overkill: the city

I've decided to finish this map, my ace if you will. I have a total of two aces, and a jack in my hand. If you've ever played euchre you know that a jack can be very powerful, or not very helpful depending on the suit. My aces are overkill: the city, and Iwo Jima, while a revist to M.I.S.T. is my jack. I designed the original overkill after learning Teamvss was making a city, and eventually it just became an experiment to see how detailed I could get the map to be.

In the following link you can find a post about overkill http://my.bzflag.org/bb/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=13764&p=135419&hilit=does+this+map+have+too+much+detail#p135419

It eventually got to a point where my client/computer couldn't handle it, and sadly as time has passed some pieces of paper I basically wrote the hospital coordinates on have dissappeared. (at the time it was best for me to write them down at my skill level). the size of the map would have been 600x600 WU which is pushing it.

so sadly I'll have to totally redesign the whole thing... it will bee 500x500 WU
the first object to me go crazy is nuts, but the first map that made me go insane was this map. It's name actually signifies something, which is "it was overkill to make the map" I forget what I said about it, but it went something like that.

But the map in that post is NOT the map I will make. I'm going to be totally changing it, except the gas station pumps they will be there, as well as the electrical plant.

I might take some of the lines (object lines)from the supermarket and put them inside the gas station, and leave the supermarket bare inside. I've designed the first level of the hospital so far. Overkill the city's original file, in it's final form, contained 6499 lines, my second biggest mapfile (only sidewinder contains more lines at around 6649 lines of code, and if you subtract all the unused lines of code, then overkill might exceed it) Redoing all of the map, minus the pumps/electrical plant parts, isn't something I take lightly. I'm going to create a seperate blog that will detail the progress of the map.

Sidewinder

This is may be the final version of Sidewinder. I've begun to call those objects with the caution texture (the object pictured in the previous sidewinder post), nuts.


The name has a double meaning; For the last few days they've been driving me, well nuts......

troublesome meshes....

graphs

Note: I'm just putting the above her for now, until I get another place to put it
Here's the graph paper from tank galore

doesn't really resemble tank galore, in this version, but the more current one does (I've just missplaced it ;)

on a side note, I'm happy to announce I've found all the pieces of graph paper for the hospital in Overkill: the city. I'm seriously thinking about trying to finish the map. The hospital would be the most difficult part. I also found the piece of graph paper for overkill itself! Everything I need to complete the map is in my possession, now as long I don't lose them. again....

Art

This is a betta I drew a few years ago.

Sidewinder

This is my next map, which for the most part is complete. Here's what I've got so far.
One screenshot shows the general map, while the other shows a nut like object, which has fallen against a wall. The only major piece remaining is the centerpiece.

Mapping

In my last map I used some blinking objects. This "blinking can only be accomplished by using dynamic color, not an easy thing to learn. So I'll post what I know (this comes directly from my Tankgalore map file found here as well as .

for my own, or others' future reference
========================================
[channel]
*channel= alpha, red, green, or blue
========================================
[channel] sinusoid [period] [offset] [weight]
*sinusoid= sine wave
*period= time between waves aka time before it goes back to it's starting value. it starts automatically at the maximum value
that's a mathamatical period at least (trig)
*offset= delay before cycle starts (helpful for the alpha channel)
weight= time spent at max
========================================
[channel] limits [min limit] [max limit]
*min limit= minimum saturation of a channel (at the wave's max; wave=sine wave)
*max limit= maximum saturation of a channel (at the wave's min; wave=sine wave)
========================================
[channel] sequence [period] [offset] [list of states...]
*period= see def. earlier
*offset= see def. earlier
*states= 0-active clamDown 1-no clamp 2-active clampUp
========================================
[channel] clampUp [period] [offset] [width]
[channel] clampDown [period] [offset] [width]
I don't really understand these yet
========================================
here's an example.
For a blue flashing object that doesn't disappear use this as the dynamic color:

dynamicColor
name bisodc
green limits 0 0
red limits 0 0
alpha limits 1 1
blue limits 0 1
blue sinusoid 4 0 3
end

the sinusoid implies that the cycle takes 4 seconds, has no delay when you join, and stays at it's max/min for 3 seconds. I hope this helps you.

Mesh

*old post from an old blog (posted Jan. 25 2010)

This is for the people who tried to follow the instructions given on the bzflag wiki.
Some of you may have tried to make a mesh in this way, but found that some of the sides acted like they didn't exist in certain directions. What you may not realize is the wiki is right, and it will work. What you don't realize is that it is quite easy to fix. the mesh face will face the direction in which the vertex winding order is counter-clockwise.

example:
a box like mesh, in which the "[]" is a vertex. Vertices 0-3 have a z value of 0, while vertices 4-7 have a z value of 15. the x and y value do not matter right now.
(0/4) (1/5)
[]=====[]
|#######|
|#######|
[]=====[]
(3/7) (2/6)

North is the direction up here in this page.
Example face of this mesh
(if you want the top face to face north this is how it is done)
The top face is in zeros and ===
face
vertices 0 4 5 1
matref your_matref
endface
(this next face is if you want the same face to show south, which would be toward all of the "#'s")
face
vertices 0 1 5 4
matref your_matref
endface
(now you know how to make a face)
(a face like the previous one would have no effect on tanks or their projectiles that view it from north) aka the face would face the center of the mesh

textures

*texture post from an old blog (poste Feb. 4 2010)*
Comments on which textures of each set are better?