PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!

  • A18 Stable is Out!

    Votes: 2 66.7%

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    Votes: 1 33.3%
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As far as I know biome dithering isn't possible any more. Something to do with the use of splatmaps if memory serves.
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What kind of sadist fills every tenth emergency drop crate with zombie dogs? :-)
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The kind of guy who put land mines in the wasteland :)

 
And the splat maps control the biomes, or has that changed in a18? They are one in the same in 17... Interesting... Now you got me curious. :)
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We just dither the line between biomes on the splat. Result is the same.
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A17 doesn't have splat maps. It just renders whatever texture the block is.

 
Keep It simple Stupid - KISSOr

Keep It Short and Simple - KISS

In case anyone was wondering what that meant. :)

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Are you going back to using dithering along the borders?
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Splat maps look amazing, so no.

 
Hmm so how does that work exactly. Sounds very much like you went a totally different direction than all alpha's before where the terrain layers are determined by the biome there. Does this mean there is a new splat map to give the terrain a texture or does the color of the biomes splat paint x layers of that gound on top of whatever actual biome may be there? Sounds either awfully convoluted or I am not seeing the whole picture. I hope this does not mean you guys killed of custom biomes in the process?
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You can google splat maps.

 
A17 doesn't have splat maps. It just renders whatever texture the block is.
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I think we don't know what a splat map is. I assumed it was a .PNG file that determined what thingie was going to go where, since the road .PNG is called splat3.png.

Educate us?

 
I'm guessing that this isn't mm's area and be may be mistaken.
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No I do game design, books, perks, items, getting into quests, balance, UMA, writing, a bit of art direction, task writing for stuff I lead, etc. I still do a bit of low poly modeling for block shapes. In the past I did all the animations for Alpha 1, all the rigging, all XML, I made POIS and textures, env models, prototyped some art keys, etc. Now I'm more focused and the game is more fun than ever IMO.

All I know is I hated dithering and made sure it wasn't back because spectrum spamming was bad. The splats for nav are hand made I think, RWG is generated somehow, but I don't think the borders are anything special but its so big who cares. I don't see the problem it literally takes 3 game hours to leave the pine forest on a minibike, which is what, 15 minutes?

 
You get infected and an infection icon shows with a count down. When it reaches zero it transitions to a naster infection with an orange icon. If untreated, progresses to red icon version with again another count down. When it reaches zero you die.
If you take medicine, the icon changes to a treated icon, with again, a count down timer. If medicine runs out before healed, it goes back to the nasty icon. Honey gives +1 healing, herbal anti's +2 and antibiotics +3. The nastiness per second is .75 on stage 1, so honey is usually enough to get rid of it, but not enough to cope with the more advanced stages. Medicine types stack though so if you want maximum healing take all 3.

No instant cure, but stage 1 has no ill effects. You have 1 game hour before stage 2.

I like it because all medicine is useful, you know exactly how much time you have, and some basic honey is enough early game.

Oh and certain zeds will subtract your healing on impacts that transmit further infection, so the number might move a bit if you get in a nasty fight and offset how much medicine you need to get cured.

We'll change the dysentery and broken legs to be like this as well, a timer counting down how long you have before the broken leg heals, and how long before dysentery gets worse or heals (depending if you are getting sicker or on medicine)
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Does this mean that dysentery is lethal again? It was the most depressing way to die few alphas ago

 
No I do game design, books, perks, items, getting into quests, balance, UMA, writing, a bit of art direction, task writing for stuff I lead, etc. I still do a bit of low poly modeling for block shapes. In the past I did all the animations for Alpha 1, all the rigging, all XML, I made POIS and textures, env models, prototyped some art keys, etc. Now I'm more focused and the game is more fun than ever IMO.
All I know is I hated dithering and made sure it wasn't back because spectrum spamming was bad. The splats for nav are hand made I think, RWG is generated somehow, but I don't think the borders are anything special but its so big who cares. I don't see the problem it literally takes 3 game hours to leave the pine forest on a minibike, which is what, 15 minutes?
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I see the miscommunication... We are talking about the .PNG files that determine world generation, one of which is called splat3.png, you are talking about the graphical method of how textures are stored.

 
I think we don't know what a splat map is. I assumed it was a .PNG file that determined what thingie was going to go where, since the road .PNG is called splat3.png.
Educate us?
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All I know is it made the terrain look very pretty, I think it gives us a lot better blending and vertical texturing doesn't look horrible. The images look alien to me, I've never worked with them so I'm not the best guy to ask this. It supports height maps which we aren't even using yet, and much better blending per texture instead of one generic blend. Its still biome based, but instead of seeing stone and ore bleed through on the sides of mountains or needed 20 meter deep sand to prevent ore bleed in the desert, the splat map handles it all nicely.

The only drawback is it might not always be exactly what it looks like but its a typical blend anyway, like stone and dirt you will just get dirt probably, even though it kind of looks like stone. But dirt isn't very deep now, so you'll hit stone about 3 meters down now.

Below the top layer of 1, what you see is what you get.

 
You can google splat maps.
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Did not really help. I get that A18 has a new terrain shader for the terrain textures using this splat technique. But my questions was about the splat maps of the world generator translating to actual biomes.xml biomes appearing in the world and as such the kind of terrain texture that is on the top soil block determined by that biomes.xml biome. I was asking if this flow has changed since you said biomes.xml biomes do no longer determine the terrain texture aka the kind of top soil block (the first layers) of the biome. So I wondered how it does work in A18 then, are there just dirt blocks that get a texture painted on them and are biomes completely seperate or what?

 
But dirt isn't very deep now, so you'll hit stone about 3 meters down now.

Below the top layer of 1, what you see is what you get.
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Ooh, I like that stone is closer... :)

New infection sounds right as well. #medicineusematters

 
The confusion about splat maps arises largely from the fact that they're used twice in terrain generation and in very different roles.

Without resorting to pedantry... a splat map is a texture* that is used to store data.

The terrain shader uses splats to mix the different terrain textures in the correct proportion*. These have little to do with terrain dithering except to display the already dithered terrain.

This is an educated guess but I'd say that the terrain generator uses splats to determine which blocks should be shown. It's likely that one texture channel (R,G,B and possibly A) determines which blocks should be rock, a second channel for soil determines which blocks above rock should be changed to soil. A third channel (possibly fourth as well) is likely used for roads. The downside to this system is that the splats are two dimensional which leads to vertical lines of blocks where dithering occurs.

* inaccurate to a certain degree

 
I haven't caught up on everything but for those that are still worried about a stealth build and what to do on horde night, just look at the Alpha 18 Perk Overhaul Video MM put out. At 15:25 it shows the Agility Attribute page which shows Archery, Gunslinger and Deep Cuts. So if someone wants to be stealthy using a bow and knife all week then they will have tons of ammo for their pistol, magnum and SMG on BM.

I don't see why anyone would hide in the shadows and do nothing to help themselves or their friends on BM when they have all those guns and ammo plus the perks to support massive damage?

 
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