Reinhard wrote: ↑07 Dec 2022 20:55
flight50 wrote: ↑07 Dec 2022 20:32
Snow must be dynamic........its has to build up.
It has to? Seasons cold be handled as simple transition. After some time spent, another job, another season. Or after a wake-up. A dynamic transition would be much more complicated, meaning much more development time, meaning much more money to invest. Dynamic handling would be fantastic, but I guess it isn't worth the money, from an SCS economic view. If they ever decide to do
something, in this regard. We'll see.
Yes Sir, it has to. Its 2022. Simple doesn't really belong in today's games if SCS wants to keep up and gain attention. The maps are great. Use them. Build on them. No body has maps on this scale for a driving simulator. There's a limit to simple and Seasons can't be simple. Not as a finished product at least. It can start simple but it has to evolve. More money to invest? SCS has already committed to investing. They have hired almost 200 people since I started playing ATS in 2016. I have zero clue how winter works or how it is in Europe but what you describe will not work here in North America and I'll give you 2 reasons why. 1) the fan base would not accept such limitations when they see youtube and real examples of North American winters producing much much better winters. Barely covering the ground won't work well and 2) its not remotely realistic to how conditions here work per region. It doesn't have to be perfect but it does need to be better than you describe.
In order for SCS to implement dynamic seasons, there needs to be a calendar correct? There are 365 days in a year. How on can we go from from one job to another season in a matter of 1 day or even one week. Or wake up to another season in less than 24hrs. That won't make people happy. I don't know if you read the past several pages or just this last one but I explained seasons at least from by prospective. In a nutshell, Pavel is a perfectionist and he shouldn't want to do what you describe because its not remotely dynamic enough. To have dynamic seasons, I mentioned it needs to be multiples of 4. That would be 16,20 or even 24 seasons. We can't wake up and all of a sudden bammmmm, another season. I'd rather SCS keep the game as is vs doing that. Either do it right or don't do it at all. Right as in don't just slap textures on like mods are doing to indicate seasons.
When we say iterations, its not so cut and dry as you state. Iterations could be something like create each season statically.....first. This is basically like a mod would do and allow seasons via a pull down. In 2018, Pavel said they could actually do this already for like quest/missions but he knows dynamic is the way to go. Static allows the most time to get it right. No one would care how long seasons take and SCS shouldn't worry either. If it needs to be done............get her done. Seasons is just a time consuming as the Texas dlc is. Its a commitment SCS will have to face no matter what. Either do it....or don't. Start off seasons in phases (iterations)
Phase 1
Foundation. Create a progressive type system to transition from season to season. Transition Summer to Fall. This is all vegetational changes. Colors only. Leaves, grasses, trees, flowers....they start dying out and loose color. Develop particle system that can blow leaves around. Basically implement wind and show it effecting the environment.
Phase 2
Develop Fall into Winter. Trees go bare for those that loose leaves. Setup weather lines based on regions. Develop landscape filtering and asset filtering. This is what piles up snow. Snow can not stay a constant everywhere. In North Texas it sticks around for 2-3 days at the most. In the panhandle maybe its sticks around for 5-7 days (not sure honestly). In Montana, it can stick around for 6 months. So yes there needs to be a pile up system. Make it in Levels of 1, 2 and 3. 3 being the max of lets say 12-18 inches. Level 2 could be 3-12 inches and Level 1 could be 0-3 inches. There also needs to be the occasional 10 year freak weather. Prime Example, in 2021 all of Texas froze over. DFW go powder snow for the first time I can remember vs the ice pellet type snow. It was quite rare but that could be a 2% chance type snow for DFW to get level 2. Most years Texas is Level 1
Phase 3
Develop Winter in Spring. That snow filter can now thaw out and fade the opposite way it came in. Trees, flowers and other vegetation start budding and blooming. If SCS could develop water streams and puddles, this emphasizes Spring.
Phase 4.
Now its time to put it all together. Create a calendar year. All seasons are in now. The transitions should now be able to sync up with one another and run seamless. This is the last hard part but they'd have time to work it as they at least gave us season to manually use. Pressure was off during Phase 1-3 so that makes the wait for Phase 4 easier. If they allow the pull down, they can create quarterly changes (1 up to 3 months) to indicate start of season to end of season. Once you reach that last stage of the static season, that's what you get until you manually change seasons. Selecting default(current gameplay) and back to (x) season, its restarts that season if you want until they complete the calendar system to make it all dynamic.
Now of course this is just me thinking and may not even go like this. This post also does not mean this is the only way and this post does not mean SCS can do this. But its an idea like many others to toy with. I think most people would consider seasons as one of the most impactful additions to ATS. For ETS2, its probably rigids. But in North America, seasons would be the eye catcher with the diversity the landscaping is here. Seasons almost give you multiple games in one. Considering ATS is the guinea pig game, I'd expect ATS to get it first with the smaller fan base. The map size is catching up to ETS2 but considering its the same game code, less people to piss off with bugs. Seasons is a huge way to increase the fan base almost most instantly though for ATS. So if SCS is heading in the right direction, they have to figure it out and get seasons. Dev time can't be a thought. Do it or don't bother. Don't bother and they will constantly hear about it. Seasons and multi drop are possibly the top two most wanted features that are the most impactful. Call it my opinion or call it factual.....your choice. But they are the 2 features that I constantly see sprinkled into many threads just like Multi player use to be. Just like owned trailers use to be. Just like multi pivot use to be. Getting the most impactful things in the game grows the fan base.