Crusader_Decomp/map_renderer/phase-plan.md
Marco 549ff38334 Enhance map rendering with WebP support and loading feedback
- Update tile rendering to support both PNG and WebP formats.
- Introduce a loading spinner and progress bar for build feedback.
- Remove the manual build button; builds now trigger automatically on map selection.
- Add a phase plan document outlining future improvements and goals.
2026-03-27 11:02:30 +01:00

2.4 KiB

Map Renderer Phase Plan

Phase 1

Goal: tighten the current viewer flow without changing the map semantics.

  • remove the explicit manual build button because map selection and filter changes already trigger builds automatically
  • hide the viewport's "choose a detected map" message as soon as a map is selected and a build starts
  • add build feedback in the side panel with a spinner and a simple phase-based loading bar
  • remove visible tile seam lines and the synthetic background grid so the map reads as one surface
  • use a more efficient streamed visualization format for interactive tiles while keeping PNG as the final export format

Phase 1 implementation choice:

  • interactive tiles switch from PNG to lossless WebP because it is broadly supported in current browsers and is more bandwidth-efficient for repeated server-rendered tile delivery
  • full-map download remains PNG so export quality and compatibility stay unchanged

Phase 2

Goal: promote editor-only content from "baked into the raster" to interactive overlay objects.

  • keep the base map rendered as a flat server-generated tile surface
  • extract editor-only objects into a standalone overlay data stream
  • render those overlay items in the client as positioned interactive markers or sprites above the base map
  • on hover, slightly scale the hovered item and show a tooltip with its decoded metadata payload
  • improve roof detection before or during the overlay split because the current roof filtering still lets some roofs render when they should not
  • identify occluding helper geometry such as invisible walls and render those semitransparently so they remain legible without hiding too much of the map beneath them
  • fix pipe rendering because pipes currently are not showing up correctly
  • investigate force-field rendering because they appear yellow instead of the expected blue semitransparent look; this may be a debug-shape choice issue or a palette/color-rendering issue
  • likely revisit ScummVM Crusader handling in D:\source\scummvm to confirm what editor/debug records carry and how best to decode them for display

Open questions for phase 2:

  • which editor-only families should become interactive overlays versus remain baked into the base render
  • what exact metadata fields are reliable enough to expose in the tooltip
  • whether some editor-only entries should be clustered, filtered, or toggled by family to keep dense maps usable