More pretty stuff: atmospheres and planet surfaces

Post by **hurleybird** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:23 pm

I do not beleive anything planetary flight related has been commited to CVS yet.

charlieg · Post by **charlieg** » Mon Aug 23, 2004 12:05 am

Perhaps it would be advisable to create a branch in CVS where it can be maintained. That way, even if schez is to drop the intra-planetary flight development, another can take on the mantle without being set back to starting from nothing.

Post by **hellcatv** » Wed Aug 25, 2004 8:35 pm

that sort of thing should be pretty easy to predicate on a config var that is by default turned off

that way it can stay as a single uniform version and there aren't any merging hassles later

shouldn't be a big deal if we can get coders

charlieg · Post by **charlieg** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 8:46 pm

I guess the only follow up to that is to get the code in CVS! Mr Schezerade?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 4:54 am

Is this ever to be implemented?
I heard that there was code but the guy is gone now.

Alaskan · Post by **Alaskan** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 2:47 pm

...well thats the beauty of open source....

Go get a programming book and code us it.

I haven't even played the game yet. Debian seems to fuck up the compiling env by default. I'm getting around to installying Gentoo on a shiny ResierFS. That way I can emerge it.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 7:57 pm

As far as I know... one of the older 0.4.1 versions is all that's in portage right now. : P

Checking out the CVS and compiling isn't too tought, though. Check out the wiki for help!

Post by **ace123** » Sun Sep 19, 2004 8:22 pm

Vegastrike is compiled on debian stable and testing and it's been tested on gcc 3.4 too. I don't see what you mean...
(I run testing and hellcatv runs stable)
Even if you run unstable, they probably can be fixed.

If you have any errors, please post them inn the compiling problems section so that they can be solved.

wewewewewe · Post by **wewewewewe** » Mon Sep 20, 2004 3:50 am

If seamless planetary flight happens to never ger implemented, mabie we could make a seperate flight engine for flying on terrains??

Not too sure.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 1:33 am

He said that the code was almost done, he only needed to finish it up over the weekend but then he dissappeared. I wish he would release the code he has so it can be finished.

Post by **MamiyaOtaru** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 6:57 am

Anonymous wrote:He said that the code was almost done, he only needed to finish it up over the weekend but then he dissappeared. I wish he would release the code he has so it can be finished.

He also had computer problems and lost a lot of stuff. He was severely delayed getting the weapon models for the privateer mod to us as a result, but we were just happy they weren't among his lost data.

The planetary flight code on the other hand may have been. You might have to reconcile yourself with the idea that planetary flight is a long long way off.

If it was lost, we can all take it as a lesson about the importane of backing stuff up and keeping it in a repository somewhere. Then we move on.

wewewewewe · Post by **wewewewewe** » Tue Sep 21, 2004 5:15 pm

Did the creator of the seamless planetary flight disapper temporarly??

Post by **hellcatv** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 10:39 am

he's working on AI fulltime at the moment

he's got an AI that can take my fighter
turn it upside down
lower it...
add go fast lights

and then manage to kill it anyway

it's pretty awesome stuff

next release should have some kickbutt AI

Lord QDaan · Post by **Lord QDaan** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 4:57 am

hellcatv wrote:kickbutt AI

That's what we want to hear! Hellz Yah! Better than any graphics update.

Post by **hurleybird** » Mon Sep 27, 2004 5:12 am

hellcatv wrote:he's working on AI fulltime at the moment

he's got an AI that can take my fighter
turn it upside down
lower it...
add go fast lights

and then manage to kill it anyway

it's pretty awesome stuff

next release should have some kickbutt AI

That sounds toltally awesome awesome!

Will we now be able to have normal pilots and 'ace' level pilots like in wing commander 3 & 4?

How about pathfinding... navigating through asteriod feilds... landing on bases?

Different wingmen having different levels of AI?

Pilot personalities?

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 6:38 pm

Ah data loss sux. However I have been able to recover old passwd files by simply
less /dev/hda and serarching for a string I knew were in the files. You will see all the plain text and everything and can then copy it over with the mouse into a new file. (This works on any filesystem). I hope this helps you get the code back

.

scheherazade · Post by **scheherazade** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 3:05 am

nah, i still have it all archived.

i just jump from task to task and sorta work on things in parallel... making it take a while longer than it should.

in any case, i have the planet generator code. and i can get it *working* with a weekend. though i think i wanna make it more static-ish for the sake of speed. replace the dynamic [planet] sector data bins with larger chunks of dynamic data. currently every little thing is dynamic in itself... needlessly really.

it's still too simple. i need to add a lot to it. currently, its only capable of land. it cant make separate geometry for water. which i think it really should. i could add that ability pretty ez. I also need to add the ability to accept static detail vectors, so that you can assign any place on the surface a height no matter what LOD it generates. That way you can have cities bound to a certain altitude on the surface, and the LOD literally won't take the terrain out form beneath it.

anyways, it's still there. it'l get done eventually. but if i did get it working the rest of the way now it wouldn't have much to offer aside from makin g a planet whose surface height is controlled by a heightmap.

-scheherazade

strangelet · Post by **strangelet** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 12:39 pm

duuuuuuude you give yourself no credit! "only generates from heightmaps"...

that's awesome! i'm gonna start making some cityscape stuff

seperate geom for water? surely you just have to cap the lowest altitude and paint all vertices with altitude 0 blue....

also , how is the terrain generator gonna kick in? do we get seamless planetary landings or a cut scene-to-different-engine?

another point i'd like to raise is atmospheric shielding. in frontier-elite 2 only those craft with atmo shields could land on planet surface, which might be a good limiter for te kind of craft that could make a planetary landing. any craft without sufficent shielding burned up in the atmosphere... i don't see a vark or a clydesdale being able to make the descent...

macross · Post by **macross** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 1:27 pm

Hi!

I've read this discussion for a while now. I've done a complete procedural city generator for university this term. Maybe this might be incoporated into VegaStrike if you all want to. Though I'm currently a bit busy with diploma thesis and stuff I would like to contribute to this project...

Well to the city genarator. It is based on a SIGGRAPH paper. It generates buildings and a street network using L-Systems (maybe you know these from plant modeling). The only thing the user must supply are some grayscale maps (street pattern, height map, population density etc.) and a base texture library. I've to note some things:
1. The generation itself is not realtime but can still be tweaked a lot.
2. Graphics quality kind of sucks in the moment but can be improved (better building generation with advertisments like Blade Runner etc.)

I've got some pics here: http://pringleridoo.mine.nu/modules.php ... _album.php

cu Sebastian

PS: If traffic is too high I'll have to remove the pics, so please only look if you are really intrested!

Post by **MamiyaOtaru** » Sat Oct 02, 2004 6:05 pm

Anonymous wrote:nah, i still have it all archived.
-scheherazade

I tried to buy you some time but now be prepared for all sorts of people bugging you again about getting this done. Maybe even me

Didn't realize how far along you are. Add to that the city generator, and I will allow myself a moment of looking forward to the future inclusion of this stuff, when you get the time.

strangelet · Post by **strangelet** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 12:35 am

omg guys you have to check his shit out! macross that is totally amazing

adding that kind of environment to vegastrike would push it way beyond anything already out there. it's at times like this i wish this was my project so i could just go HELLS YES LETS DO THAT!

even setting aside building generation, the street layout and model placement alone would be worth it's weight!

i can hear scherz *sighing* from here.... ohhhh yes matey - we shan't let you sleep now!

so we have - dynamic universe, bones of planet gen, and an offer of city gen.... we live in exciting times...

Macross - i think vegastrike would be an excellent showcase for your city generator and i'd be happy to supply any arts you might need

VS guys - CAN WE KEEP IT? HUH? CAN WE? HUH? HUH?!

Post by **hurleybird** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 1:57 am

imagine tweaking that city generator to make huge epipisode 2 style sky-scrappers! Now that would be awesome!

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 4:54 am

seperate geom for water? surely you just have to cap the lowest altitude and paint all vertices with altitude 0 blue....

Need to beable to go under the sea for sneak attacks

. (hey if we can make it happen... and I think the talent here definitly can! then let's do

)

wewewewewe · Post by **wewewewewe** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:12 am

The cities has somewhat have to be extremely low poly or you will get a large performance hit.

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Mon Oct 04, 2004 6:47 am

with less than 10 polys you can make a really nice scifi building, all the work/details can be added to the texture. Does the actual code support LODs and impostors?

Vega Strike Forums

More pretty stuff: atmospheres and planet surfaces

City generation