Ten Mile Maps are possible.....maybe.....

[Saddletank]

Interesting about the riverlines idea. You would need to close off the ends of the two lines at fords in case a uniy went off the side of the ford and got permanently trapped between the two impassable riverbanks!

[Davinci]

All – here is an update on my progress so far!

As far as I can tell the ten-mile-maps are possible, so I'm sure that other sizes would also be possible, such as 7.5 or basically any number that can be multiplied by 256 .

That's probably guessing a little bit on my part, but it seems logical.

I'm now in the process of re-doing all of the roads since converting the map made them twice the original size. I'll probably remove the creeks, and also play around with the maps-view-distance to see if that will slightly increase the fps .

If everything goes as planned the map could also use a few low-leveled ridges scattered around to obscure some of the road areas. This should help with keeping the troops hidden while marching.

If, I can get a decent [ fps I'll also try adding a few scattered houses and barns around the map, I'm thinking that as long as they all don't appear in the same general area that they shouldn't affect the fps.

As far as I can tell with the early testing the games-memory is not affected with loading a larger map, I'm using approximately 1.86 GB of ram, and I'm running at least eight-different confederate uniforms, plus multiple union uniforms.

I'll keep you updated with any changes!

davinci

[Davinci]

Weekly Progress Report

Well, all appears to be working with the exception of getting better fps , which stays at around 7-10 , but this is while the units are still marching.

I have never really had any type of great fps moving sixty thousand men across the maps.

Picture 1 – roughly eight fps while showing units marching near houses and fences.

Picture 2 – the frames drop too seven if there is a large field in the background, which is one of the biggest hits on the fps. I have to figure out another way of doing the fields.

Picture 3 – The units that are marked with the red circle appear near each on the jump-map, but in the game they are quite a distance away from each other.

Picture 4 – The houses and small barns don’t seem to affect the fps if they are not near any large fields.

Picture 5 – This is another picture of picture three – from a different angle.

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davinci

[MarkT]

Saddletank,
Absolutely agree to impassible......

[RDBoles]

Davinci
Well it looks great so far and I'm looking forward to a beta release mod soon. With this size map a few crossroads would be great for small villages. Just a few farms and homes. Great for objective points.
Richard

[Davinci]

Well it looks great so far and I'm looking forward to a beta release mod soon.

I should have something available soon; I’ve stopped everything else just to concentrate on this sized map.

With this size map a few crossroads would be great for small villages. Just a few farms and homes. Great for objective points.

That’s a good idea; I can put in a few more crossroads by redesigning the road-system.

I’m also trying to place the houses and fences around where I have ran into the enemy units, instead of in the center of the map.

I did test one game where after eighteen hours of game time, I couldn’t find any sign of their thirty thousand man army. I can’t quite figure that one game out; it’s as if they were moving just outside of my viewing distance.

I did try to place roughly seven to eight roads on the ends of the map; this should help with dividing the forces, forcing them to take different roads in the same direction.

RDBoles – thanks, for the input into this!

davinci

[Davinci]

By the looks of things there isnt really much of an fps hit.

I have been adding in a lot of farms and fences and the fps stays at 8-10 , so I'll continue adding them and see what happens.

I dont know how the engine works. If the sprites are only loaded when in view then the fps hit should be negligable as this depends on peoples draw distances.

This might just be the path to getting this to work, I've reduced the viewing distance in the map, not the viewing distance in the game, I'll leave that up to each individual player.

But, by reducing the maps viewing distance it appears to have absolutely no negative impact on the action around the camera.

To put it another way, I think that this is how to add farms all over the map without impacting the fps .

The large fields are still a problem, that just kills the fps on this map, I still haven't figure out a good solution, other than reducing them in size...... pending on this problem!

davinci

[RDBoles]

Davinci
Does elavation or having numerous small hills in the large open spaces help with the fps rate? How about lower areas that could be pocketed with swamps and ponds? I don't know anything about the terrain and how it effects the fps rate. Maybe a few railroads and a railway yard at one of the crossroads?

[Davinci]

Does elevation or having numerous small hills in the large open spaces help with the fps rate?

I think that very large hills will \ does bring down the fps due to the fact that the game has to draw the invisible polygons underneath the ground.

But, small hills or knolls scattered about the terrain shouldn’t any noticeable impact on the map in question.

How about lower areas that could be pocketed with swamps and ponds? I don't know anything about the terrain and how it affects the fps rate.

The previous maps from the older game had an excellent water system built-in, and it also had a very handy map-making-tool that would let you smoothly shape the banks of the creeks\streams.

This map-making-tool doesn’t have that same capability, but if the ponds are small, there is a way of doing them. I think that Crikey added a small pond in one of his maps that were released.

So, adding small ponds around the map is do-able, so I’ll try to include them in this map.

Maybe a few railroads and a railway yard at one of the crossroads?

I’ll see if this is possible, it would probably have to be several miles from one end, and then curving slightly to extend about several miles before ending.

The reason behind that would be that this map is huge , so that would equal hundreds of tracks to cover even a small area.

The units on the Jump-Map appear close to each other, but they are actually a mile or more apart. If I had to guess, I would say that each inch on the Jump-Map probably represents a mile of terrain in the game.

The units that are marked with the 1 and the 2 are probably a little bit more than two-half-miles apart in the game.

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davinci

[RDBoles]

Davinci
The mini maps look great. The roads you have laid out are very good, you have many roads which are separated but lead generally in the same direction. I wait with patience and much anticipation for a huge map.
Richard