Cloud Testing on Riftval

[bustr]

I'm in the last phase of getting this project ready to submit. I've been rearranging cloud formations and testing them all day.

Now I think I have what I want for this theme, and letting it run for a few hours to see what happens while I fly around in CMeye and spawning in with a panther on every spawn looking for anything I missed. Mostly looking for where I've made the field approaches from spawns too sparse with an already tree sparse tile set or, disproportionately high micro hills along the approaches. 660ft of open arid dead gray grass to cross invites a spawn camp. I'm down to painting tiny dots of scrub trees to fix those. I keep loosing the resupply convoys becasue I hid the convoy spawn points with a terrain wide road network. Kept thinking I had a bug where the convoys for two feilds only ran to one field. I finally found it just when I was going to log out and open that road in the terrain editor to see if I had it setup wrong. I just hid the spawn so well I was over flying to convoy looking for it looking at the decoy road. I'm reaching the point I really cannot find anything to fix.

Some of today's cloud testing.


This is the edge of the the terrain corresponding to the edge of the CBM map in the clipboard, the cloud layer is 10,000ft. Who knows, maybe a strat raider can run below the clouds to hide from 163. I even put a finish on the back side to entertain strat raiders with something to look at during that long trip.




This is probably the only time most players will ever see this canyon land I put in place to fill in space past the active game area.








So far the cloud formations are working out and not impacting FPS.

[croduh]

Lovely!

The more clouds the better if you ask me.

[DaddyAce]

Looks pretty darn nice bustr!   

[croduh]

Put some low scattered clouds near ports, could be interesting!

[oboe]

Most anticipated terrain ever.  Looking forward to playing in it.

[bustr]

The weather system is running smooth, so I'm going to make one more run through this thing looking for boo boos then zip it up and hope Hitech likes it.

Croduh, Hitech won't let me do things too extreme with clouds. He has to make a living and not kill his customers FPS or crash them into the ground just trying to see where they are going. My very first terrain BowlMA I created a horrible nasty weather system. It had clouds scudding down runways, it was so thick that I had to use instruments to land and I augered 9 out of 10 flights testing it. Strats were closed in with layers that blinded the bomb sight. I had all the water ways covered in dense 3,000ft banks to protect task groups along with the ports. The land had cumulus banks at 5,000ft. Hitech looked at it and gave me rules to create weather along with rejecting my monster weather system. It stomped FPS unmercifully. If you remember my first terrain started out with no weather. Hitech revamped the cloud editor and objects to help FPS later and I made weather for all the MA terrains. And I still have rules to follow which sorry, your request is not part of that. If you drive tanks, spawning to the ports should be an adventure getting into shooting range with the new micro terrain texture I've placed at all GV spawn areas around feilds.

This terrain is a theme inspired by East Africa along the Great Rift Valley area. So inside of the rules I have to follow, the weather is all cumulus systems from 7,000ft - 10,000ft. A lot of hide and seek for you guys at furball alts. And maybe some protection from bombers for the task groups in the ship combat furball pond. At least you won't be waiting around half the evening to bump into another task group to have a cruiser gunfight now. Maybe even a three way with torpedo bombers and fighters mixed with B25H and airjer's B26s....

[bustr]

Found I didn't like the spawn approach to a port and spent an hour or so reshaping a slope of a ridge down from about 900ft to the port at 20ft. Problem with micro hills, ridges and  gully's. From a tank's perspective there is a vast difference between 90ft, 50ft and 30ft to the top of a hill or small ridge line. Then there is the natural erosion perspective of what elevation is more likely to be left behind from erosion that produces a 20ft above sea level elevation at the end of a down slope. Once I got that adjusted for tank combat, I had to add more 660ft diameter dots of trees becasue I had too many 660ft wide runs of dead and green grass that invited easy bombing or spawn camping.

When you build micro textured terrain for tank combat you have to get out and climb around on it with a tank becasue that in the end is the only perspective which matters for all the work micro texturing takes. Hetzers are going to clean up in that terrain becasue they were purpose designed for the kinds of ambushes that will be available to a tank with a low ground profile.

I believe this one is ready to zip up now. Here is a strat bomber's perspective, I think I got the clouds not too thick and not too sparse.

[Devil 505]

These are some great looking clouds.

[TWCAxew]

I love clouds, the more clouds the better. A personal preference would be multiple layers of clouds. Its great to see you put so much love into them <S> Good job!

DutchVII

[popeye]

Thanks for all the effort, bustr.  Looking forward to flying the new terrain.   

HTC has really gotten the clouds right -- look great, very little effect on frame rates, and add an extra dimension to the game.  WTG!   

[Dundee]

Thanks for all the effort, bustr.  Looking forward to flying the new terrain.   

HTC has really gotten the clouds right -- look great, very little effect on frame rates, and add an extra dimension to the game.  WTG!   

How is it we never see clouds  at 2,000 ft............Oh it would interfere with the furball....I got it

[Shuffler]

Damn nice looking.

[bustr]

You will have to ask Hitech, East Africa in the summer the base elevation for cumulus is 5,000-7,000 becasue of the warm rising air. I did a wide spread 2,000ft base on BowlMA over all the water channels and he asked me not to. I have to balance play ability and what clouds look like not to harm customers who fly air planes by potentially helping the terrain kill them half the time. Just the same as for GV players I make sure my micro gully's are not tank traps that capture and force Gvers to tower. Hitech wouldn't allow me to harm either part of the community with really imbalanced game play props anyway. I can't sneak something like really low slouds in since he reviews the terrain before he will allow it into rotation no matter how much time and detail I put into it. And If I can help it I do my best to review the combat area I micro texture for tank combat to eliminate accidental tank traps. That makes micro texturing as big a PITA as laying in roads becasue our polygons in the terrain mesh are so large I have to really work at a good illusion for tank combat.

After all of this since last November when I started the current project, by the time I get to clouds, I just want them to be nice and easy with no issues. I have rules anyway that force me to have a grid 40 miles wide between cloud fronts blocks to protect FPS for everyone. In the AvA and maybe special events they can run cloud fronts in ways to hide ground vehicles, or sock in airfields, or hide task groups. That dosen't take the chance of POing customers and having them cancel subscriptions like the MA can. There are some customers in the MA tired of the alt monkeys who spend all their time above the clouds looking for cheap picks instead of fighting.

It's a balancing act in the MA.

[Puma44]

Looks great.  You’re flirting with realism, Buster.

[bustr]

Flirting as about all the terrain editor will allow. Thank you.