Kris Schnee wrote:
Many questions here; I could use help from someone more experienced.
But what now? Although I could and probably should focus on the
"worldsim" itself -- the physics and gameplay -- I'm not sure about how
to develop the graphics system further. Assuming that I can successfully
combine this landscape with my Pygame-only widget system and with
Pyglyph so that I can do text windows, buttons etc., it's still going to
be ugly! I thought about switching from these awkward-looking textures
to plain colors, but (perhaps because there's full lighting) that turns
the landscape into green soup. And there's still a bad case of the
jaggies (and terrible FPS) from the fact that I'm using 100x100 data
points. _And_ the sky's not animated. And so on.
Just some notes on how to improve the first screenshot without much effort:
- The normals are either incorrect or you are not modulating the
texture with light (you can see the problem most clearly on the rocky
areas).
- Increase the heightmap resolution; you definitely want to avoid
single-vertex "peaks" like you have now.
- Simplify the textures. Many grass textures are designed to be viewed
close-up, and don't scale or alias well. Find (or draw) a less detailed
one that works from a distance.
- Add a shadow to the player, even if it's just a billboarded "blob";
at the moment it's not clear whether the player is standing or hovering.
- The water works well if you want to keep a cartoony feel; if not
there are many reflection/refraction tricks you can employ. At least
try to match the horizon colour though.
- I wouldn't worry about animating the sky: players look where the
action is, and it looks fine at the moment. You could experiment with a
little fog to hide the horizon.
You shouldn't be getting performance problems with a scene like this,
don't be turned off by framerate problems.
Alex.
