Sgt Steiner Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 Hi Madmatt et al Excellent new feature for CMBB but (there is always one eh ) whilst I know BTS said there would be no more updates for CMBO I do wish they would reconsider to some degree as these sorts of improvements are a real must for Western Theatre of Ops.......... Or will I have to wait for CMII ? what will I do in meantime I guess I will have to make do with CMBO and CMBB Roll on CMBB release !! Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASL Veteran Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 Dang those craters on the street look huge - almost like meteor craters! :eek: I sure hope we will be able to place shell holes in the editor. That would be huge. :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmatt Posted March 11, 2002 Author Share Posted March 11, 2002 Sorry Tom but it doesnt and CAN'T work like that. There is only ONE damage texture per building which can't have pink or transparent areas in it for various reasons. When a building gets suffeciently damaged (or catches on fire) the default texture is swapped for this damaged texture. If the building is then collapsed a damage "Mask" is applied which forms a jagged outline as you see in my pictures. This "mask" is a mask in name only as it can not have gaps or holes in it. It basically just allows whole sections of the existing damage texture to be transparent. Think of it as a cap that sits on top of the building. There are many of these damage "masks" patterns which are randomly applied to a building when it collapses and they are generic enough to work on any of the building types and shapes. We have it so that you will notice that the corners of buildings usually appear more upright and taller than other sections of wall. Since we can not use multiple pass texturing and can not increased the VRAM used this is the best and only method to achieve the results we wanted. The actual jagged damage outline can and probably will be tweaked some more before release but at this point it looks awesome enough as is and there are more important things to spend our time on. Madmatt [ March 10, 2002, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: Madmatt ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 The outline will need to be tweaked to leave out the windows...or the building skins will need to place the windows around the outline...or else the windows on the damaged skins need to have upper story windows missing the glass...otherwise, you get an unrealistic looking break in the "glass"...but you knew that...superb screenshots, looking forward to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 Originally posted by Madmatt: Sorry Tom but it doesnt and CAN'T work like that. There is only ONE damage texture per building which can't have pink or transparent areas in it for various reasons. When a building gets suffeciently damaged (or catches on fire) the default texture is swapped for this damaged texture. If the building is then collapsed a damage "Mask" is applied which forms a jagged outline as you see in my pictures. This "mask" is a mask in name only as it can not have gaps or holes in it. It basically just allows whole sections of the existing damage texture to be transparent. Think of it as a cap that sits on top of the building. There are many of these damage "masks" patterns which are randomly applied to a building when it collapses and they are generic enough to work on any of the building types and shapes. We have it so that you will notice that the corners of buildings usually appear more upright and taller than other sections of wall. Since we can not use multiple pass texturing and can not increased the VRAM used this is the best and only method to achieve the results we wanted. The actual jagged damage outline can and probably will be tweaked some more before release but at this point it looks awesome enough as is and there are more important things to spend our time on. MadmattOK that sounds wonderful I'm sure we will all want to play around with these mask files for damaged buildings once its released. I'm glad it works the way you want it too and its just GREAT to see partial destruction. Some of us may have more fun building towns in the editor and BLOWING them up and reducing them to rubble than actually playing the game I thought is was really fun at first to build a town map in CMBO and buy some 14 inch naval gun arty and just watch the town be reduced to rubble from the pounding Now in CMBB we can do that with partial destruction and fire that spreads as well OK! some of us here are REAL destromaniacs at heart you know! thanks for the preview it looks GREAT! -tom w [ March 10, 2002, 07:12 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmatt Posted March 11, 2002 Author Share Posted March 11, 2002 You can't play with the masks, they are hardcoded into the game. Thats why they don't use any VRAM or overhead. You can mod the building and damaged buildings textures of course but not the pattern that a partially collapsed wall uses. Oh we also added some cool new effects to explosions and more persistent "dust clouds" once a building is felled...You will have to wait to see those... Madmatt [ March 10, 2002, 07:17 PM: Message edited by: Madmatt ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Splinty Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 Once again you guys have outdone yourselves! I'm blown away...<snif> I'm getting verklemmpt...talk amongst yourselves. Here I'll give you a topic;the armor on a Sherman was crap,true or false. Discuss...<snif>. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mord Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! This is better then what my greedy, destruction minded little heart could even have hoped for!! Man I am happy! Damn that is so COOL!! Really! I had pictures in my head of little bitmaps being placed on the outside of the lighly damaged buildings to show any extra damage, like craters on the ground. Nothing like this crossed my mind! GREAT JOB! Man oh man! Mord. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 Never has utter destruction looked so beautiful. Can't wait to flatten a few towns with Katyushas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Johnson-- Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 Sweet, hats off to the goody bag of fun tricks the amazing BTS creators keep cranking out. Leave the buildings as is, but let us mod them later. Just give us the damn game already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Molotov Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 so with all of these new and awesome featuresto the game, will we need to upgrade our coputers to the top of the line machines just to run the game with low graphics??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kwacker Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 English soccer fan song (best applied when intoxicated): We love you BTS, we do, We love you BTS, we do, We love you BTS, we do, Oh BTS we love you (repeat) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Priest Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 OMG! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edgars Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 Just to add a little criticism: Another strange-looking thing in the shots, besides the jagged glass-like edges, is that we can see the "inside" of the house which due to texture mirroring appears exactly the same as the outside. Screenshots are taken very carefully, mostly from Level 1, and you can't see this "feature" much (look at the last screenshot, center-right, there is a corner of a building standing). Probably there's no solution to it that won't take the VRAM space away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GriffinCheng+ Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 (mouth-watering) BTS guys, when is ordering be ready? Griffin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kipanderson Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 Madmatt, hi, I just want to add my congratulations. I am truly shocked by how much of an improvement CMBB is going to be. When the CMBO demo came out I posted under the heading “Hype Justified”, this will clearly be the case for CMBB too! Am also one of those hard core, military history nuts that plays CM because it is a historically accurate simulation; moving, shooting military history. However, seeing all the great graphics enhancements I must admit CMBB will also be even greater “fun” than CMBO. If such a thing is possible. All my knowledge of computer graphics comes from this forum, I do not claim to be a master of the subject. However, when you describe the way you got round the problem of the VRAM limit by “capping” damaged buildings it shows real cunning. Again, special thanks to Dan for his graphics. Stunning. All the best, Kip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Galanti Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 I know, you give us these wonderful new features and great screenshots, and all we ask is for more, more, more. But.... I know VRAM is at an absolute premium, and this may not be a justifyable use of it, but would it be possible to have two ground rubble textures? Or at least, two different textures for the rubble doodads? I was just thinking it would look very cool to have heavy buildings collapse into a pile of grey stone/cement rubble, while light buildings collapse into the wood rubble as is shown. I know that this doubles the textures that are being used, but I would think it would look great... Not, that it doesn't already! Ben Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Panzer Boxb Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 *droooooooool* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmatt Posted March 11, 2002 Author Share Posted March 11, 2002 Originally posted by ciks: Just to add a little criticism: Another strange-looking thing in the shots, besides the jagged glass-like edges, is that we can see the "inside" of the house which due to texture mirroring appears exactly the same as the outside. Screenshots are taken very carefully, mostly from Level 1, and you can't see this "feature" much (look at the last screenshot, center-right, there is a corner of a building standing). Probably there's no solution to it that won't take the VRAM space away.To be honest, even from different (higher) views you don't really notice this very often but you are right there is nothing we can do about it. The added piles of rubble doodads help to show where the old building interior was as well so it's really not a big issue. It would be too texture intensive to create a whole new INTERIOR set of building textures (factories are the only buildings that have these due to their size) although we do have a new texture (which you can just make out in one of the pictures) which appears when one of two buildings sharing a common wall collapses. Madmatt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Puff the Magic Dragon Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 RUMMMS (Dragon felt on his back with a lucky grin) :cool: Regarding the sharp edges - can't we mod this? [ March 11, 2002, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: Puff the Magic Dragon ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aka_tom_w Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 Originally posted by Ben Galanti: I was just thinking it would look very cool to have heavy buildings collapse into a pile of grey stone/cement rubble, while light buildings collapse into the wood rubble as is shown. BenYes two forms of rubble is a great suggestion wood and stone, masonary, cement etc. would be very welcome Great job, the rubble looks good! -tom w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmatt Posted March 11, 2002 Author Share Posted March 11, 2002 Originally posted by Ben Galanti: I know, you give us these wonderful new features and great screenshots, and all we ask is for more, more, more. But.... I know VRAM is at an absolute premium, and this may not be a justifyable use of it, but would it be possible to have two ground rubble textures? Or at least, two different textures for the rubble doodads? I was just thinking it would look very cool to have heavy buildings collapse into a pile of grey stone/cement rubble, while light buildings collapse into the wood rubble as is shown. I know that this doubles the textures that are being used, but I would think it would look great... Not, that it doesn't already! BenActually there are more than one rubble textures already but the game does not place specific ones dependant on the building type. You could however mod them however you wanted. Puff, as I stated already, the damage patterns (the jagged edges) on the collapsed walls are NOT modable although we may ourselves tweak it some more to make it a little less jaggy. Only the damage texture itself can be moded. Madmatt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frenchy Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 Outstanding! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[Wiking] Posted March 11, 2002 Share Posted March 11, 2002 AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!! Brilliant....Oh my God! Seriously, Madmatt just one question, will CMBB have an intro, something cooler than the one in CMBO? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madmatt Posted March 11, 2002 Author Share Posted March 11, 2002 Originally posted by SS_Obergruppenführer: AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!! Brilliant....Oh my God! Seriously, Madmatt just one question, will CMBB have an intro, something cooler than the one in CMBO?That's what we are planning for... Madmatt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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