Hex map designer

**phibermon** · 14-10-2013, 03:31 PM

Just throwing in my two pennies - You don't to have to have your map representation (hex) constrain the entities within it's spatial paradigm. There's no reason you can't combine two path finding techniques, use hex as the first quick step and refine as the path is traveled using a higher resolution /alternate representation.

Using common game themes eg. buildings can be placed free form onto the hex map and then bounds checked to determine which hexes are totally obscured / partially obscured. Steering algorithms combined with this step as well as an additional heuristic calculation for partially occupied hexes would decouple your entities from the hex paradigm (if you so wish).

Hexes will partition into triangles obviously, but there's nothing stopping you dividing those triangles again and using these smaller triangles to refine the path finding.

Long story short : You can and often should have multiple spatial representations that you keep in sync as different algorithmic techniques work best with different representations. IE a quad-tree, where you can also push a reference to the individual hex tiles into.

**Carver413** · 18-10-2013, 06:51 PM

I dont think that most of you really grasp the design that I have in mind these maps will be nothing more then custom bitmaps you will be able to draw to them just like any other map,only they will use brushes rather then colors in the rendering process. in 2d these brushes are mostly textures created from scripts. in 3d they will be shapes with textures bound to them. 3d will support height mapping that will look something like what you would expect from a vortex engine. most path finding operations as well as ai will be done from the bitmap level. 3d will only serve to display changes and translate 3d mouse clicks to 2d map coordinates. combat will look something like spellforce to start and if i get that far I go from there. to begin with I will support 2 types of tiles quad and hex. animation will be done from bones and joints but no skinning. models will be broken down to head,torso,arms and legs, something like that. I have done some experimenting on this and it seems to work well enough will keeping the design simple and flexable. 3d shapes brought into the game from other sources like blender an such will be bound to tiles where they can easily be dropped onto a map. there is still much to consider, changes to be made, but for now this is my plan. I'm going to keep it rather small scale and go for quality vs quanity.
Edit: also I would like the movement to be free movement where the tile represent the destination but character moves smoothly to the destination

**Carver413** · 24-11-2013, 09:29 PM

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.jpg Hexmap02.jpg Hexmap03.jpg Hexmap04.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.

**SilverWarior** · 24-11-2013, 09:48 PM

Originally Posted by Carver413

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.

It doesn't look so ugly just becouse you have small elevation deferences between nearby tiles. But if you make this height difference larger you will see what I mean.
So why not use similar approach as it is done in Settlers 2 where youe map is made from vector-based triangels. You do know that hex tile is made from 6 triangles?
So in the end you could still alow placing of various map times (structures, etc.) on what would be center of Hex tiles.

**WILL** · 25-11-2013, 06:06 PM

I like where this project is going. Your vision certainly looks impressive. I hope this comes to full fruition.

**Carver413** · 26-11-2013, 02:11 AM

Originally Posted by SilverWarior

It doesn't look so ugly just becouse you have small elevation deferences between nearby tiles. But if you make this height difference larger you will see what I mean.
So why not use similar approach as it is done in Settlers 2 where youe map is made from vector-based triangels. You do know that hex tile is made from 6 triangles?
So in the end you could still alow placing of various map times (structures, etc.) on what would be center of Hex tiles.

Like it or don't this is going to be a tile based engine. I have come to see this as a design challenge and thats what makes it fun. I will be creating most of the assets my self so I need to be realistic about what I can do on my own. if there is one thing that the explorer can do well at this point it would be tiles. most of this is do to the work I was doing with the gui and procedural texturing. I just couldn't figure out how to bring this into a game but now it seems all to clear.

**Carver413** · 26-11-2013, 02:27 AM

Originally Posted by WILL

I like where this project is going. Your vision certainly looks impressive. I hope this comes to full fruition.

thanks for the vote of confidence. I actually have a game Idea in the works to go along with this so I hope to develope them together as I go along. It is quite large in scope but I want to set it up so I can release it a chapter at a time and make it easy enough for modders to add there own stuff.