ORIGINAL: sztartur
I am still in the learnin phase BUT I have used the 3X3 km maps for CMBB.
So have I. I've even made scenarios for CMBB using 3km maps.
I wouldn't get hung up on size. PCO plays very different from CMBB. So comparing the simple size of the maps in terms of game play is a serious under estimation of what PCO is capable of.
I have in mind some ideas which I wanted to do in PCO. Now it seems it will not be possible. I see that if it has serious performance issue then that's it.
It depends on your project. Since you don't say what it is there's no way of knowing if PCO is currently capable of doing it or not.
At the moment your computer doesn't have the ability to play a 3km PCO map. I can already make 2km maps that push PCO beyond it's limits.
PCO maps are restricted by a few things but lets take a look at a single texture and the ability of PCO to render it.
The textures are a result of how the scenario designer chose to display the terrain. There are two settings with a range from 1 to 999 and two other settings that have a range of 20 more. That's a texture display range of 399,200,400. Then there is a directional display for the terrain texture that covers the 360 degrees of the compass. If you consider that to be 360 more options for display you come up with a total of 12,201,553,224,000 different display options for a single texture in PCO. I'm pretty sure that's not a poly issue. I can display the terrain textures showing from completely smooth to completely rough and everything in between. No other games terrain display features come anywhere near PCO's ability for the designer to show a texture as they wish. Ours are not a single tile that displays only one way in the game but it's a single pixel shown any way the designer wants to show it.
PCO doesn't have tile based terrain for it's maps. Each pixel is displayed. When you do that it takes a lot of computing.
Erik has already said that we are looking at larger maps in the future. I would think that future is PC4 at best and not sooner. Making bigger maps available in PC looks to be a HUGE issue not something that just needs 2 lines of coding. But as Erik said he'll get with the programmer and see. Then he'll let us all know.
Good Hunting.
MR
Good Hunting.
MR
The most expensive thing in the world is free time.
Founder of HSG scenario design group for Combat Mission.
Panzer Command Ostfront Development Team.
Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm Development Team.