Forest terrain -

[henius]

Whoa, now THAT's a forest.

Thank you very big

[RockinHarry]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

Sure, here's what the lighting looks like.

Good Hunting.

MR

that confirms my assumption about dawn/dusk setting. Can you make another SS with a clear sky/noon setting on the same map and (roughly) same viewpoint? [:)]

[Mad Russian]

Here are the Sky Box backgrounds I can choose from. It's just a matter of selecting one that doesn't represent dawn or dusk, changing the light color on the map back to white, resetting the ZFar back to normal and re-saving the map under a new name.

I was going to have to do this for other battles in the campaign anyway so I'll just do it now. I picked the second from left on the top row for our daytime sky.

Good Hunting.

MR

[RocketMan]

Is there any way to add brush in the forested areas in Map Maker to represent undergrowth?

[Mad Russian]

Yes. I can add any structure to any texture I want.

Basically, that means, I can put anything on the map, anywhere on the map.

What starts to be an issue is processing power. While it's possible for MM to put a million individual structures on a map, it's only possible for PCO to process so many of those. That's where the designer has to decide what he/she wants most as structures and what is of minimal value and may be lived without.

Some of my forests have brush in them. Most don't so that I can increase the density of the trees. If tree density isn't a priority, a more realistic forest, with brush included, might be.

Good Hunting.

MR

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: RocketMan

Is there any way to add brush in the forested areas in Map Maker to represent undergrowth?

Most certainly, most of my forests have brush in them.

Rick

[lancer]

G'day,

Some pretty impressive greenery here.

From reading this thread I see that LOS is diminished every time a tree intersects the path so the more trees on the ground the harder it is spot the bad guys.

Does 'brush' have any effect on LOS?

Cheers,
Lancer

[Mad Russian]

Yes, brush affects LOS.

There are both height and width planes to a structure. Brush is no exception. But since Brush isn't as tall as a tree it won't have a height blocking ability like a tree. Since It's not as wide as a wall it won't block LOS laterally as far as a wall.

Trees are tall but not wide. Walls are wide but not tall. Brush is neither tall nor wide but for infantry lying on the ground can still provide cover and concealment.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

This is one of those rare instances where multiple battles took place over the same ground. There were at least six battles fought for this village in a three day period.

So, the same map with different lighting and weather conditions can cover all six of those. That makes it very easy to put into a campaign.

Good Hunting.

MR

[lancer]

G'day,

O.K, thanks for the info on brush. Looks good.

This is a very nice map you've made. Is it something that could be used for a randomly generated battle?

Cheers,
Lancer

[Mad Russian]

Yes. All maps can be saved in the random format so they can be used in random battles/campaigns.

Good Hunting.

MR

[lancer]

Excellent!

Cheers,
Lancer

[Mad Russian]

Here are some Screen Shots of a different sky with white light instead of a dawn sky with orange light.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

Same sky different direction.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Mad Russian]

Same sky again.

As you can see the skies are very much a part of the background. The clouds also move during game play. I never notice that unless I'm at the right angle and happen to be watching some part of the action and see the clouds go floating by. That increases immersion greatly.

Good Hunting.

MR

[RockinHarry]

Nice landscape shots! [:)]

Question: As (spot?) lighting direction, strength and angle obviously can be freely edited for a given map, what about shadows and ambient light?

I know this sounds sorta nick pitty again, but I would assume a bright summer day at noon, to have way darker shadows and more ambient light. Can this data be edited in the game as well? [:)]

[junk2drive]

You should have gotten on the team then you could play with all this stuff.

[Mad Russian]

Yes, you can see here where I selected both the diffuse and ambient light settings. These are in the lower left corner second line up. By changing them back to white they then become normal light settings.

Good Hunting.

MR

[rickier65]

ORIGINAL: RockinHarry

Nice landscape shots! [:)]

Question: As (spot?) lighting direction, strength and angle obviously can be freely edited for a given map, what about shadows and ambient light?

I know this sounds sorta nick pitty again, but I would assume a bright summer day at noon, to have way darker shadows and more ambient light. Can this data be edited in the game as well? [:)]

Rockin,

yes you can edit the Ambient And Diffuse light settings directly in the xml. Also this box shows the Map Maker controls for lighting, this doesn't look like much but you can get some very fine control. Stridor also put in an ephemeris calculator (the little sun sun symbol on the right). It give the correct settings based on Lat, longitude for the map you import based on whatever date you provide.

You can also edit the resulting values directly in the map file if you need even more control (and understand the values well enough).

Thanks
rick

[RockinHarry]

Thanks for quick reply! [:)] So If I get it right here, "diffuse" is for coloring the fog/distance haze and "ambient" sets the general lighting condition? So in order to have darker shadows, I think "ambient" then needs to be set lower (for bright sunny days), at least it works that way in other 3D game editors I know.

I assume "light strength" goes up to 255 max? In the editor SS I see values of 128 and 200. Or does it include lighting multiplier, measured in %?

So at max lighting strength setting (255?), the ground and object textures shine at their normal 100% gamma, or can you go over the top, by adding extra brightness?