I just want to raise awareness about this issue, I don't remember being it discussed before...

The thing is that current 2D maps, cannot be used by 3D client as they are - take for example the fake cliffs...
So whats the plan?

Also the way I see it now, I don't see a way both 2D and 3D client remain compatible forever, unless the development is very restricted, so I think at some point, forking will be inevitable...

iirc that is part of why animations are moving to the client...the server sends the arch info (both can use the same base arch with their different gfx).

You are right, the client3d maps will be different.
I don't like the current map design. I will use a much simpler system for the client3d.
For the groundtiles for example:
- choose the ground texture and "put it into an edge" of the tile.
- pick a vertex of the tile and move the mouse to change the height.
- each triangle of the tile can hold 3 different textures.
- one tile is build out of 8 triangles.
This way you can build nice worlds without the current chaos of many different tiles.

Client3d will not support the current client2d maps, but client2d could support client3d maps.
If you once have used the new tileformat, you will see what a mess the current one is...

Hm, would this heightmapping need to be done per-tile (assuming you mean square) only?

For example, it could be nice to do it how I think Blender handles 3d models (I have never used Blender). That is you have a wireframe image of the 24x24 map and adjust the topography in the way you suggest on that. You then go to the rendered view and it 'clothes' the skeleton with the textures and so on you have selected.

So selecting texture and topography are separate processes.

I thinks you can even do finer heightmapping. if i understand right, the tiles a 'cutted' into 8 triangles, which is
either this way:
or this way:
The red dots are the spots which can be individually heightmapped.

And yes, it works like blender, you have a topography, and over that are the tile textures.

Thats interesting!

But, do we have to select individual vertices one at a time or will there be "group edit" possibilities?

Blender has some useful features ... in this case I'm thinking of "Proportional Edit" (press the 'o' key in edit mode).  For those non-Blenderites among you ... when proportional edit mode is on and you drag a vertex about, other vertices that are close by also get moved - by a proportional amount depending on their distance to the selected node.  This allows for realistic (and quick) looking hills and slopes.

What about adding the ability to the mapmaker to import topology from Blender or other 3D package?

But - looks very good!  Keep going polyveg

The tile is done like Alderan shows in pic 1.

There will be, of course, a set of group feature, some presettings for mountains, rivers, etc

I don't think we will need this. As I said above, I want the editor to be simple. It also will be much faster to do it inside the editor.


I am still in the test phase and I throw away huge parts of code with every try, but the base is done and I am satisfied with the progress.