Planets: square or spherical?

Well, I believe the Outerra engine actually does use quadcubes. Same technology is being used here

It seems that most games out there that do 3d planets do so using the height map on cube expanded out to a sphere. Outerra, Spore, and a hand full of others. Google Earth however uses the old cylinder projection with the north and south poles pinched.

As some minor clarification, we haven't stated what method we're using, only that we're currently looking towards true 3d and not a flat rectangular play area distorted to look like a sphere.

If there isn't a good way to present a minimap, you could just have a viewport that shows an entire planet slowly spinning, complete with labeled latitude and longitude lines to provide contextual orientation, so over time you could see the whole planet in its pure spherical form.

When you mouse over the viewport, the planet would pause spinning so you could click on radar blips or issue move commands from units selected in your other viewports. There would be mouse controls on the viewport to control the speed of the spinning. If you click+drag on the space in the viewport, it would rotate the planet in the direction you moved the mouse, which could also be triggered by a shortcut key.

This would take some getting used to, as the player would have to become accustomed to watching the minimap over time to see all of the map's information. However, there would be no distortion.

For each new planet that you care about, you could just have another viewport showing that planet.

What do you all think about that idea?

<3

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Fantastic.

I thought they were called quadtrees, not quadcubes.

yes, but there are six quadtrees in a quadcube (pretty much the standard way to do DLOD'ed spherical geometry)

I figure I'll resurrect this thread rather than post another one, especially since people who do make new threads on this topic get (gently) prodded in this direction.

I for one am perfectly fine with the idea that i WONT be able to zoom out and see everything. Has nobody ever read any sci-fi? one of the biggest remaining problems in combat/colonization in space in just about every sci-fi novel is that you can't see to the other side. That sounds like a fantastic idea to me.

If I have scouted you, and know where your base is, shouldnt I be rewarded for intelligently placing my outposts in places that are hard for you to see? It could be that im on the other side of the same planet, or that im on a nearby planet without direct line-of-sight.

I think lack of visibility to places you shouldnt see anyway is a feature, not a bug. stop trying to "fix" it to make it the same as prior games.

-Stretch

Great first post, welcome to the forum stretch.

Beers in the esky out back.

I would be perfectly happy if it were handled the way Spore handles it. One of the most fun things in that game was zooming around planets.


I'm not worried about not being able to see the whole map either. I like strategic zoom and all but to be honest it was so extreme SupCom that it made the game incredibly dull to look at since you were zoomed out the whole way 90% of the time. And even seeing half the map simultaneously is a big improvement over most RTSs.

I also agree whole heartedly with Stretch

What the hell is this? Zordon being polite and courteous? ;p

Ok, clearly we need to analyse WFT happened here. Someone new to the forums appears to have lurked a while, searched, read the threads that came up, and then contributed a first post in the appropriate thread that actually added something new to the discussion. Something which suggest that he has actually spent some time thinking through the implications of his contribution rather than just rolling his face on the keyboard.

Clearly the resident bad idea brigade will reach the conclusions that this is personal bias (Zordon and Stretch are obviously friends offline!!!11one!!eleven!) and continue to post terrible BS while whining about how mean other posters are. (Not naming any names, but if you think this might apply to you? It probably does. Post better. If you don't think it applies to you? It probably does. Post better! )

I don't think I've ever been accused of lurking before .


Also, I couldn't resist:

"post better" seems to mean "shut up and stop thinking of ideas because we hate being postitive".

Good point rcix! Erastos did indeed forget to mention that if this applies to you then there is a good chance you will completely miss the point that he was trying to make.

Well, what is it? Its not like they're willing to put any effort in looking through even slightly flawed posts, instead favoring putdowns which make them look arrogant...

How about a 3d minimap?

Instead of a 2d map, you get a wireframe sphere with the icons of units on it. that way, you can easily see what's on the other side of a planet.

That would work wonders, until you had more than about a dozen units on the map, then it would be a useless mess.

Maybe, but in my opinion it's better than the one suggested earlier with 2 minimaps.
Maybe if you could zoom it?

There's probably a better solution, but i can't think of one now.
Maybe we'll see one in-game

(or just no minimap at all, like in SupCom. i rarely use minimaps anyway, i prefer to just look around the map myself.)

So sort of like they already confirmed? Multiple views which can be controlled individually...?