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New Map Idea: Clock Tower (with pics)

By on July 6, 2009 10:45:24 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums External Link

TheScottish...

Join Date 04/2009
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Since any offical new maps seems like pipe dream right now i'm going to put some mone on the modders of this communitee.  this map for instance would be a very complex, highly time consuming project so anyone who wants to take this on be my guest (i can build some 3ds models for it if you want, but .lua is still out of my league)

 

 


Map Idea: Clock Tower


 

# of Players

6-8 Players (3v3 or 4v4)

Modes

All Modes (might be best for somethig like Slaughter where chasing Demigods becomes important)

Basic

(and yes i know that there are now paths leading to each side but that's where the gear paths come in... so keep reading)

Size

i'm not 100% of the size but i was thinking some where around the size of Exile or maybe a bit smaller.


Appearance

as the name suggests this map would be based around a clock (the tower part is not important).  basicly you play on the gears of a large clock.  there is a solid base to the level where the citadel sits as well as moving paths in the shape of huge gears which rotate around creating and breaking paths leaving island and new escapes/ambush paths.  the colour and background of this would be low lighting with the sound of a ticking clock and the cluncking of gears.  maybe periodicly a chime of bell toll would also be nice.

the gears would move is diffrent directions some rotating smoothly and some rotating in a mechanical ticking motion.  to the side are two pictures of gears as well as rusted textured gears that would be make an amazing visual for the map.


Gears

like mentioned there are gears that rotate around the map  creating paths to the enemy citadel.  bellow is a picture of what the gear paths (in black) would look like):

since arrows and center points are really hard to see since most of the gears overlap here is a gif of the full animation:L

confusing isn't it.  to break it down here are the 3 main sets of gears:

Middle Wheels:   

Here  we have the 3 middle set sof gears.  the outter and middle paths rotate clockwise with the middle paths rotating counter clockwise.  the middle wheel also roates faster than the outer two allowing for more path combinations.

these would move smoothly around with the middle wheel ticking in the oposite direction.

 

 

 

 

 

Large Gear:

Over laping the middle wheels are two large gearsthat spin near the citadel on the top and bottom of the map.  they rotate fairly fast and joing up with the center wheel to create a large path into the middle from the outter edges.

these would move in a ticking motions pobably doing 1/16th turn every 2 muntes or so

 

 

 

Small Gears:

Off to the side are four smaller gears that sit under all the rest.  these rotate the slowest in altinating conter and clockise manners.

Again ticking however at a much slower and larger intival.  say 1/8th every 8 minutes

 

 

 

 

Timing:

so how fast do these rotate?  well this is up for debate but i was thinking something like 1 sec being equal to around 5-8 minutes.  this means the fastest rotating ones would take around 20 mintues to do a full turn.  this would also mean that it would take almost a full hour for the gearsa to fall back into their original posision keeping teams on their toes the whole game.  but again open to suggestions.

 

Here is a complete animation with the correct timing:

currently the timeing is this:  Centre Wheel - 1Sec (15 Degrees)   Middle Wheel - 1 Secs (-15 Degrees)   Outer Wheel - 1 Sec (10 Degrees)   Large Gear - 3 Sec (22.5 Degrees)   Small Gear - 2 Sec (22.5 Degrees)

 

If the file doesn't work cause it might be too big then you can downloaded it (HERE)

 

 

the whole sequence takes about 144 secs meaning if each sec is 5 min then it would take around 12 hours...  so making it a bit faster might be needed.. like 2 min per sec... up for suggestions

 


Grunt Pathing

there would be 3 portals on each side (one in base and 2 on each outter ring) which would send out grunts which would take the shortest route to the enemy citadel.  from staring at the gif for about 20 minute si don't think there is ever a time where the bases are seperate so pathing shouldn't be a problem.  for an example here is the pathing for the grunts when the gears are in default posision:


Building

flags are up for debate with the center done probably housing an artifact shop or maybe a few gold mines.


Creating

I'm up for suggestions on how to create this map... i know a problem comes from the pathing and such... here is what i had so far:

i actually did some thinking about how the pathing and collision would work for this map and its actually quite simple.  the model would have to be animated but the engine should be able to handle that since some of the maps already have animations (like water).  the collision on the other hand is handles by a seperate script so the script needs to be set you can't move too? no?)

as you can see in this picture the red is what the collision would be scripted in as which would match the gears and paths as they move.  rather than move the colision around the match the pathing all you need to do is have all the possible collision (red and black) and then just change where you can't move in rather than where you can.

 


Conclusion

so that the map.  let me know what you think and if there are any talented modders out there who want to be famous they can give me a shout and i'll try help with what i can.  and questions or comments feel free to post up

 

EDIT: Added in complete animation as well as section on ideas for creating this.

 

 

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July 28, 2009 6:10:25 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting wraid,

Quoting Zechnophobe, reply 16Well, I think as a level design it is probably Interesting(nose tap). I'm not sure if it would be fun to play on though, but would at least be an interesting arena to create and play around in. Sadly, the DG engine very likely can't support this:


Dynamic Grunt paths sounds like a real pain.
Dynamic pathing in general is going to be a trick.
Inevitable bugs like Erebus batswarming to a location on a gear... which doesn't exist after he arrive.

 

Other than that though, I applaud the thought you put into the piece. I would suspect you'd make a good level Designer if you had 3D skillz.
Dynamic pathing isn't too hard. There are lots of algorithms that can quickly determine the shortest path to your destination like A* and Best First. The path calculation could be refreshed every second or so , so that the minions don't fall off the map or something by trying to take a path that was good a second ago, but has since changed. Also, not every creep has to find a path for himself. Only one creep per wave needs to calculate the path, and the others can follow him.

Thing is, it actually is pretty difficult.  A* gets pretty sluggish with an increase of possible movement nodes, which grunts have to have, because they need to be able to path to anywhere. As it is, pathing is not being done extremely well in the game, and I'm pretty sure that path's that keep opening and closing would make it worse.  What happens to the grunt team if they encounter an enemy halfway to a door, only to have it close on them?  Make them go back?

 

Also, keep in mind your movement node matrix is actively changing, so that's another thing to handle.

 

 

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July 31, 2009 8:53:22 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Quoting Zechnophobe,



Thing is, it actually is pretty difficult.  A* gets pretty sluggish with an increase of possible movement nodes, which grunts have to have, because they need to be able to path to anywhere. As it is, pathing is not being done extremely well in the game, and I'm pretty sure that path's that keep opening and closing would make it worse.  What happens to the grunt team if they encounter an enemy halfway to a door, only to have it close on them?  Make them go back?

 

Also, keep in mind your movement node matrix is actively changing, so that's another thing to handle.

 

 

Yeah, you are right......even if you do find a super-accurate and fast algorithm, it will still mean that sometimes grunts will have to backtrack their steps once a path dissapears. They might be even cought in a loop somewhere. Maybe if the map had some static gears that will always connect the two citadels. Grunts could go by that path statically, no dynamic pathing required.

Another ideea would be to have static paths that only grunts can access (a force field or something would prevent DGs from entering). I don't think that this would be a very good approach though. So I stick by my "some static gears" ideea.

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July 31, 2009 9:07:38 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

very nice idea. but it is not difficult to implement such stuff as someone here thinks. anyway i see another problem:

what happens if you (or creeps) are catched by a rotating wheel? you get killed? and what happens to the creeps that got stoped for a while because of a fight and are now running against a closed passage?

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August 2, 2009 5:56:04 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums
nice idea, i??d like to see this ingame maybe - if the pathfinding wont work with animated walls etc - you do all the moving parts in the background and maybe some in the foreground and the map itself is not moving.
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August 8, 2009 10:23:20 PM from Stardock Forums Stardock Forums

  Just do NOT allow teleporting on this map.

  Grunts that don't melee have no need to follow the tricky paths.

  Might want the gears to 'kick' any hiding sharpshooters to the curb now and again.

 

 Great looking map and a fine idea. Keep plugging it. It will fly someday.

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August 9, 2009 12:25:29 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I am glad this map is staying bumped, maybe gaspowered will take notice.

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August 10, 2009 5:45:54 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Love your ideas Scottish. I can't wait for the mod tools so we can see your maps in action Good luck.

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August 10, 2009 5:53:50 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

This map is brilliant!! I hope you make this happen..

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August 12, 2009 7:53:32 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Wow you must have put alot of work in this, however i think 3 grunt portals all going to the same center would be abit to much, perhaps 2 portals would do. I like the idea tho.

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September 2, 2009 5:22:29 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

this map is an awesome idea, however i believe there is a technical limitation in that moving geometry isnt supported, there is no example of this in any of the existing maps, only texture motion, for example water/lava is shown. i also hate to think how the collision model would handle this.

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