Roma Surrectum III preview: The new battle map enviroment

[dvk901]

Wow...cool.

[Risasi]

That's pretty much made out of awesome.

Right now I'm still on my Rumspringa playing R2, S2 and Empire, but I'm really looking forward to starting a new RS-III campaign when you guys are done.

[20ninescene]

Here's a little sneak peek of the new geographical features, what you see on these pics are frozen bogs.

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[leoni]

new kind of realism, i like this....

[xHolyCrusader]

Looking great!

[Shmanky]

RELEASE!

[MacBlain]

Have you tried adding dead trees? Would it work in the engine? The environments look like immaculate, gorgeous parks. Or like a really well-kept cemetery. It would look cool if there could be more junk and obstacles on the ground, and if units in rough or forest terrain really got broken up more. I've also always wished the different terrain types would be more easily distinguishable. Maybe then we could play with having the terrain bonuses affect gameplay a little more. Like phalanxes and heavy cavalry could be more drastically impaired by rough terrain, legions less so, and light troops would have a greater advantage. And it would be nice to see exactly where different classes of light troops could start hiding. I wonder if, like the RS team discovered with elevation, the AI could make better use of terrain zones if we gave it a suitable environment.

Awesome work. I'm really looking forward to this.

[dvk901]

Here's a little sneak peek of the new geographical features, what you see on these pics are frozen bogs.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

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Is this a new winter look or something?

@MacBlain: Some of Tone's trees actually do include dead ones.

[20ninescene]

@Macblain: there are indeed few dead trees in Roma Surrectum, but the problem is that you can't have more than 4 different trees and 4 different shrubs for every climate (except for trees in settlements and clumps of trees). The only trick to have more variation is to make models with 2 trees. The only disadvantage of this trick is that the texture detail will be lower because you have to split the texture in two halfs. Tone did that for most shrubs and the dead trees in the alpine climate. The Mediterranean climate and cold semi arid climate have also dead trees but these are just single ones.

@dvk: I just played a bit with the lighting and bloom settings till it felt right btw: could we replace those bugged rainbow trees in settlements by similar trees from fourth age total war. I don't know if you have seen the winter ones, they are even more bugged than the summer ones and they look like you have a bad lsd trip, and that's completely ahistorical because LSD wasn't invented yet in roman times =P

[dvk901]

I'll see if I can find the dang thing.

[_Tartaros_]

Update

I just made new cliffs for roma surrectum

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this cliffs look awesome!

[20ninescene]

@Tartaros: Thanks, it took me several days of work to make those cliffs edit: I'm making even more of those cliffs and I have plans to make more than 10 times more variations in cliffs as in vanilla rome total war I'm doing my best to make hilly/rocky landscapes in RSIII like this:

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I believe it's not impossible to make it look like that, but it will it will not be easy =P

edit: bad news guys: it seems that my new cliffs increase the loading times with more than 200% so unfortunately I will need to remove some cliffs =c

[hrolphi]

Oh no!

[dvk901]

@Tartaros: Thanks, it took me several days of work to make those cliffs edit: I'm making even more of those cliffs and I have plans to make more than 10 times more variations in cliffs as in vanilla rome total war I'm doing my best to make hilly/rocky landscapes in RSIII like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I believe it's not impossible to make it look like that, but it will it will not be easy =P

edit: bad news guys: it seems that my new cliffs increase the loading times with more than 200% so unfortunately I will need to remove some cliffs =c

If you are using very large textures.....say, 1024x1024...or larger, the game will lag quite a bit. It was for that reason that I originally downsized a lot of textures that Tone used for various things to 512x512. The game seems to handle them better. I know the larger textures look better, but they really burden the game.

[tone]

Very nice work.
Have to say that I'm really enjoying a 1 turn Rome campaign at the moment - it's pretty full on actually with full stack battles most turns and currently enemies with Macedonia, Gallaeci, Carthage, Arverni, Greek cities and getting attacked by most of them simulataneously. Quite a challenge.

[MacBlain]

Ah, too bad the selection of trees is so limited. It would be nice if some of the "rocks" or perhaps "buildings" could be forest clutter set-pieces, with thorny patches and fallen logs blocking the way. Those cliffs look great. Simple geometry can look so good with textures simulating a little depth. It would be great to have more of those cliffs around. Walking through real wilderness involves a lot of threading your way between places that are too steep to walk on. And then you get different plants that like to live on the steep, rocky bits. I don't know if that's possible.

I think if the environments could have a greater mix of elements they would still look good with a lower density of trees and grass. Your new cliffs are going to add a lot of visual interest. I can't believe how far this has progressed beyond vanilla.

Please remember that many of us RS players are not actually gamers and don't have gaming computers.

[The Noble Lord]

Great work guys, just amazing!

[dalapto]

Not getting updates on this thread for some reason.

edit: bad news guys: it seems that my new cliffs increase the loading times with more than 200% so unfortunately I will need to remove some cliffs =c

You should fiddle around with it, as the new cliffs do look excellent. Perhaps it is only 1 specific texture that causes the loading times increase. Or maybe a specific battle map with too many cliffs. Or a culmination of the two.

[20ninescene]

Ah, too bad the selection of trees is so limited. It would be nice if some of the "rocks" or perhaps "buildings" could be forest clutter set-pieces, with thorny patches and fallen logs blocking the way. Those cliffs look great. Simple geometry can look so good with textures simulating a little depth. It would be great to have more of those cliffs around. Walking through real wilderness involves a lot of threading your way between places that are too steep to walk on. And then you get different plants that like to live on the steep, rocky bits. I don't know if that's possible.

The cliffs are indeed an optical illusion since I used textures that simulate a little depth. And simulating more variety with buildings is possible but I don't know how to edit building to be honest and since I don't have a modeling program I think I even would be unable to edit them even if I knew how to edit buildings. Another problem with buildings is that it will look ugly on steep terrain

I think if the environments could have a greater mix of elements they would still look good with a lower density of trees and grass. Your new cliffs are going to add a lot of visual interest. I can't believe how far this has progressed beyond vanilla.

The environment in RSIII is pretty much finished now, but I will continue improving it for a new release Rome Total Realism and I'm planning to use the fertile grassland climate slot for a desert floodland/temperate rainforest climate (I will use & re-texture the tropical trees from Medieval 2). The reason why I stopped improving the environment in RSIII is because I can't edit certain stats without causing glitches with the new settlements dvk made. Rome Total Realism doesn't have those settlements so I have more freedom.

Please remember that many of us RS players are not actually gamers and don't have gaming computers.

That's why I have to make compromises between speed and eyecandy.

Not getting updates on this thread for some reason.



You should fiddle around with it, as the new cliffs do look excellent. Perhaps it is only 1 specific texture that causes the loading times increase. Or maybe a specific battle map with too many cliffs. Or a culmination of the two.

There were two things that increased the loading time: 1. the huge amount of huge textures I used for those cliffs 2. the amount of variation in cliffs. I reduced both and now loading times are normal again.

[dalapto]

What do you mean by variation in cliffs? Different cliff colours/types for different climates?

Sounds like you're putting tonnes of new textures, I assumed it was only a re-polish of existing textures. Astonishing how nice an old game can look.