Some Screens

Community Forums/Showcase/Some Screens

wmaass(Posted 2004) [#1]
I've been working on a golf game on and off for some time and have finally made the decision to switch to height map based terrains. It is just far faster to create golf courses this way than mucking around with Maya. However there are hurdles to overcome by doing this -- most importantly how to handle friction coefficients. Norc wrote me some neat code that I used to determine what texture was being was on a particular surface during collision which was great when I was using mesh based terrain, but now I'm, not sure how to handle it. But hey, the courses don’t look too shabby at least.







IPete2(Posted 2004) [#2]
Hey don't worry...

I think you can take you heightmaps and make meshes from them, then overlay them on top of your terrains!

You would therefore still be able to use the original code to trace which surface is under which part of the course!

The holes are looking lovely btw, but as they are small, they are very efficient so overlatying the meshes on top shouldn't really have too much of an impact on the frame rate.

IPete2.


Eole(Posted 2004) [#3]
Look very nice ...


CyberHeater(Posted 2004) [#4]
Golf game! Sod that. I want to holiday there. It looks smashing.


Red(Posted 2004) [#5]
bungalow missed :)


Smurfpuss(Posted 2004) [#6]
wmaass looks great like wow


Ross C(Posted 2004) [#7]
Very nice looking man!


aCiD2(Posted 2004) [#8]
Wowwwww thats awesome :)


Perturbatio(Posted 2004) [#9]
Not bad. :)

I think the island needs tidemarks and some more detail, it looks a little bit sparse to me.


Grisu(Posted 2004) [#10]
Looks nice!

ARRRRRRRRg, it reminds me: I need HOLIDAY!


Mustang(Posted 2004) [#11]
Nice - but the FoV is bit extreme IMO.


big10p(Posted 2004) [#12]
That looks fantastic! Interesting idea, having one giant sand trap with the fairway/green in the middle of it. ;)


wmaass(Posted 2004) [#13]
Thanks for the feedback all. IPete you are right. What I'm going to try is this -- save mesh (maybe low poly to trade speed for accuracy) of the terrain, identify the different areas of friction by coloring the vertices, then just get the vertex color via linepick to get the correct coefficient.


jfk EO-11110(Posted 2004) [#14]
Great Pics!!!
Thanks for reminding me of I should make some pacific hollydays soon :) btw. That Texture-Determination code is a bit outdated now since we got those BrushTexture etc. Functions (since 1.85?). You can simplify this a lot. Check out the "SaveB3D" Source in the Code archives, it's using the Commands to determine the used Textures.

And if you use one single big texture for the terrain, you might create a down-scaled copy in a bank that will hold a material code for each 4*4 or whatever pixels. So you can check for diffrent materials (maybe color based) without to slowly peek in the texture all the time.


wmaass(Posted 2004) [#15]
jfk,

it is one big tex -- i like your idea. there seem to be enough potential solutions to the friction that i can set it aside and just create some more cool holes and a swing mode for now. thanks for the suggestions!


Ruz(Posted 2004) [#16]
looking very solid right now, can't wait to see more


SopiSoft(Posted 2004) [#17]
looks beautiful!!!!


Smurfpuss(Posted 2004) [#18]
looking cool how will you do the shooting part with the clubs like i think that the way they have it in tigerwoods golf game is the best where you use the mouse to power you hit of the golf ball.

But it is not maby the easies thing to create but it is the best i think any way how high poly will the player be


wmaass(Posted 2004) [#19]
Smurfpuss,

Using the mouse to determine the swing is the way to go. Relative to a golf swing it just makes sense. I have a "Mouse Swing" working in a miniputt project already so I'm going to think about how to hook it up to the full range of course play. I'm trying to keep the game simple and true to golf so I'm so only looking at a First Person view with some fancy camera work -- no player model.


rsbrowndog(Posted 2004) [#20]
Just a few comments from someone who is also working on a golf game, albeit one that is very different in style and implementation!

And if you use one single big texture for the terrain, you might create a down-scaled copy in a bank that will hold a material code for each 4*4 or whatever pixels. So you can check for diffrent materials (maybe color based) without to slowly peek in the texture all the time.


If it's any help, that's what I am doing in my golf game. I have what I call a "colourmap" which has the areas of the course (e.g. green, fairway, bunker, etc.) blocked out on it in colours (e.g. red, white, blue, etc.) and I translate the x and z co-ordinates of the ball on the terrain to an x,y co-ordinates on the colourmap and check the colour of the pixel there. Then I know whether the ball is on the green, in the rough, etc.

Using the mouse to determine the swing is the way to go. Relative to a golf swing it just makes sense.


Ah, I've gone for the 3-click system for my game as I am an old school Leaderboard player, none of this fancy mouseswing stuff thanks!

I'm trying to keep the game simple and true to golf so I'm so only looking at a First Person view with some fancy camera work -- no player model.


That's interesting! I've gone for 3rd person with golfer models, so I'll be curious to see how well this first person works, would have saved me some £££'s on models!! ;)

Good luck with it all...

Cheers,

Ryan


wmaass(Posted 2004) [#21]
Ryan,

I think I'm going to give your colourmap method a try -- though I must admit it may take some research/trial and error as I only have a small clue on how implement that. I have a system working using another copy of the terrain with painted vertexes but its got too much overhead and is not exact. If I get it together I will most certainly provide a demo!

Regards