omicron1

Easy! Have the terrain extend with a random perlin effect (which modifies a simple "clamp" effect of having the current height/texture continue to infinity) to the edges of the LOS in all directions. Maybe have it computed at map design times, by adding a screen-width "border" region to the map terrain. Then darken all colors beyond the map region by half, or simply add a colored border around the edges. This solves both problems: It clearly defines the game area, and it is much more immersive (by dint of not ending abruptly in darkness or visual artifacts) than the typical approach would be. In my own project (which has the added challenge of accomodating a landscape perspective in regular play), I extended the ocean visual beyond the range of vision in all directions, then modified my map generation scripts so that, in effect, all maps are islands. (Although a 2x-size terrain might be possible with no framerate decrements) The end result is quite pleasing! The holy grail of map borders, I think, is probably the World in Conflict approach - both terrain and scenery objects extend to the horizon in all directions!

Bonus: 0 AD is the "still picture" on the indie contest front-page.

Go for a non-Greek name! How about "Alpha 3 Clannad"?

Here's a thought for y'all... As well as the attached-to-buildings beautification objects, why not have some that spawn around buildings based on a pseudointelligent algorithm to create the feeling so common in promotional screenshots and so lacking in gameplay ones of a functional town? Things like, say, a fence around houses at the edge of a village facing away from other buildings... a little dirt trail between a house and an adjoining work building... a bush between a house and an adjoining warehouse or other industrial facade... basically, just spread out the detail objects over time.

Jus' waitin' on a go-ahead from Amish/Feneur.

Got it. I'd just made a running animation, so much to do still.

I'm guessing the other needed animations are: 1x run 2x attack variations 2x die 1x walk Possibly also an "eating" animation if you want it to interact with other animal NPCs.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/h5ihkwco65lo...ow_rigged.blend

Lion has been rigged. I'm going to make an "idle" animation of 30 frames, then upload the blend so y'all can try it ingame.

Ok, any specific guidelines for rigging/animating? (Bone count, animations required, animation length, etc?

I don't see the attachments. I see pseudo-html.

Uh, what? Lioness.zip?

I'd suggest an "overview" icon. EG, rather than just having a set of icons for each unit, utilize a larger icon that contains a representative icon: say, if you have only/mostly horse units, a picture of mixed cavalry shows up. This allows at-a-glance identification of a group or hotkeyed-group's intended purpose - much as the hotkey-group banners in Age of Empires 3 did. The health bar on this icon should be an average of all the selected units' health. This is important - it provides visual information on the overall state of the entire selected force even if a large number are selected. Possibly additional information (average attack power? Average/min/max range?) could be displayed in this space as well.

Ok, I might be able to handle some of the animating. I've done a bit in Blender, so if those lions are in a .blend compatible format, could ya send them my way/direct me to where they are in the source tree?

A thought: The metal/stone deposits don't really stand out on all maps, especially visible in the valley 1 screenshot above. I'm not certain what you could do to highlight them; what AoE3 did was to place a dirt "rim" around any resource outcrops, separating them visually from the surrounding terrain.

So, the fact that your soldiers build/harvest makes you think of AoM, which makes you think of associated negative experiences? That's nobody's problem but yours, bud.

Well... right now, I'm rooting for 0 AD. I can't forget the bobbing cork-boats in the trailer for AoEo... they just looked wrong. Thus, I'm not particularly a fan of the new art style.

Mein gott... the music! The music in the trailer! It's like Age of Empires reborn! I am literally crying from happiness right now.

Good grief... that looks good. Just a color-correction shader (See: Crysis) and the photo and the model would look nigh-indistinguishable.

EDIT: I misunderstood.

I'd think you wouldn't want to use pathfinding for range checking. Much faster to keep an area-delineated tree list of units (so you don't have to check all of them to see which ones are in range) and check X/Y distances between them, no?

Nice. Couple questions: 1. How do transport ships figure into the pathfinding system? 2. How does the game handle long-range/en masse pathfinding checks (say you order fifty units from one end of a map to the other)? 3. If there's no path to find from one disconnected landmass/water mass to another, does your engine recognize this? It should be a relatively easy fix - a propagated key value for each group of pathfinding tiles, such that each water/land mass will in the end have its own key index, and such that a pathing request from one key index to a different key index will be a trivial case. 4. Have you thought of doing octree optimization on the pathfinding data? A simple largest-square finding algorithm could work; it would result in vast speed improvements at the cost of flexibility and path elegance.

My perfect RTS would be a combination of Pharaoh and Age of Empires, with just one faction, but with civilization modification choices (similar to AoM's god system) at every age-up. The idea of adding an FPS mode has merit, but only in light of a much slower overall gameplay. Otherwise it would be too easy to lose track of the global situation whilst mucking about in first person. In fact, in a slower RTS having something to do for distraction could have a very positive effect. But in a typical speed-oriented game it's more annoying than welcome.

The real reason the "CE" addition was made: People who want to forget the Pope, Martin Luther, and Paul (among others) ever existed. Ignore such people; in the grand scheme of things, their personal biases don't matter. (On topic) All I know about the release date is, when it does come out, there will be a gaming revolution the likes of which the world has never known. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the owners of future multiplayer account names like Gabriel and Michael turn out to be ... not quite human.

I did. But the powers-that-be got rid of it.