progression mission question

[the taffer]

I was thinking of making a progression type FM, but I want to make a big world instead of just making the world as I go along. I do not see any problems with this but I want to make sure that I can't run into anything and have to restart. My reasoning for doing this is because im adding lookout towers near a city and I want those towers to see everything. Also I think it would be cool if you can see a lot more when your on a second floor looking out a window. This way will be harder if I do decide to do it but if it makes a mission look better, I will do it. Any suggestions will help.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by the taffer

I was thinking of making a progression type FM, but I want to make a big world instead of just making the world as I go along. I do not see any problems with this but I want to make sure that I can't run into anything and have to restart. My reasoning for doing this is because im adding lookout towers near a city and I want those towers to see everything. Also I think it would be cool if you can see a lot more when your on a second floor looking out a window. This way will be harder if I do decide to do it but if it makes a mission look better, I will do it. Any suggestions will help.

How far do you plan on letting the player see? Great distances will cause great crashes. Dark engine isn't really designed to handle that type of construction design.

[the taffer]

Well I thought some of it over and well I want to make the player see some cool things at a height but if they see everything it wont be a surprise later in the mission. I want a watch tower, if I have a watch tower there has to be a purpose. So it has to watch over something for an invasion or something of that nature. I need an idea of what to do. I think I could make a watch tower with one or two windows to look over a certain area or Make the watch tower being built when. Any other suggestions will help.

[R Soul]

The dark engine can only draw 1024 terrain polygons on screen at any one time. Try to view more than that and the game could crash.
(use show_stats to see how many polys are on screen)

Similarly there is a limit to the number of objects that can be rendered at any one time (or maybe the limit is on object polygons instead). Hitting this limit won't cause a crash but some objects will disappear from the sceen.

You could easily hit either or both of these limits if the town is reasonably detailed.

In my opinion it's not a good idea to deliberately make a long detailed panoramic view with an engine that's best suited to shorter views and enclosed spaces.

[SlyFoxx]

You might want to have a look at "Unfinished Business" for an example of maxing out sight lines and the amount of brush/object detail you can use in such a setting. You'll also notice how blocky/fake things can look from a distance.