Maps border enhancement

[ImG]

user should not see an end of the maps. on the border can be placed impassable areas such as mountains or rivers.

When boat goes far away from dry land people can screem something like "Oh, no! I can see Kraken(or Cthulhu) there! we must return" and if boat continue to sail there can be one of these cases: 1. boat crew will kill capitan and return to the port(you cant do anything) 2. boat crew will kill capitan and become a pirates(or change their fraction) 3. Kraken(or Cthulhu) will kill everybody in the boat. 4. something else.

can something like that be realized?)

[SMST]

Sounds a lot like Gothic II, where you couldn't swim too far away from the shore, else a monster would be attacking.

No, seriously. I don't think something like this is needed in a RTS game.

[k776]

Units themselves can't actually go outside the map, so this shouldn't be a problem.

As far us (the player) seeing the edges, it's needed because of the GUI. If we stopped at the edge, the GUI controls would cover some of the map.

[ImG]

it is not a problem at all. but it can looks much better with this changes)

[oshron]

why not make the edges of the map surrounded by...well, the edges of a map? like in this pic? (its too big to actually post here): http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/...ap_shepherd.jpg

alternatively, there could be the option of making it either "blackmap" along the edges (btw, i really liked AOM's system where you could see how deep or high a valley or mountain was because of layers of rock an earth that are under the edges of the map, it adds a bit of realism and also helps the player to see where the limits of the map are) or making it have stylized map edges that could possibly change with the dominant biome or at will (so the player could make it so that, if the map edges are selected, they appear in one of six variants depending on which one they like or what feel theyre trying to establish)

[Aldandil]

I always thought Fog of War or Shroud of Darkness would just cover the edges and never go away.

[oshron]

thats actually one problem that i noticed with empire earth 2; just like any other RTS, there was a definitive border, but it looked just like the blackmap that you had to expose to see more of the map and it never went away, so it could be confusing. if there's just a regular "blackmap" border, then it should be a strait line so that you can easily tell that thats where the map ends

[ImG]

There can be 2 ways to improve maps borders:

1. when you cant see the border becouse of barrier(mountains, rocks in the water, big evil-minded monster from the legends)

2. clear border like http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/...ap_shepherd.jpg

or something like picture frame.

[Mythos_Ruler]

We actually have a pretty good idea how to do the map borders. Stay tuned. lol

[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!

[Mythos_Ruler]

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.

Yup