Thomm

Dear Big Time Software Team ! First of all thank you for this thread ! Maybe the best and most informative I have ever read ! Now my unavoidable comments: #2 In the case of trees and buildings I think the "tiles" have to be envisaged as COLUMNS with a certain extension in the vertical direction, thus being 2.5D. I cannot think of an actual advantage of a cube system in the kind of environment we live in ! About the vehicle bounding box: Thanks for making clear that there is none. But I am afraid that you have to be more humble with regard to your "best LOS algorithm ever" attitude. You might raise false expectations. About your comparison with CC: Please be aware that you avoid a lot of the problems the CC engine faces. Well in fact the problems are just transferred to another abstraction level, meaning that instead of single soldier objects you move around squad objects. So there is really not that much of a difference in the technology behind it. But I have to pay some respect to CC here because the engine has to tie the soldiers together as squads, something you entirely avoid. However, do not misunderstand me: In the course of the discussion you made it quite clear to me WHY you are doing the things the way you do, and I find it very well thought through, indeed. But, just for matters of political correctness: Do not say that your TECHNOLOGY is better than CC's because, well, it is pretty much the same. What you can rightfully state is that the SCALE of your game is more suitable for a WW II strategy game (esp. involving tank warfare). Thanks for your attention and for letting me contribute ! It is very pleasant to watch your project evolve ! Thomm

Pssssst, for the math: (3000/2)^2 = 2,250,000, not 225,000 ! Well, it is just ONE order of magnitude ... How does this link to 7 MB. If I take one Byte for terrain type and one for elevation I end up with approx. 4.5 MByte for all subtiles. And even less with the clever homogeneous tiles you proposed. Regards, Thomm.

Dear BTS team ! I do not see the difference in your tile system and the one of the CC series ! Is it just the higher resolution ? Why should it be more of a problem to have LOS checks for every single soldier ? CC has problems, but I do not think this is one of them. In your LOS walk-through you give a tank hiding behind a house as an example how accurate your algorithm works: "If you can see it, the game can see it". This is a dangerous statement, because the minimum requirement for it to be true would be to check the bounding box of the tank ! Are you doing this ? All in all I think that the tiling method is (still) a very elegant way of discretizing reality, but it is far from being a revolutionary approach, and while in 3D you have the advantage of an easy visualization of height levels, it might appear strange that soldiers are hidden by undergrowth yet you cannot visualize this undergrowth for obvious reasons. I hope you have some comments for me ! It is always a pleasure to discuss with you ! Thomm

Hi Guys ! Thanks for your replies ! I am sorry if I stepped on your feet, but, as you surely know, topics like sprites vs. polygons are a little bit religious and I am still under the impression of games like Myth II or even Syndicate Wars, where sprites just delivered, pretty or not ! Same goes for Panzer Elite ! But I want to stop here, because I should do my homework and read the previous posts before ! Yes, you are right that I did not read all of the posts here, the more I admire you to answering me in this depth and detail, thank you. Just be hard on me, since my previous post was bitchy enough to deserve a good flaming ! Mr. Fionn Kelly mentioned your attention to detail and I have to agree. But do not worry about my attitude, because you have already won my heart with those brilliant shock waves ! I think they alone are worth buying this game ! Sounds are dramatic, also ! Just an additional comment: I watched the videos (day.mov) from the shoot and noticed that after the salvo both the target and the guns were obscured by smoke and dust ! I am really looking forward to see this kind of environmental interaction in future games, what about you ? Thanks again for your answers and accepting the apology for my ignorance ! Regards and good luck, Thomm

I do not see to much visual effects in CM that would actually need a 3D acceleration ! Not even the smoke is transparent, which I think is really unacceptable and outdated ! Fire effects are years behind, too ! This might be a great game, but the graphics just cannot compete in these respects ! On the other hand there are these beautiful tanks and the *really* great atmospheric shock waves ! If you need more CPU power then use sprites for the infantry (I still consider polygon infantry an unforgiveable waste of resources, especially if it means to have three men symbolizing ten). By the way, in the videos their legs do not seem to be synchronized with their speed too well). So, please do not just satisfy the hardcore strategy players but also add enough eye-candy to attract ordinary people like me ! Good luck, Thomm [This message has been edited by Thomm (edited 05-11-99).]