JMcGuire Posted June 8, 2001 Share Posted June 8, 2001 On the drive home, I was coming down a rather large hill which overlooks a long, straight, empty section of road. I noticed that one area was much darker because a cloud was blocking the otherwise very bright sun, and another section was very dark because of shadows cast by nearby trees. There is a lot of road construction in this area so there were vehicles along the whole length of the road, plus work trucks and cop cars off in the grass and the median. The vehicles in the shadows were MUCH harder to discern starting a few hundred yards out, despite the fact that the ground they were on was equally open. Naturally my thoughts immediately turned to CM and spotting... The extreme case would be to request that CMII model lighting, clouds, and tree shadows... Ahem, barring that, it might be cool if the engine could basically "pre-process" the map and create darker areas. Obviously this is a thought in it's formative years -- I'm kind of thinking maybe the CM map scale is too large for this to be terribly useful, although the shadows I saw today would be more than enough to cover a huge force (particularly the ones from cloud cover). At first I thought maybe the time period involved would be too short to matter, but then it occurs to me that CM battles themselves are very, very short -- which might mean a very simplified model would suffice (e.g. the shadows wouldn't really move in a 15 minute battle). Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted June 8, 2001 Share Posted June 8, 2001 You've got it bad buddy. Me, I look at the buildings in town and imagine how far someone would have to stand back from a window before I could spot them. As for cast shadows, I once did a sky mod with the sun low in the sky... bright in one area, dark to the sides. Unfortunately the sky in CM uses the same bmp file 4-5 times in succesion to complete a full circle. So you get 4-5 sunsets out of the deal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terence Posted June 8, 2001 Share Posted June 8, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JMcGuire: On the drive home, I was coming down a rather large hill which overlooks a long, straight, empty section of road. I noticed that one area was much darker because a cloud was blocking the otherwise very bright sun, and another section was very dark because of shadows cast by nearby trees. There is a lot of road construction in this area so there were vehicles along the whole length of the road, plus work trucks and cop cars off in the grass and the median. The vehicles in the shadows were MUCH harder to discern starting a few hundred yards out, despite the fact that the ground they were on was equally open. Naturally my thoughts immediately turned to CM and spotting... The extreme case would be to request that CMII model lighting, clouds, and tree shadows... Ahem, barring that, it might be cool if the engine could basically "pre-process" the map and create darker areas. Obviously this is a thought in it's formative years -- I'm kind of thinking maybe the CM map scale is too large for this to be terribly useful, although the shadows I saw today would be more than enough to cover a huge force (particularly the ones from cloud cover). At first I thought maybe the time period involved would be too short to matter, but then it occurs to me that CM battles themselves are very, very short -- which might mean a very simplified model would suffice (e.g. the shadows wouldn't really move in a 15 minute battle). Thoughts?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The feature you are describing is called "dynamic lighting" and at its most detailed can be expanded to include things like the effects on LOS from burning buildings and muzzle flashes and so on at night. It involves tracing light rays from a source to their targets and modifying the game accordingly -- things like LOS, especially. Its a rather big deal for realism grogs and would be a rather juicy addition to the game, no question. The problem is not in the validity of the feature, but rather that it would require a huge amount of processing power to do correctly. So its one of those things we'll have to wait for... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMcGuire Posted June 8, 2001 Author Share Posted June 8, 2001 Not exactly -- I'm very familiar with dynamic lighting and the likely performance issues (ray tracing is a big hobby of mine; I know all about the evils of adding light sources). The "rolling-eyes" suggestion in my original post was dynamic lighting, but then, that's why I added the dude. No, I'm thinking since CM battles are so short, the engine could position the sun and essentially *statically* darken areas of the map -- preprocess the map before it's displayed. Imagine that one CM mission, I forget the name, but where you're storming Hitler's stronghold. Lots of mountains. You'd have big shadows off the mountain, etc. But it would be static. The ground would be darkened and spotting in the darker areas would be more difficult. One cool thing is that if the sun/shadow preprocessing was done dynamically, each time the map loaded, you could end up with different areas with slightly improved cover each time you played, depending on level of cloud cover, and the position & angle of the sun. I should think one pass over a map to "shade" it would only take a few seconds. This wouldn't require any real-time lighting effects -- although like any red-blooded CM player, I crave those as well. I guess the big questions are 1) would it realistically influence spotting enough to make it worth adding, 2) would it affect enough of the map in enough battles and scenarios to make it worth adding, and 3) would it be easy enough to add to make it worth the effort. I have a gut feeling the answer to 1 is yes (otherwise I wouldn't have posted), I have no idea about 2, and I feel strongly that the answer to 3 is definitely yes. [edit:] P.S. Yeah, I've got it bad. [ 06-08-2001: Message edited by: JMcGuire ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terence Posted June 8, 2001 Share Posted June 8, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by JMcGuire: Not exactly -- I'm very familiar with dynamic lighting and the likely performance issues ....... This wouldn't require any real-time lighting effects -- although like any red-blooded CM player, I crave those as well. I guess the big questions are 1) would it realistically influence spotting enough to make it worth adding, 2) would it affect enough of the map in enough battles and scenarios to make it worth adding, and 3) would it be easy enough to add to make it worth the effort. [ 06-08-2001: Message edited by: JMcGuire ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Aaah. I see what you are talking about. That is interesting. Apologies for not reading your original post carefully enough. As to answering your questions, Im not sure. Outside on a clear day, how shadowy can it get? I guess in the example you are thinking of, pretty darn shadowy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMcGuire Posted June 9, 2001 Author Share Posted June 9, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Terence: I guess in the example you are thinking of, pretty darn shadowy...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Maybe it's just Florida in the summer time. You get a 105-degrees-hot sun overhead, and mix with a few obsidian-black lightning-spitting storm clouds, and a big stand of slash pine... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow 1st Hussars Posted June 9, 2001 Share Posted June 9, 2001 Did someone say Shadow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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