tain.totalcodex.net

sure you can have cookies with SC2, but first you have to plant the grain, then harvest the ingredients and mine the stone and make an oven then you have to put the ingredients together and wait for it to cook.

no thanks. i want my cookies NOW.

Use cheats.

SC2 - gathering resources, building barracks etc etc. meh thats not for me ( with all respect for proly very good game).
Last time I enjoyed gatherng/harvesting resources (spice) in RTS something like 18 years ago - "Dune 2" IBM PC/AT 286-8MHz 12" VGA 40MB harddisc space hehehe

That dune game was actually pretty good.

lol disregard that i suck cocks

Age of Empires2 is good, plus they have non resource gathering versions see the Castle Blood Series

I still play Age of Empires 2, i remember making tons of RPGs and Bloods for that back in Gameranger

I got an email from an old friend which reminded me I've been meaning to post in this thread.

Gameplay comparisons aside, has anyone really looked at how the units are rendered in SCII? To my eye they appear to be some weird poly/sprite hybrid. They have the animation and rotation fluidity of polygonal models, but the crispness and efficiency of sprites. The engine can render hundreds of more units on screen than Myth II can, and with no fps slow down on my machine.

The units aren't ugly abominations like in Myth 3 or Warcraft 3; they're more like super high rez Myth II sprites, but with hundreds of frames instead of just dozens. I'm really curious how they did it.

ChrisP wrote:I got an email from an old friend which reminded me I've been meaning to post in this thread.

That was me right?

GodzFire wrote:That was me right?

No.

ChrisP wrote:The units aren't ugly abominations like in Myth 3 or Warcraft 3; they're more like super high rez Myth II sprites, but with hundreds of frames instead of just dozens. I'm really curious how they did it.

Hey CP, long time no see

The units would just be hi-rez polygonal models that are textured properly. There's this huge misconception that 3d-modeled units suck RTS games, but it's too overarching of a statement. So much depends on the way the unit is modeled and animated, and also how it's textured.

As an example, in M3, they tried to make the units too realistic-looking. Up until then, Myth looks like a cartoon... it's not supposed to look realistic. I see Starcraft has gone with a more artistic style too.

ChrisP wrote:

GodzFire wrote:That was me right?

No.

Ouch ....... You know I did send you a PM though right? I'm still waiting to hear back on you from that.

Hehe, Godz, yes, I got your email. Did you not get my reply?

And hello, Deadman. It's been a while indeed. It's nice to see you're back. Still in Denver? I'm still in Garrison.

Iron mentioned that the two of you were up to no good. I'm eager to hear what that's all about and to see some screen shots.

So you think the SCII units are regular old polygonal models done artistically well, eh? Have you tried the game yet? I'm not entirely convinced. If you're right, the texturing is amazing. I wouldn't call the look "cartoonish", at least not compared to SC1 (which used sprites) or WC3. And there can be so many units on screen at once, that they'd have to be super low poly count. But that just doesn't seem right. For instance, zooming in on units in WC3, or Myth 3, or even to an extent WoW, you can see the edges of the polygons; the units are blocky because of the low poly count. Texturing will only go so far in making a cube look like a sphere. But you don't see that blockiness in SCII - the units look like sprites or high poly models. There has to be some trick to it that I don't understand yet.

I think the trick is being Blizzard and having WoW to feed the coffers of very talented artists and programmers =)

Iron and I are indeed up to no good... Send me a PM on the forums and I'll send you a screen or three.

Don't spose you'd be up for some playtesting?

deadman wrote:I think the trick is being Blizzard and having WoW to feed the coffers of very talented artists and programmers =)

After trying to research it, I suppose you're right. Kind of disappointing because I guess I was unrealistically half hoping there was some easily emulated rendering trick that could be used in future versions of Myth II.

Apparently, the trick is extensive use of pixel shaders, and as you said, very talented programmers and artists. The game does have fairly steep system reqs too, so it's not like the same artists could make units look just as nice on the Myth II engine. But yeah, take a look at this link http://diablo3x.com/files/2010/02/infes ... -20101.jpg and bear in mind that, on screen fully zoomed out, this little guy is only a little bit bigger than a ghol's puss packet on a typical Myth map.

Beta testing... hmm. Sure you want that? I'm pretty opinionated, you know. I can already tell that your map will suck unless you entirely abandon every single preconceived notion you have about how it should play and go 100% with my design ideas instead. Nonetheless, it might be fun to play a game with ya for old times sake... so maybe.