Outerra forum
Outerra Engine => Ideas & Suggestions & Questions => Topic started by: Jak_o_Shadows on May 23, 2011, 07:26:48 am
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What control of water are we going to have? I mean, it's fairly obvious that we're going to be able to place rivers, lower terrain up and down a bit, make lakes and the like, and maybe even canals, but what about dams, floodgates, locks (the river type that raises boats) and even toggleable moats (i can dream right?).
What about aquifers (bore water), springs, rapids and waterfalls? (Through i imagine that some of these wouldn't be too hard using the current method (vector data isn't it?, possibly similar in nature (but not use) to the road editor?)).
What about being able to have water coming down in a flood (even if it has to be along a pre-determined path) and effecting vehicles caught in the way?
So yeah, just some thoughts.
ps. I was bored when typing this.
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For a while, I've been toying with the Esenthel engine.
How they (he) do it there, is make 2 types of water: Lake and river.
Lake is defined by a few vertices to form the outlines and is basically a plane of non-moving water.
River is defined by vertices connected by 1 line and are moving from point A to B to C to....
So with just these two, you can make everything you wish. :)
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What control of water are we going to have? I mean, it's fairly obvious that we're going to be able to place rivers, lower terrain up and down a bit, make lakes and the like, and maybe even canals, but what about dams, floodgates, locks (the river type that raises boats) and even toggleable moats (i can dream right?).
In the game? There will be probably no control of water there, rivers/lakes will come as imported from real Earth data, and it's not the usual activity you'd do in a game. Besides, it is more complex - running water modifies the terrain, and you cannot just place a river anywhere, without a process that would determine how the surrounding land would look like if there was a river flowing there.
Floods would require a simulation of flowing and accumulating water, might be interesting but probably not a priority.
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Not to mention the fact that a LARGE majority of lakes and rivers worldwide are manmade constructs. Here in Texas, we have a LOT of rivers and lakes, but out of all the lakes, only one is natural. All others have been manmade (case in point, Lake Lewisville, in my hometown ... it wouldn't exist in a "natural" setting).
How Cameni and Angrypig is going to resolve that issue, I'm eagerly awaiting ;)
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Not to mention the fact that a LARGE majority of lakes and rivers worldwide are manmade constructs.
Uhm.....what are you talking about?
The majority of rivers and lakes certainly arent manmade. What gives you this idea?
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A little over-exaggeration on my part, but a lot of them are man-made in that mankind has dug the ground, altered the landscape, built damns, etc, diverting natural flows and basins. Turn back the clock as little as 50k years, and rivers and lakes will look vastly different than they are today
Texas is the prime example of this, and one of the biggest extremes.
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Yeah you can pretty much just flood New Orleans again. No man made levy's in outerra.
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Are you purposely trying to be a jackass?
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No, that is a serious point. New Orleans is below sea level so it is most likely going to be under-water and probably is right now in OT.
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Good point Zeos!
I guess that part of the world is lost to the sea :(
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A little over-exaggeration on my part, but a lot of them are man-made in that mankind has dug the ground, altered the landscape, built damns, etc, diverting natural flows and basins. Turn back the clock as little as 50k years, and rivers and lakes will look vastly different than they are today
Texas is the prime example of this, and one of the biggest extremes.
Well, in the grand scheme of things this is almost nothing. Sure, in densely populated areas alot of rivers are given some "guidance". But if I had to guess I would say thats nowhere near even 1% of the total river (lenghts)/lakes worldwide.
Sometimes us humans seem to overestimate our importance ;-)
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Sometimes us humans seem to overestimate our importance ;-)
lol, completely agree.
Also, I don't think the LA river was as straight as it is now or lined with concrete.
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Makes you wonder how that sort of thing would be handled. Although even after a few hundred years the LA river and most man made tributaries will probably remain.
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If we can place roads, we should at least be able to build canals and drains (see 34.04.34.45N 118.13.36.10W (from grease)). I realise that could be (maybe) an actual river, however man made canals do occur (see 36.50.03.49 S 139.52.0.01 E)
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The concrete would deteriorate after a few hundred years. Then you'd have the normal erosion of the river. Of course, that would be in normal conditions and not LA since it's a desert and the river only flows periodically during the winter months. Most of the time it's dry (Terminator 2 was filmed in part of the LA river system. That's what it normally looks like). It would take significantly longer there, unless there was a huge earthquake, I'd think.
As far as just canals, I would think that over time there would be significant erosion and would not look like a man-made canal for too long. Think of all the dredging that goes on just to help with the erosion, even with natural rivers (the Mississippi is a good example). Without man, even the natural rivers would change quite a bit.