swamp tiles

[scott]

Well, yes... didn't you see my two big pictures? Thick plant growth is what separates swamp from shallow water in my limited experience. Here's my impression of young Li'sar on swamp terrain: http://www.fotosearch.com/bigcomp.asp?p ... 57-021.jpg (link to a copyrighted photo)

[Dave]

There are a lot of different manifestations of swamp, from water so deep you can use a boat, like in Florida, to muddy ground you can walk on safely.

Yes, as there are many manifestations of grassland (especially when one includes all types of relatively flat land, like we do), or hills.

We can have multiple different graphical types for swamps, but so far we have struggled to get even one good one.

I think that what yobbo has done is definitely an improvement over our current swamp, and so we should use it. Of course, we would love it if yobbo further improved it by adding reeds and other plants, but even what he has done so far is better than what we have, so there is no real reason not to use it.

David

[Jetrel]

Even worse than the ice tiles?

Yes. The ice tiles are not that bad, anyway... Better than the previous ones.

I think our current ice tiles are vastly better than our old ones. A bit plain, perhaps, but certainly much better that those silly gimp-effect ones.

[yobbo]

Thanks for the suggestions and somewhat positive feedback .

That WML stuff drove me nuts until I realised that a) putting a modified terrain-graphics.cfg in ~/.wesnoth/data doesn't work, and b) it matters what order things are in.

I got it working with some extra reedy / grassy things in the end.

I fixed the transitions - hadn't updated them after tweaking the background colour.

And I also made the background ripples a little more pronounced. Although I think it looks a bit less bland with the extra flora anyway.


Is there any reason for dirt being drawn on top of water? I moved it down in the heirarchy a bit, so that swamp and shallow water get drawn over it, and as far as I can tell it looks a lot nicer...

[yobbo]

Erm, I just realised the hex outlines came back with a vengance. Will fix it later.

Re: types of swamp
I was aiming more for bog than marsh... an extra salt-marsh terrain would be nice for seaside swamps, looking more like scott's posted photos. Bog is easier to draw though .


And yep, that was a level 2 Delfador.

[freim]

Looks much better, good work. Nice to see someone else interested in making terrain again

Not sure about the dirt. I kind of like that not all terrain has the same blended transitions.

If you're interested in working on more terrain I can give you some pointers one what is being worked on and what it would be nice if someone had a go at.

[Darth Fool]

It would be interesting to see what the swamp-ruin looks like with your new swamp graphic. Good work!

[flammifer]

It's not because real swamps are actually nice, green and pleasant places that Wesnoth's should be too Let's have something dark and fetid, with thorny branches dripping with slime sticking out !

Hmm, I wonder if it'd be posible to have the marsh tile merge better with the watter one ... they just don't look that great together (not that the previous one was better, mind you).

[Disto]

It's not because real swamps are actually nice, green and pleasant places that Wesnoth's should be too Let's have something dark and fetid, with thorny branches dripping with slime sticking out !

Hmm, I wonder if it'd be posible to have the marsh tile merge better with the watter one ... they just don't look that great together (not that the previous one was better, mind you).

Cmon peope we don't want just one kind of swamp, would the saurians really live in something like this, this is good but we still need to keep a friendlier swamp as well.

[quartex]

Personally I like the more solid, defined transition for dirt/water.

[scott]

I'm down with friendly swamps and evil swamps. The friendly swamp could be the one that meshes well with shallow water and the evil swamp... can look evil.

[Jetrel]

Yo - I tried the following:

Photoshop file;
Layer 1: Your swamp tile - blending mode: Darken, 100% Opacity
Layer 2: Our existing water tile (ocean.png, actually) - blending mode: Normal, 30% Opacity


Layer 1 is above layer two. I think that this adds some texture to those dark areas, whilst keeping the tile from looking too much like the water tile (though it actually doesn't hurt to have it look vaguely similar, since it is in fact, full of water).

[yobbo]

Not sure about the dirt. I kind of like that not all terrain has the same blended transitions.

If you're interested in working on more terrain I can give you some pointers one what is being worked on and what it would be nice if someone had a go at.

I think it would look nicer with specific water-dirt transitions, however I'll keep quiet until I can come up with something good.

I could have a go at more terrain - what's being worked on and what needs updating?

It would be interesting to see what the swamp-ruin looks like with your new swamp graphic.

Yeah I've been mighty curious about that. But I can't remember ever seeing the swamp ruin. What campaign / scenario is it used in?

Cmon peope we don't want just one kind of swamp, would the saurians really live in something like this, this is good but we still need to keep a friendlier swamp as well.

I tried doing a nice friendly salt-marsh but I sucked at drawing good reeds .

[khamul]

A great place to see Yobbo's kind of 'fetid swamp' is a peat bog - Dartmoor, in the south of England, is a fine example in places, and from personal experience, Wales also does well.

One of the distinctive things about a peat bog is the reflectivity of the water - because it contains so much peat it's a very dark black in colour, and the light will catch it and turn the surface silver, so you have very strong contrast between the light and shadow.

Peat bogs typically have a lot of moss, and some algy, so a low green covering is very much in order - it takes a little while to get your eye in to tell the difference between mossy grass, and 6 foot of slime covered in moss. The reeds in a peat bog tend to be quite low - no more than 1-2 feet tall (~1m) in clusters where the ground in more solid, and you'll normally find banks and ridges of solid peat breaking up the softer ground.

When merging bogs with water, can you add little rivulets?
Generally, where marsh meets open water, the little channels running through the marsh open up into wider streams, and the marsh gets pushed back into smaller patches. That might look better.

I like the hard edge of dirt meeting swamp - it reminds me of the ridges of peat that you tend to get as you approach a softer area.

[yobbo]

Alright - I fixed the hex outlines by following Jetryl's suggestion and recycling the ripples from the ocean tile, in stead of using mine (which weren't well matched up). Hopefully this also made the background less bland. I've still aimed for standing (stagnant I suppose) water, though.

I also added some 2 and 3-side transitions, which makes it a little smoother.

I'd post another screenshot but it looks pretty much the same as in the last one .