CMX2 & Moon's EVIL Thread Locking Device

[war2004]

Hello Moon,

Not sure why you would lock a thread about a topic that has already been discussed by BFC on other threads. ie: it was BFC that suggested the CMX2 engine would have graphics as good or better than Wartime Command. In addition, the following points have been made by BFC:

http://diygames.com/index.php?p=657&more=1

The hardcore strategy game developers at Battlefront have sent along some details on the next generation of titles in their long running Combat Mission series of games. While there's no information regarding the theater of battle or even the time period the next Combat Mission title will take place in, there is some good information with regards to the engine that will power future Combat Mission products. Currently codenamed "CMX2," the new engine will have a number of features that should help give it a bit more street cred in the graphics department that previous titles in the series have lacked. Keep reading for a detailed listing of some of the enhancements being implemented, including 3D clouds, celestial body movement, and mud effects.

"Sun moves through correct arc in the sky (and can be placed correctly for a given calendar date and global latitude).

Want to see what the sun looks like viewed from latitude of Tobruk on November 13? No problem.

Try setting it in Australia and you might get freaked out (at least if you’re not living down under) by seeing the sun arc northward instead of southward! And then set it above the arctic circle in the summertime and watch the sun "spin" all around the sky and never set.

3D Clouds - both low and high altitude levels, and they both animate across the sky at different speeds. Cloud shadows are moving over the ground! And there are lighting effects on the ground.

The 3D clouds really do add more depth to the scene, particularly as they are animated and disappear over the top of the distant hills. This is because everything is done in layers now. The mountain layer is drawn on top of the cloud layer, which in turn is drawn on top of the sky layer. So clouds automatically recede behind the mountains as they move into the distance. The sun (or moon) disappears behind the mountains too (and behind clouds).

We'll have a night layer, too. The moon works pretty much like the sun, so that's already effectively working.

Stars are trickier, but we'll have them too. You can't easily represent them in the sky texture because in order for stars to look like pinpoints of light (instead of magnified pixel blobs) the texture would require extremely high resolution. Probably too high to be practical (i.e. a giant BMP). However, OpenGL allows the rendering of "point" objects, so Charles will probably construct a little "celestial model" of the major stars and constellations and actually draw the individual stars. Then it could show the proper night sky for a given spot on Earth at a given time of year.

Eventually the light colour and intensity will change as the day changes to dusk and night, also

Terrain "blends" - The engine can blend in snow, rocky terrain, whatever you can make a texture of. This is done automatically with only two (totally separate) textures. (In theory the engine can handle an effectively unlimited number of textures to blend).

And not just that, but it's possible to "mix" terrain in a fashion that's not a pure blend, but purposely more spotty, like spots of (melting) snow over, say, otherwise muddy terrain, where you don't want a literal 50/50 blend of snow/mud, but rather 100% snow in a small spot right next to 100% mud in an adjacent spot, but have them border cleanly and smoothly. The new engine can handle both types.

The blending between terrains is amazingly smooth as is the terrain itself (no more jagged mountains, hehe!). The "tiled" nature of CM's terrain is completely gone now. And yet the new method is not a huge hit on VRAM.

This means that most likely - if "tiles" remain in the editor at all - it will be merely as a convenience for the editor interface, and totally separate from the concept of tiles as actual 3D graphics as they are in CM. We might keep editor tiles if it's just easier for a scenario author to "paint" a map that way. But when you see the map in the game, you won't see anything that looks like a grid of tiles. And no seams either.

The engine also supports "dark mapping" where we can arbitrarily make any spot darker (or tinted a particular color). This can be used for crude shadows, terrain variants (a handy way to show mud is just to darken the dirt terrain) or special game-related things like "go to the red spot for 1000 points" or whatever. For instance you can have varying levels of damp ground in Russia that could be displayed visually with this method.

Another feature: you can also have a "color gradient" in the sky, where (for example) the sky is darker blue when you look straight up, and hazier/lighter when you look lower down.

Next on the list, i.e. what Charles was working on when this was written, but was not yet fully implemented – doodads.

Doodads won’t work like in CM. CM doodads were little 2D texture "billboards". That rotated to face the viewer, giving the illusion of depth. That was fine for older machines that couldn't handle more complex modeling at a decent frame rate.

The new engine will take the old concept of doodads and replace them with two things. First, in the case of objects that have real volume, like cemetery stones or trees, we'll use actual 3D models. No "fake" representation at all (except maybe at long distance, where you can't tell the difference and drawing a 2D billboard is a lot faster).

For things like long grass where an individual blade doesn't really have volume (and therefore a true 3D model isn't appropriate) a totally new algorithm will be implemented."

[Redwolf]

You are an idiot, war (yeah, and for creating doublettes of newsgroups, too).

Just to make sure this gets securely locked

[Sergei]

What is the point with quoting whole articles when you could just provide the link?

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Redwolf:

You are an idiot, war

My mom concurs.

[Redwolf]

Moon is having a slow Sunday morning.

The strong German coffee must have knocked him out.

[Michael Dorosh]

war2004 reminds me a lot of Gunny Bunny; he was also a fan of usenet, did nothing but troll this forum with crap about how photo-realistic graphics are the only sign of a good game, and seems to me he was not one of my fans war2004 took a shot at me in one of his first posts. Oh, and GB was Canadian, as war admits to being.

I doubt that war2004 IS Gunny Bunny, but it would seem he was cast to type, as they say in Hollywood.

Frankly, war, you're boring the hell out of us.

[ October 17, 2004, 09:53 AM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Mord]

Moon reminds you of Gunny Bunny or War2004 reminds you of him?

Mord.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Mord:

Moon reminds you of Gunny Bunny or War2004 reminds you of him?

Mord.

eep

just noticed this as I was scrolling down to read your post...ignore, nothing to see here...

[Le Tondu]

One has to admit that the features that are in that "article" seem pretty cool. The sun and moon moving across the sky? Color gradient in the sky? Doodads with depth?

You've clearly shot the messenger, what's so terrible about looking at the message?

[war2004]

Originally posted by Le Tondu:

One has to admit that the features that are in that "article" seem pretty cool. The sun and moon moving across the sky? Color gradient in the sky? Doodads with depth?

You've clearly shot the messenger, what's so terrible about looking at the message?

Best to ignore the trolls, their little children, quite often in adult bodies

I think the graphics sound amazing, even better than expected. I am surprised about the amount of detail, which you noted. If they have gone to that much trouble for the peripheral items, I suspect the combat units and cities/villages will be more than adequate, I hope

Cordially

[Akula2]

This game and the Romanians behind it will be assimilated.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Le Tondu:

One has to admit that the features that are in that "article" seem pretty cool. The sun and moon moving across the sky? Color gradient in the sky? Doodads with depth?

You've clearly shot the messenger, what's so terrible about looking at the message?

Becuase his original thread was locked up for posting the same message 100 times already. WE GET IT. War2004 THINKS THAT PHOTOREALISTIC GRAPHICS ARE THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE OPTION FOR HIS VISION OF CMX2.

Really. We heard it the first 100 times.

[Shosties]

Hi, Ma and Grandma!

Wish I had a .sig as big as war's.

[Pinetree]

Originally posted by Shosties4th:

Hi, Ma and Grandma!

Wish I had a .sig as big as war's.

You obviously haven't seen Winecape's "unleashed" version.

[WineCape]

Originally posted by Pinetree:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Shosties4th:

Hi, Ma and Grandma!

Wish I had a .sig as big as war's.

You obviously haven't seen Winecape's "unleashed" version. </font>

[Soddball]

Winecape was going to send me free wine for all the useful stuff I do, but I haven't done it yet.

[dieseltaylor]

I hate to be boring but I had not seen the article posted by War. Admittedly I only look at the forum two or three times a day so I can only assume it must have been buried in some 15 page epic I decided not to read.

And for any members who have joined recently it is nice to have the info. The sarky comments probably could have been better left unsaid so the topic went to obscurity more quickly - and left a pleasanter impression of the forum.

[hellfish]

This topic is nearly 9 months old... :confused:

[juan_gigante]

I think all the CMX2 threads are starting to evolve from "what features will be included?" to "what will it be about?", with good reason. The features have been covered. We've heard many (though never enough) bones from BFC about the features, and we are all wowed. Now, after being very wowed, we are starting to wonder where and when (among all possible subjects) the eventual "total wowing" (ie release of CMX2) will occur. In fact, I'm surprised a betting pool has not been started. I will be watching the bets made by any BFC employee very closely.

[hellfish]

My thing is that I know BFC will make an awesome game with all kinds of neat features and pretty graphics. They're probably gonna include stuff most people here haven't even thought of.

Because of the fact that I trust the devs, I don't worry about features.

Because of the fact that WWII is really getting overplayed in my little gaming world, the setting of their future games does matter to me. I'm much less inclined at this point to put down money for another Battle of the Bulge or Normandy game than I am to put down money on something post-WWII.

Of course I'll buy whatever they put out, but I'll be happiest if they at least try something that doesn't involve the Wehrmacht for once.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by dieseltaylor:

I hate to be boring but I had not seen the article posted by War. Admittedly I only look at the forum two or three times a day so I can only assume it must have been buried in some 15 page epic I decided not to read.

Uhmm, this happened in year 2004... look at the dates of the posts!

WineCape bumped this up from the rotten depths...

[dieseltaylor]

Thanks Sergei

and as for WineCape!!!!!

[WineCape]

Originally posted by fytinghellfish:

This topic is nearly 9 months old... :confused:

Yup, I only woke up now. Why? 'Cause I only received my ADSL 512 subscription a few days ago. And it's heaven. I can imagine T1 lines... :eek: Anyone here on that?I have to sell a kidney to get that kind of of pipeline.

Been on dial-up here in forgotton Africa for many years. No wonder you gentlemen spend hours on the forum racking up 15,000 posts. Try that on dial-up

So, any of you gentlemen not doing a proper research on previous I-want-this-bone in CMx2, be warned: I'll dig up old bones from pre-historic days...

[ July 20, 2005, 04:09 AM: Message edited by: WineCape ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by dieseltaylor:

The sarky comments probably could have been better left unsaid so the topic went to obscurity more quickly - and left a pleasanter impression of the forum.

More pleasant for who?

The Peng Thread? :confused: Why not just post pictures of flowers, then we can all join hands and sing Kumbaya.

[dieseltaylor]

Dorosh

If you read the paragraph as a whole you will note I referred to new members in the previous sentence. This being the only other sentence in the paragraph I had hoped there would be a connection between the two. I like to tie my ideas into paragraphs.

Incidentally I am sure you meant to type "for whom". I add this in case any of the non-native English speakers who frequent the board felt something was not quite right with your query.