Geography Tools

Originally posted by Unheard Of

I've had a look at the screenshots of Tech2kjason's work at www.geocities.com/tech2kjason/ and it isn't obvious how he intended to deal with this.

Mdvalley: Thanks, that helps.

OMG! I forgot all about that site. I'm even more shocked that it's still there. [:0] Now if I could only remember what I used to get the password... We had several debates on the best method to display all of the data. When you're talking about representing billions of cubic miles in say 1280x1024 pixels, the only way to deal with it is pan\zoom and scale from a Parent. We decided to use 1 main DirectX frame to handle all of the viewing possibilities (Universe, Cluster, System, Entity), and emulating the behavior of the in-game navigation\map screens. The primary differences being that in the manipulation frame, the designer can tilt\spin the Universe\Cluster\System views (to place\move entities to different planes from their parents)... During the initial placement of the entities, the SDK initially placed all items on the same plane. This made elevation\plane adjustment mandatory (in our opinion), because otherwise the universe (like the world) would be flat. IF I remember right, one thing that we noticed, once we had the viewport configured, and we were loading the original maps, we found that the universe really IS three dimensional... With each parent entity defining the plane of it's children. Though the map only shows 2 dimensions being used, when the vectors pushed through a 3D matrix it quickly develops numerous hills and valleys when covered with a solid terrain... Remember exiting an L-Point, and cycling the planets, how the reticle would target up, down, etc? Another issue arises when working graphically... Your code has to be prepared to adjust the rest of the vector\entity chains on the fly... So that adding\removing entities doesn't break the map.

Originally posted by Unheard Of

Originally posted by Second Chance

How did you find it Unheard Of?

Extensive bashing of google and one lucky guess. Has anyone heard of this "Corland" fellow that the site refers to?
...

Corland got called overseas, to fight the war that nobody wants to talk about... Unfortunately, he is the only one that still has the fully functional beta2 of the SDK that we were working on... He was going to release it before he left, but he didn't know if anybody was still interested in a graphical SDK.

After working TOO hard for the real world last year, I've decided to spend more time doing the things I actually enjoy... Not too sure about how much time I'll actually commit, but it will be considerably more time than the zero-hours I spent last year. About 2 weeks ago, I started re-writing the whole SDK from scratch (using VS2003, Managed DirectX 9.0c, and C# ). I have the basic frontend layed out... Working on integrating the core-components and exception handlers today. I'll also update the site with current screenshots and progress later today.

I'll also work on real documentation for the rendering engine, so that it will be easier to convert the code to Java, Delphi, OpenGL, etc. Don't wait for me though... I maight take a vacation.

Alright! More old knowledge coming out of the woodwork. If this keeps up, we might have another EoC renaissance.

tech2kjason, a lot of new material has been worked out concerning geography recently (and not just the maps). If you're planning to start up again, you might want to check out the new release of GrandpaTrout's SDK documentation (I don't know why I like plugging this so much, lol ). I can also show you how to include generation of the Lightwave scene files to go with the finished map into your program (Lightwave is not required). Since Unheard Of is also working on the same idea, perhaps if you and he worked together you could get more coding accomplished with less work for both of you.

Here are some threads that might be useful to you.

Lightwave scene file for geography explained
www.i-war2.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1439

New thread for my cloud texture issue
www.i-war2.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1740

Planetary Populations (in new clusters?)
www.i-war2.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1762

Creating list of all bodies/habitats in EoC
www.i-war2.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1761

Creating new star systems...
www.i-war2.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1746


mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

Excellent! Thank you for the updates... Saved me a lot of reading (for now). Will definitely be touching base with a few people.

Ok, it looks like GrandpaTrout only updated the program, and not the documentation. So there's still plenty of new stuff to read about in the forum posts, tech2kjason and Unheard Of.

While we're on it; hey GT, any chance you could include wildcards in your program? This way I can just make a batch file to encode/decode whatever is in the folder. Thanks if you do.

Nice job on the decoder, btw.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

Sorry, no wildcards. I automated everything I do into batch files. The effort would not pay back time lost doing it.

I will get on adding the new Lpoint changes however.

-Gtrout