John Kettler Posted August 8, 2000 Share Posted August 8, 2000 Hats off to BTS for factoring thermal effects into AI troop control! I kept trying to move close behind a burning building (hiding from crossfire) with my men during a Quick Battle, but I consistently was prohibited from doing so, though I could move behind it but not close to it. Finally it dawned on me--it was too hot for my men; that's why I couldn't move where I wanted to. Once the light went on, it all made sense...after I got over feeling stunned and amazed, that is. The amount of thought that went into this game is simply incredible. Gratefully, John Kettler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snagdad Posted August 8, 2000 Share Posted August 8, 2000 hey john, off the subject, but on your recommendation a while back I bought the book Angel in the Whirlwind. A truly excellent read and a great book. Thanks for the suggestion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted August 9, 2000 Author Share Posted August 9, 2000 snagdad, Glad you enjoyed the book! Now if I can only get people to respond to my original thought! Regards, John Kettler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ski Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 How about wind effect? I.E. a burning building could set the whole town on fire with a strong wind blowing. If the wind was blowing the right way, you could set a fire in the woods and force the enemy to move into the open or get burned up. ------------------ To conquer others is to have power, To conquer yourself is to have strength. -Lao Tzu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted August 9, 2000 Author Share Posted August 9, 2000 Ski, While lots of us would love to see wind included, the grim reality is that modeling such complex phenomena as wind takes a Cray or massively parallel processor, and even then it's still problematic. Wind modeling is a devastating CPU hit, completely defeating the design goal of making CM run on typical mass market PCs. Hope this helps. John Kettler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Reece Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by John Kettler: snagdad, Glad you enjoyed the book! Now if I can only get people to respond to my original thought! Regards, John Kettler<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Hi John, I bought the book too, on your recommendation, it is an excellent read, as snagdad said! I am about to finish it. What was the original thought you wanted people to respond to? Dick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkEzra Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 Hi John: I plan to buy the book really soon. LOL....now what was the point of the thread....? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juardis Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by John Kettler: Ski, While lots of us would love to see wind included, the grim reality is that modeling such complex phenomena as wind takes a Cray or massively parallel processor, and even then it's still problematic. Wind modeling is a devastating CPU hit, completely defeating the design goal of making CM run on typical mass market PCs. John Kettler<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Well, I don't know John. I've been thinking about wind modeling and I have some thoughts. What got me to thinking was in a scenario like Wiltz you hear the wind howling, but the snow falls vertical and the smoke hangs around for awhile. Kind of ruined the ambience a little since I was hearing one thing yet seeing another. If you model wind as a direction (for example, wind blowing towards east), then you slant your snow/rain towards the east, smoke dissipates to the east (and faster than if there were no wind), and fires have an x% chance of spreading east. Put a windsock on the compass rose that's already in the game to show the direction of the wind, if any. You could even model 3 stengths of wind - none, light-medium, and medium-strong, with the effects tuned to the strength (e.g., stronger wind has larger % to spread the fire). If modeled that way, it really shouldn't be that much of a cpu hit yet the payoff would be tremendous. JMO. ------------------ Jeff Abbott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hemo2 Posted August 9, 2000 Share Posted August 9, 2000 I wonder if it was thermal effects or if that particular area was considered to also burning by the underlying game engine and just wasn't fully rendered with the on screen graphics? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted August 26, 2000 Author Share Posted August 26, 2000 First of all concerning the "What's the original topic?" crowd, very funny, guys! Juardis, I like your thoughts and believe they'd be worth running by Steve and Charles, either indirectly through this thread or through direct E-mail contact. Hemo2, I don't think so, but I might be wrong. All I can tell you is that the ground I was trying to occupy wasn't burning. It looked like normal ground. Maybe Steve or Charles would care to respond? Regards, John Kettler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OberGrupenStompinFeuhrer! Posted August 26, 2000 Share Posted August 26, 2000 Just on the wind thing (as it were), if modelling the progressive effects of wind would be too much of a CPU hit, how about at least making the length of time smoke hangs around "random". This would simulate to some extent the tactical effect of wind (the river crossing in "A Bridge Too Far" comes to mind). Of course, the player would have to be given some way of knowing that there is wind about, so that erratic smoke times could be anticipated. *mumble* *mumble* Thinking aloud.... OGSF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juardis Posted August 26, 2000 Share Posted August 26, 2000 I hate posts dredged up from ancient history. I get this wierd sense of deja-vu . I don't want BTS to spend any more time than they have to with CM1. I want them to work on CM2 ASAP (after giving us TCP/IP and movies (I can hope can't I) for CM1 that is). But I think wind could add to the immersive quality greatly. But I'm not a programmer and Fionn has already contacted me privately about my wind suggestion (he didn't like it and gave me his reasons), so I have no illusions that it will even be considered. Thus I will not be contacting BTS directly. But in CM2.... ------------------ Jeff Abbott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pham911 Posted August 26, 2000 Share Posted August 26, 2000 Making smoke random would seem more unrealistic than leaving it as is. Smoke would be disapating at one point but not others. Even if you made all smoke go away at the same moment, it would still leave a "smoke's gone, must be real windy.. At least it's not effecting my bullets" taste in my mouth. Making real weather effects would probably be taxing on the CPU, but nobody ever said they had to be dynamic throughout the course of a battle. If you just had, say, a straight 15knot wind from the NW, couldn't the computer just shift every shot? So, a shot that would have landed at 0,0 on a grid would land at 2,5 or something, and then any other shot would just be offset by 2 and 5(I imagine a 3rd dimension is being used to calculate trajectories, but the point still holds). The only hit in CPU performance this way would be to calculate smoke, as you'd need to calculate a couple extra smoke areas per building fire(or other source) trailing off a bit from the original smoke. I can't imagine that even 20 or 30 extra objects for a raging inferno of a town fire would slow a game down. I mean, there are some amazingly huge maps out there, and I don't know don't know how many objects the game engine tracks, but I'll bet it's way, way, more than 30. Probably so much more than 30 that 30 looks really small. (If any has a figure for this, let me know so I can edit this post and sound all smart...) Anyways, that's my theory. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe someone will tell me I'm wrong, even though arguments seem pretty rare on this board... How 'bout those SS, though? Eh? [This message has been edited by Pham911 (edited 08-26-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedWolfTrevize Posted August 26, 2000 Share Posted August 26, 2000 In response to whether the ground was burning, I played West Wall and hosed down the Germans with the Croc in that scenario. My troops, however, plotted waypoints around the fire when I led them through it. Could this be an explanation? Eh, who knows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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