» Sat Nov 27, 2010 2:58 am
I know that this only indirectly concerns the engine but I think it still fits here.
They should look at a few things other games do any maybe try to work those in, for example the CryEngine editor allows to "auto texture" the environment based on it's angle, so if you texture a mountainside only the ones that have a up to 40° get a grass texture, ones that are over 40° get a rock texture, this gives it a far more natural look. You can change at what angle it does what texture of course.
It would also be nice if roads could actually be put on the environment and then adjust it to them, again something the CryEngine editor does. You simply draw the road on the environment as a line and then let it recalculate the environment around it AND the flow of the road, that way the roads are actually smooth and don't corkscrew everywhere.
Something that sadly probably won't be possible but would just for the environmental design be a hugely nice feature is actually making overhangs and digging caves (once again, CryEngine allows that). With so much wilderness you have in each game having all hills simply be slopes and having no overhanging parts or actual cavities just feels kinda wrong, sadly I'm not sure if the environmental design engine will be capable of doing that.
If not that a feature that would allow you to "cut holes" into the environment would be neat, if you want a cave you could just cut a hole, decorate the edges and add rocks and plains to make a cave mouth.
Also editing the environment simply by setting hightpoints would be nice and I actually imagine such a feature would not be THAT hard to do. Just set a point, enter the hight you want and it pulls or pushes it to the hight, set several point and connect them. Like that it would be far easier to do some landscaping.
Another nice thing would be to draw "territories" on the environment you could then make invisible and simply assign a "ownership" to them (makes it easier to manage zones than with Cells alone) or leave them visible and have a more clear cut texture edge, that would look better than some texture just kinda fading into each other
In fact I have a Architecture program and it uses the three mentioned features, it makes sculpting the surroundings way easier. Though this runs on CAD, not sure how easy that would translate over into the environmental designer Beth uses.
Speaking of that creating some walls and objects directly in game would be a neat feature too, no messing around with meshes all the time when you can just "draw" walls, fences, railing and such.
As a last point a auto "roughening" feature for cliff walls would be kinda neat adding point that jut out, look broken off rather than smooth and automatically adds some shrubs, plants or roots maybe.