I finally have I crude model in which ot evaluate my idea and I think it has possiblity. sure its not oblivion but who here would be up to such a task. you eather spend all your time on some monster engine in which you never really make use of or you settle for some sprite based engine because its within your grasp. I am trying to go middle of the ground with my work in hopes that I'll actually be able to get some use of it. at this point the map is contained in a 24 bit map but I will probably go with something more custom to the engine. I want alot of the logic stored in the tiles or groups of them to make it more plug and play. place a dungon enterance on the map and you have just created a new dungon. maps should also be linkable also by tile trigger points as an easy way to expand the game as we go along. as can be seen in the test photos it is possible to do height mapping and it isn't really ugly as silverwarrior said it would be. sure it still need lots of work and a better shader model before I can create better tiles but for now I want to focus on getting a full working model and worry about the eye candy later. also there is no reason to just use hex tiles, this model will support many dillerent shapes by the time it is complete.
Hexmap01.jpgHexmap02.jpgHexmap03.jpgHexmap04.jpg
the tiles appear rounded here even though they are flat. I did this by adjusting the normals to compansate for my lack of a good shader. not really a final look for me but better then just flat. once I have normal map support then I will add normal mapping to the tile rendering but I have no way to test this at present.