New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

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lurker
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by lurker »

tr0ll wrote:in a slightly anti-WINR vein, i wonder if stone bridges over lava (especially dwarven-built ones) would have some sort of enhancement such as cladding, different stone, or runes to prevent melting and erosion
You mean something like this?
lava-chasm-9.png
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Very good idea, it really improves those pillars. But if you thought this is was less WINR, you really need to look up the melting points of minerals versus metals :P

Thanks

edit: No, I needed to look up the melting points of stone and metals. :oops: Depending on both kind of metal and kind of stone, the melting point of the former can actually be considerably higher than the latter. So this absolutely makes sense. Not that that was really a concern...
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lurker
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by lurker »

Hello,

The pillars over lava are finished.
lava-chasm-10.png
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I also tried to improve the transition to dwarven castles. But those are a nightmare. I had to use an overlay at level +1 no less, to paint over all the transitions between castle and chasm. That works somehow, but is too high up for castles further south...
chasm-castle-problem.png
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I leave this transition at the moment. I think it should be fixed once and if the bridge is admitted into mainline. Preferably by or together with somebody who knows how the dwarven castles work.

So I attach the current state of bridges.

Thanks

Lurker
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by beetlenaut »

The way the ends of the bridges blend into the cave floor seems a little odd. Maybe there should be a hard, zig-zag edge that follows the tiles' edges. It made sense for the broken ends, and I think it would make sense there too.
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lurker
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by lurker »

beetlenaut wrote:The way the ends of the bridges blend into the cave floor seems a little odd. Maybe there should be a hard, zig-zag edge that follows the tiles' edges. It made sense for the broken ends, and I think it would make sense there too.
Here I must disagree for once. I used a zig-zag line for the bridge endings first, but, if not highlighted by a step or something, it is basically indistinguishable from a fade-out. And the latter is not so odd, I would say. You may see it as dirt from the sorroundings covering the end of the bridge.
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by doofus-01 »

lurker,

I haven't said anything because I have nothing useful to add, though I do appreciate the work you are putting in to this.

But I do think beetlenaut has a point about the transition looking odd. A hard zig-zag may not be the answer, but would adding a couple of "satellite" cobbles work? Sort of like dithering a transition, if that makes sense.
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lurker
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by lurker »

doofus-01 wrote:But I do think beetlenaut has a point about the transition looking odd. A hard zig-zag may not be the answer, but would adding a couple of "satellite" cobbles work? Sort of like dithering a transition, if that makes sense.
Hm, I'll have a look at that later, but at the moment I need a little distance from that bridge.
Somehow the hanging bridge still looks too stable? I tried a few planks on a feeble rack...
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by AlaskanAvenger »

I love the way that new bridge looks... would definitely have you go first on it :P
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by Atz »

lurker wrote:Hm, I'll have a look at that later, but at the moment I need a little distance from that bridge.
Somehow the hanging bridge still looks too stable? I tried a few planks on a feeble rack...
The design looks good. I don't think the colour quite fits with the surrounding terrain at the moment, though - a bit too saturated, or too much contrast, maybe?
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by lurker »

Atz wrote:The design looks good. I don't think the colour quite fits with the surrounding terrain at the moment, though - a bit too saturated, or too much contrast, maybe?
Hm, ok...
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by artisticdude »

Nice, Frogatto-style platform bridge! 8)
Spoiler:
But in all seriousness, I really like this. :) The way the supports fade into the chasm is done perfectly. If I had to quibble about anything, I might worry that the bridge might be a bit too narrow for some units, although I guess that would be a problem to some extent no matter what. But perhaps another plank wide might help reduce the number of those conflicts.
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by SFault »

Not really a big deal, but compared to the cliff the bridge seems to vanish rather suddenly into the darkness. Perhaps the darkness could reach bit higher at the support poles. Now the top seems illuminated and then the light just cuts away unnaturally. Or perhaps there could be bit variation among the where the darkness starts among the poles. This way there wouldn't be such a straight border on light vs. darkness.

(hope you understand what I'm trying to say. Bit hard to explain with poor English)
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by lurker »

SFault wrote:Not really a big deal, but compared to the cliff the bridge seems to vanish rather suddenly into the darkness. Perhaps the darkness could reach bit higher at the support poles. Now the top seems illuminated and then the light just cuts away unnaturally. Or perhaps there could be bit variation among the where the darkness starts among the poles. This way there wouldn't be such a straight border on light vs. darkness.

(hope you understand what I'm trying to say. Bit hard to explain with poor English)
I know what you mean. It heavily depends on the kind of monitor. I suppose you have a CRT monitor? On my LCDs it looks fine. Will see what I can do...

edit: this may or may not be better. Cannot check it on my laptop so I put it here to be able to check it tomorrow. If the transition is still too abrupt I will have to leave it at that, however. The fade already starts right from the planks, and I cannot make it wider because that would make the visible part of the rack (on LCDs) much deeper than the chasm, which looks mighty strange.
planks3.png
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by tr0ll »

unless there is some kind of fog i wonder why you cannot see at least as far down as you can see across? if there is light from sconces in the walls of the cave then the middle part of the trestle should be visible deeper down than the edges.
anyway (and to avoid this problem for chasms that are meant to be infeasibly deep), would they use some sort of arched structure anchored to the sides as in http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... vidate.jpg instead of building all the way down? i suppose the arch riser is not doable due to sprite issues but it could be displaced downwards. to make it modular you would have the edges go deeper than the middle sections wich would all be box-trestle shaped. sorry i dont want to complicate things too much :hmm:
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by lurker »

That earlier attempt did not work. I made the whole bridge a little brighter, now it seems to work better on CRT monitors, too.
planks4.png
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edit:
But in all seriousness, I really like this. :) The way the supports fade into the chasm is done perfectly. If I had to quibble about anything, I might worry that the bridge might be a bit too narrow for some units, although I guess that would be a problem to some extent no matter what. But perhaps another plank wide might help reduce the number of those conflicts.
The bridge is (almost) as wide as the wood bridge. The longitudinal stripes make it look slimmer ;-) To prove my point I present the established worst case, the elvish hero:
hero-on-planks.png
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edit 2:
unless there is some kind of fog i wonder why you cannot see at least as far down as you can see across? if there is light from sconces in the walls of the cave then the middle part of the trestle should be visible deeper down than the edges.
anyway (and to avoid this problem for chasms that are meant to be infeasibly deep), would they use some sort of arched structure anchored to the sides as in http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... vidate.jpg instead of building all the way down? i suppose the arch riser is not doable due to sprite issues but it could be displaced downwards. to make it modular you would have the edges go deeper than the middle sections wich would all be box-trestle shaped. sorry i dont want to complicate things too much
I do not really get your point with the lighting. But even if you were right, compromises have to be made for the tiling and for the consistency with the chasm walls which show the exact same lighting. The design is basically my idea of a very weak and untrustworthy looking bridge. (and there is an afterthought of making this the chasm variant of the wooden bridge, i.e. with joins and edges. It works visually, but have to think hard about the WML)
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Re: New bridges (bridge-castle-transitions, hanging bridge)

Post by artisticdude »

lurker wrote:The bridge is (almost) as wide as the wood bridge. The longitudinal stripes make it look slimmer :wink: To prove my point I present the established worst case, the elvish hero:
I stand corrected, that looks great! :)

EDIT: I just noticed that there seems to be a certain area with higher saturation than the rest of the tile. I'm not sure if was intentional or not, but it seems a bit out of place IMO. :hmm:
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