate the slopes needed for this and it's easy to see how while it's technically possible, the systems likely need a lot of work before this might be practical.

Mike

Couldn't it just randomly place "neutral factories" along the sea shore, seeing as units can already path on factories and the teleporter?

Here's a recent neutrino post from another thread concerning terrain:

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/...he-kickstarter-stuff.53254/page-3#post-852600

So.. at least they share the concern.

Unfortunately, that method could not be used to create contour-conforming cliffs. Even if it's repeated several times along a shoreline, the 'ends' of the cliff will be abrupt and areas where a body of water has a concave shape will not match up. There are a few other problems with that method and the results it gives, so I don't think über would take such an approach.

Procedurally generated CSG meshes for the cliffs?

I think PA is capable of using near arbitrary 3D models to do CSG operations on the planet. So you might a few nice cliff parts and add them in. ... I think, might be totally wrong.

I think you're reading too much into my example, there are planet of ways to address everything you bring up.

Not that it would be EASY mind you, I never specified that it would be easy, just that with the systems currently is use it IS possible.

Mike

I would have to disagree on that point. Your suggested method could never give good results as a general solution for cliffs along the contours of the terrain. If the CSG objects were procedurally generated using information about the contour and the slope along each section of it, it might be passable, but the results would look particularly bad at the top where the brush is supposed to 'blend' into the terrain, and generating an additive brush that matches the elevation and contour of the terrain perfectly is not within the current capabilities.

I've been an avid campaigner when it comes to the lava concept and whats currently in game as I personally feel the lava is the worst planet type right now though it has over-gone heaps and bounds of changes compared to where it was at several months ago but its stay a far cry away from looking anything like those concept art shots where you do indeed have the terrain elevated with ramps going down into the "lava pits". It brings the whole world to life in my opinion because all the cracks on the surface actually mean something, it gives the impression the hard molton floor could crack and lava will seep through at any moment rather then having lava doing exactly the same as the ocean/earth type planets where it acts more like ocean waves on a sandy beach rather then actual lava.

@KNight - Loved those examples of the seaside cliffs... very kool I would be absolutely ecstatic if the game engine can do that.... I hope they'll enable this in game I think it would add a lot to the game myself and as brainpurkiss has mentioned PA still has a lot of elements to improve on, their focus has been entirely on nothing but on the actual game itself to get that part finished, the pretty aesthetics will come later which hopefully will include raised terrain and cliffs. To the OP though it does still seem to be possible to include the concept art terrain still in the game as Knight showed.

If you look at the August 2013 livestream, you'll see that the lava planets did look a bit more like the concept art back then.. they had the so-called "lava pits". They decided to change it to the more flat look, because they thought it looks better. All I can say is that in the latest streamed dev game yesterday, the lava planet looked absolutely gorgeous, lava pits or no.

Edit:

Lava planet stuff starting from 22 mins:

My point wasn't about lava planets specifically, so much as it was about cliffs in general. I like that lava planets use terrain height to define lava pools, especially since the alternative was small pools of similar proportions created with brushes. I still think that cliffs along shorelines and other areas would be a fantastic addition to both earth and lava planets.

I think the best answer you are going to get is that they are still working on the terrain, to make it and the gameplay more interesting.

I think you're all making this more complicated than it needs to be. Cliffs bordering water can easily be accomplished with subtraction brushes that dip below the level of water or additive brushes that create land. What you should be asking for is some additional brushes + seeding changes built specifically for this. There are even existing screenshots of the crater brushes doing this.

To address the OP, there are very few limitations that CSG puts on the terrain; it was specifically chosen by Neutrino for this reason. Additionally, props like trees and rocks are not done this way; they're done similarly to units so that they can be reclaimed/burned down.

Edit: Relevant examples - http://allenchou.net/2013/07/bending-solid-geometry-in-planetary-annihilation/

On a partially related note, have there been any other dev blogs recently?