Map tiles (mountains)

[Eleazar]

Hi, i've recently discovered Wesnoth, and enjoyed playing it. I have some graphic design/illustration skills, and think i can help with the map tiles. I'm new to this web-based working environment, so i have some questions:

1) Where can i find out what the most recent set of tiles look like?
I'd hate to spend the time duplicating someone elses work.
2) If i was working, for example, on the coast overlaps, and i made appropriate files like "coasts-nw-n.png" instead of just relying on "coast-n.png" could the program use them without too much work?
3) Using partially transparent pgn files is OK? That would make things much easier.
4) if i end up making some graphics that i think improve the look, what do i do to get them included? Post them on the forum?

[Sangel]

Hi, i've recently discovered Wesnoth, and enjoyed playing it. I have some graphic design/illustration skills, and think i can help with the map tiles. I'm new to this web-based working environment, so i have some questions:

First up, let me be the first to welcome you to the forums! New members are always welcome, particularly in the sought-after fields like graphics, sound and music.

In answer to a few of your questions -

1) Where can i find out what the most recent set of tiles look like?
I'd hate to spend the time duplicating someone elses work.

Wesnoth uses a CVS system, and the very latest files can always be found online here. In particular, up-to-date image files can be found in this directory. Check the terrain subdirectory to see if what you're planning to work on has changed.

2) If i was working, for example, on the coast overlaps, and i made appropriate files like "coasts-nw-n.png" instead of just relying on "coast-n.png" could the program use them without too much work?

Yes, Wesnoth can (and does) use more complicated transitions than plain n, s, e, w. I'm afraid I'm not sure on the details of this, but you can check with Ayin for more information.

3) Using partially transparent pgn files is OK? That would make things much easier.

Wesnoth uses transparency in its PNGs in a lot of places, so I suspect it can use it in transition files. Again, you may want to check this with Ayin - or you could just open (a copy of) a file already in the game, try transparency, and see if it works.

4) if i end up making some graphics that i think improve the look, what do i do to get them included? Post them on the forum?

Most contributions, particularly graphical contributions, seem to be posted to the forum. You could also get directly in touch with one of the core designers - Dave is the lead developer, fmunoz handles most graphics, Cedric adds lots of units and so forth.

You can check them all in the forum's member directory if you want to get in touch.

Hope this helps, and, again, welcome to the forums.

[Eleazar]

thanks, Sangel.

i'll give the mountains a try, since they look weak next to those really nice hill graphics

[freim]

thanks, Sangel.

i'll give the mountains a try, since they look weak next to those really nice hill graphics

Christophe33 has made a new set of mountains. Check out these threads:

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2119

http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1481

[Ayin]

1) Where can i find out what the most recent set of tiles look like?
I'd hate to spend the time duplicating someone elses work.

Wesnoth uses a CVS system, and the very latest files can always be found online here. In particular, up-to-date image files can be found in this directory. Check the terrain subdirectory to see if what you're planning to work on has changed.

The problem is that only already accepted graphics go to CVS. If someone is working on a new set of graphics, which was posted to the forum but not yet added to the CVS, you may end up duplicating his work anyway.

2) If i was working, for example, on the coast overlaps, and i made appropriate files like "coasts-nw-n.png" instead of just relying on "coast-n.png" could the program use them without too much work?

Yes, Wesnoth can (and does) use more complicated transitions than plain n, s, e, w. I'm afraid I'm not sure on the details of this, but you can check with Ayin for more information.

Yeah. Just create any transition-w-x-y-z.png you wish (provided w, x, y and z are consecutive), and it will be trivial to add it to the game.

3) Using partially transparent pgn files is OK? That would make things much easier.

Wesnoth uses transparency in its PNGs in a lot of places, so I suspect it can use it in transition files. Again, you may want to check this with Ayin - or you could just open (a copy of) a file already in the game, try transparency, and see if it works.

I confirm this. Transparent PNG files are already used for the castle transitions.
I have yet to profile the impact of this on performance, though. But if it stays marginal, it should be OK.

[Eleazar]

Looks like i've gone and duplicated Christopher33's work. I should have read through more of the forums. His mountains are certainly an improvement over the old ones.

For what it's worth, here's the mountains i came up with: I made extra sure that they looked good next to the hills, since that's where they will be most of the time.


Is anybody working on the swamp??? I could probably improve those tiles.

[Christophe33]

Welcome Eleazar. I'm glad that more people join to work on improving graphics. inclusion of new graphics is a bit choppy, specially since the begining of summer. Maybe there should be a permanent sticker (or two, one for terrain and one for units) were people will indicates what they are working on and precise whether its ongoing orjust in plan. It will avoid duplicates or to have to check older post (not that old but the graphic topic is fairly active).
The new set of mountains should be included when Cedric (in charge of graphics) will be back. It will probably need some testing and tune up. I'm redoing the transition for the mountains and hope to be done next week (I was thinking to be done this week but I have to much work).
I also sent Cedric a sharpened version of the plain but it will be good if someone was working seriously on improving it and making it more diverse. There have been numerous post about it (with trees, pool, rocks, field...) and it is worth trying to get them or some included.

The swamp could be improved a bit too. There has been some general lost of sharpness when we changed from 70X70 pixel to 72X72 and not all the graphics have been fixed or replaced.
After the new mountains transitions (and maybe more hills) I plan to finish redoing my underground terrains and make a volcano tile.

I was thinking to use some level of transparency to covert plains adjacent to mountrains into "rolling plains" as part of transition. My first assay wasn't good but I might have done sometyhing wrong.

About transitions: there are 31 possible combinations using 1 to 6 adjacent transitions. You rarely needs all of them, only when you need special junctions between each transitions. They are however fairly easy to make them once you have done the 6 different sides (and the 6 junctions) in independent layers. I tried a full set for my new hill transitions and BfW used them just fine.

OK, I looked at the hills to dirt transition...boy you like using hills. I'm not sure yet of the best solution to make it look nicer. You do expect a sharp difference between a dirt road and a hill, and it's what you get even though it doesn't look quite right. I could make the transitions hills more brown (dirt like) but I'm not sure it would improve things much. Maybe a sharp dark brown line at the base of the hills transition would do the job. I will look at that more carefully after I'm done with the mountains transitions, so it might take a few weeks.

[ettin]

(Splitted from "Yet another case of general graphical ugliness.....").

Looks like i've gone and duplicated Christopher33's work. I should have read through more of the forums. His mountains are certainly an improvement over the old ones.
For what it's worth, here's the mountains i came up with: I made extra sure that they looked good next to the hills, since that's where they will be most of the time.

I really like your proposal, Eleazar.

[Eleazar]

I appreciate your attitude, Christopher33.

I'll give the swamp a try. I'm thinking of something a more venomous green to help in show up in the mini-map in the upper corner. I'll take a stab at the sand too, if nobody is working on it.

Hills-to-dirt, mountains-to-grassland, tundra-to-swamp! Sounds like there's a nearly infinite number of possible special transitions that could be made. I wonder if there is some way of streamlining or organizing the transitions? Are some of the terrain tiles "Final," so that you can make transitions with confidence, or is everything up in the air as long as everyone agrees that the change is an improvement?

[cedric]

First I'd like to thank you all for the work on terrain tiles, this is really an area which has room for improvement.

I really like your proposal, Eleazar.

So do I. Mountains are one of the things we discussed at the LSM. The conclusion was that we must have mountains that can be easily told apart from hills, even at the price of sacrificing some realism. One way to achieve that is to use whole different colors, add some snow, etc. Eleazar, you did a good job in this respect.

Christophe, your mountains are really nice, as are your hills. But with the problem of differentiating terrains, I think Eleazar mountains are the way to go.

--
Cedric

[Christophe33]

Christophe, your mountains are really nice, as are your hills. But with the problem of differentiating terrains, I think Eleazar mountains are the way to go.
Cedric

Well I redid the hills (they should be in your mailbox) and their transitions to make them greener and more distinct from the mountains. It would be easy to change the color of my montains tiles to make them more chocolate brown.
Could you look at a way to include the canyon tiles using Ayin's code? Since the canyons are surounded by grass, they should u8se the grass transitions when necessary.

[Dave]

I have to say, I really like Eleazar's mountain sample. They look awesome!

Of course, Christophe did a very very good job with the hills, and I'm sure his mountains can look good too.

I actually don't have a problem with duplicated work if it means we can pick the best one and add it. The only problem with that is some people might be disappointed that their work didn't make it in, but.....I think in making a quality game we really have to reject alot of stuff.

I would encourage both Eleazar and Christophe to finish off a mountain proposal if they have time. Then we can pick the best one for inclusion into the official version.

Welcome to the forums, Eleazar. Some more terrain you might like to look at: grassland, roads (both dirt and paved), snow variations on standard terrain, and swamp. Or anything you see which you think can be improved

David

[Eleazar]

Thanks, Dave, i've got your Swamp-water, here (if you like it.)
I thought perhaps the swamp should stand out better on the mini-map, so i made a brighter blue-green reedy swamp. The style is meant to be similar to the much nicer new trees.

I could do the ne-nw-etc borders if these (or a variation) finds favor.


I'll spend some more time on my mountains, there will be no hard feelings if Christophe's turn out better.

P.S. there's no way i'll be able to produce this quickly often. I'm taking some sick time off: making tiles is a relaxing way to spend some waking hours.

[TuxVader]

I like these terrains a lot!
It's great to have another good artist on board!

[Jetrel]

I have to say that I vastly prefer Christophe's mountains, though I really appreciate Eleazar working on this project.

From a design perspective, there are two problems that Eleazar's mountains have, both of which they inherited from being derived from the old ones.

a] The mountains are too darned small. Christophe's mountains are about 1.5x the size of the average hill.

b] Also, related to them being small, Eleazar's mountains would not work as multi-tile terrain. The mountains are so small, and drawn from such a symbolic perspective, that you cannot really have chains of them.



Eleazar basically applied shading to a symbolic form for a mountain. The perspective for them is valid for a sort of mural-type-thing, but is neither appropriate for a side on or top down, perspective, and any sort of geometric "lens angle" would not help them.

They are at a loss, because they came from the old mountain tiles. That is a pity, really, but let's not get too attached to them simply because they resemble what we are familiar with. The old mountain tiles sucked, but not because of their color. They were bad because of their shape, and nothing Eleazar does to them can fix them (because anything that did, would essentially be making something completely different).

The old mountain tiles were bad by dint of their symbolic representation - which is to say, they took the view of a mountain from one angle, and display a simplified form of that view from all angles, even when the view is completely incorrect from that angle.

There is not possible viewpoint of a mountain range in the real world that will give anything remotely resembling the shape of the old mountain tiles.


So, my adamant support is for Christophe's mountain tile set. I applaud Eleazar's good work trying to improve the old ones. However, he kinda built a good house on a foundation of sand. I look forward to any work Eleazar does on other tile sets.

Really, the ones that need work are:
Sand
Grass
Swamp
Water
Dirt
Cracked Stone/pavement/road

which is no small list.