Why are building roofs flat ? (stupid question)

[jeanba 1,920]

Hello

 

I noticed that in SF2, most building have a flat roof, which is not realistic for Europe

 

Is there a good reason for this ?

Edited July 9, 2015 by jeanba

[+76.IAP-Blackbird 3,557]

cheaper ;)

[Wrench 9,847]

I assume you're speaking of the TOD objects, not terrain object buildings (like the barracks, HQbuildings or evildamncommbuildings)?

[xrearl 27]

roof leaks, and cave ins are fun.

[Wrench 9,847]

I see!! NOW it become clear...

 

it's a conspiracy between 3rd Wire and the Roofing Unions of the World!!

[jeanba 1,920]

I assume you're speaking of the TOD objects, not terrain object buildings (like the barracks, HQbuildings or evildamncommbuildings)?

yes

[colmack 662]

geometrically more sound?.......... easier to texture?

Edited July 10, 2015 by colmack

[Wrench 9,847]

since they're just basic rectangles, squares and such .. very simple shapes, easy to render and low impact on frame rates

[jeanba 1,920]

since they're just basic rectangles, squares and such .. very simple shapes, easy to render and low impact on frame rates

In a lot of other sims, the Poly tradeoff is different : instead of having small buildings, they use larger blocks whith more polies but of course less buildings are needed.

And this fits better to European Cities (the SF2 appraoch is better for middle east)

See for instance bottom right blocks :

 

[Wrench 9,847]

Polack made large city blocks like that around 2006? 07? for WoE. They were pretty much ok. IIRC, there was some frame slow-downs.

 

Stary also made some super dense blocks for both Vietnam and Germany (they are used on the India-Pakistan terrain). I think Rends used them on his GermanyCE rebuild (although thinned down a bit).

 

One of the major problems, as I see it as a terraformer, is those super dense blocks make it nearly impossible to place targetable/destroyable items within the city limits. In that respect, they defeat their own purpose.

 

The weakest link in the SF series IS the terrain engine. The older TFD/HFD terrains, while having major limitations, are still better at rendering (IMO) than the LOD base SF2NA.

Even on IcelandNA, all those buildings (and the trees!) are NOT part of the tiles (TOD)-since that terrain doesn't use tiles-, but fully separate, "hand placed" Lods. And we all know what all those lods did to the frame rates!

 

There are a lot of flight sims that render their terrains far better than these. Shoot, even "Wings of Prey" looks a zillion times better (and more physically accurate) than the tile based 3W ones.

[jeanba 1,920]

Thank you for the info

[+mue 715]

The tod objects are defined in the *.tod files. I reverse engineered (most of) the tod file format: http://combatace.com/topic/84706-tod-file-format/

In theory the tod file format allows arbitrary object meshes (not only rectangular blocks). Unfortunately TWs terrain editor only creates rectangular blocks.

Therefore, to create other tod objects than the rectangular blocks one has to write his own tod file generator/editor for creating the tod files.

It's on my long-term todo list...

 

[Wrench 9,847]

THAT is good news!

[shomu1 6]

It's really too bad.  The cities are the weakest part of the 3W terrains in my opinion.  They really end up detracting from the rest of the terrain.

[jeanba 1,920]

Once again, thank you Mue

[shomu1 6]

Also yeah, great news, Mue.  Your target area editor and LOD viewer are already gold.

[+Stary 2,427]

Excellent Mue, please do!

Back to jeanba question -yes, sadly the Thirdwire Terrain Editor allows the user to create just the box type of "buildings" -feasible for Middle East for sure but as far as other regions go -man I was mailing TK politely about making new types of TOD objects since early 2008 or so, and not a single time of any reply, that's how the man is sadly.

 

IF Mue makes us custom shapes TOD objects generator -this architect here (that admit it, was scoring pretty  low on the urban planning studies) would be MORE than happy! Making more believable cityscapes using multiple blocks of houses shapes is something I want since I started modding the terrain visuals 8 years ago!

Heck, EAW had it better (not to mention the trees were collidable...)

[charlielima 328]

Perhaps they where "built" in the southern hemisphere and those are actually the floors.

CL

[Sheriff001 397]

It's really too bad.  The cities are the weakest part of the 3W terrains in my opinion.  They really end up detracting from the rest of the terrain.

 

Nuke the cities, problem solved.