Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threads

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Eleazar
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Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threads

Post by Eleazar »

Most of my work is posted in sub-forums that most Wesnoth forum members don't have access to. This generally serves me well, in keeping the threads uncluttered and easy for people to read to see what i'm up to.

However this forces people who have something that needs to be said to use PMs or find me on IRC. And most of the time these private correspondences contain info that is relevant to other people and info that i'll eventually repeat.

So in the spirit of (more) openness, and greater efficiency here's a thread that anyone can use to comment my posts that they don't have access to.

This isn't a plea for attention and praise. But if you have something to say, here's a good place for it.
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
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boru
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by boru »

I have a question, since you've done so much work on caves recently: are there any plans to do transitions to the "lit" overlay? The hex shape is really pronounced.
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by LordBob »

I've noticed revisions on the colour of different water types, though it seems they do not meet total agreement.

How about picking water colours from satellite views of our world :

- Teal for shallow tropical waters

- A deeper blue for oceans

- More reference, this time the australian coast, with different hues for different depths.
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Eleazar
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Eleazar »

boru wrote:I have a question, since you've done so much work on caves recently: are there any plans to do transitions to the "lit" overlay? The hex shape is really pronounced.
With the stuff alink has been working on we may eventually be able to do this without the overlay on the base to brighten the whole hex. Which would be cooler.

LordBob wrote:I've noticed revisions on the colour of different water types, though it seems they do not meet total agreement.

How about picking water colours from satellite views of our world.
I'd rather exercise artistic judgment.

1) Water looks very different from a top view than it does from 45°
2) Water looks very different under various conditions, and in various satellite images.
3) I'm not aiming for "total agreement". Feedback is useful, especially from those whose opinion i've learned to value, but artists who try to hard to make everyone happy probably are producing mediocre drek. Passing off a slightly controversial decision to the authority of a photo, might be good politics, but it's lousy artistry.
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Cloud
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Cloud »

I'm actually fairly happy with the current colours of the water. IIRC water generally gets more blue the deeper it gets. I can give a fair amount of advice should you ever decide to make river tiles as it's one thing that gets done so badly in games and I'm fairly knowledgeable on the subject.
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Simons Mith
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Simons Mith »

Given that water varies at least as much as any other terrain type, I hope the older versions remain available. After my free pony has been delivered, I'd also like brown water, green water, grey water (clay, silt, or just a cloudy day), black water, red water (whether blood or algae), water with ripples, water with waves, still water, sparkling- no, wait, probably not sparkling. The ability to mix different colours as you sometimes get at river confluences would be wonderful.

All this boils down to a simpler question, though; could the Wesnoth engine cope with 'team-coloured' water that can be colour-shifted to suit the needs of a scenario? It does mean you'd need water-water blends so that you could do blood in the water or a river flowing into the sea, but I imagine producing a 'generic shade of water' and putting the colouring partly under the control of the game engine would make an important terrain type endlessly flexible with comparatively little (hah!) extra work.
 
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Bad_Dog »

Thanks for opening up a comments thread to the general public!

Ever since the major sprite revamp, the map has been the weakest element of the game. I would often think to myself, "I wish this grass looked better - it's just not up to the standard of everything else - but I don't know how."

Now things look a million times better, and the maps will certainly be a pleasure just to look at.

I, for one, am very happy with the fact that hexes now are identifiably hex-shaped. The way the old transitions would encroach onto neighbor hexes was IMHO ugly. It made the map look as if somebody had poured too much terrain-colored paint in the middle of a hex and then let it slop over the edges as far as it wanted to go.

The only thing I'd like to suggest is that paths and roads might look better as an overlay to base terrain, but the mockups you've done with the color-balancing and transition changes are already much improved.

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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Gambit »

Eleazar wrote:
boru wrote:I have a question, since you've done so much work on caves recently: are there any plans to do transitions to the "lit" overlay? The hex shape is really pronounced.
With the stuff alink has been working on we may eventually be able to do this without the overlay on the base to brighten the whole hex. Which would be cooler.
Though it would lack the light shaft effect that makes it look like there is a hole to the surface.
edit: On further thinking; perhaps the hex could be lit with alink's stuff and we could keep an overlay that is only a shaft of light.
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Eleazar
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Eleazar »

Simons Mith wrote:All this boils down to a simpler question, though; could the Wesnoth engine cope with 'team-coloured' water that can be colour-shifted to suit the needs of a scenario?
Actually yeah, already possible in 1.8. AI in one of his era/campaigns (i don't remember which) has programmatically color-shifted bloody-looking water.


Gambit wrote:On further thinking; perhaps the hex could be lit with alink's stuff and we could keep an overlay that is only a shaft of light.
I didn't really explain myself, but yeah, that's the idea.
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
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Dixie
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Dixie »

Well, since we now have this topic, I'll alow myself a comment about the recent volcano development. I don't realy like them all that much, actually. I think they're too much "pool of lava enclosed in mountain". As I see it, you could reduce considerably the lava part of the volcanos, just chop to top off or something and have either black clouds animation over, or occasionnal laval spewing, or just laval "stripes" running along the mountain. Or any combination of the previous. Hell, maybe it could be a mountain overlay, thus allowing for easy desert and frozen volcanos.

Anyway, just my two peanut cents, good job on the rest of the terrains, this is looking good! :)
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Eleazar
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Eleazar »

Dixie wrote:Well, since we now have this topic, I'll alow myself a comment about the recent volcano development. I don't realy like them all that much, actually.
Note that i've said something to this effect several times recently:
Due to the imminent development release, i'm gonna try to push through several more terrains that i've been meaning to do. These won't be my best work, but they won't be any worse that what's in 1.8. Improvement and polishing can happen afterwards-- i want to give campaign makers access to the new stuff even if it' not at it's prettiest yet.
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
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Eleazar
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Eleazar »

Now that 1.9 is out a lot more people have a chance to put my new terrains through their paces.

I'm especially interested in glitches that might occur between infrequently paired terrains, since i've probably noticed the frequently occurring issues..
Unlike 1.8 any combination of terrains should have some sort of transition between them, i'm especially interested if this isn't the case.

But before reporting check the list of known terrain issues.

To suggest new terrains use this thread.
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Quetzalcoatl »

I found two things (however Im not sure if second one is a glitch)

1: Small mountain to water transition (on screenshot)
2: Cave path to terrain other than cave transition:
There is noticeable difference around edge of path hex and cave transition around it. Basically cave path is to bright compared to its transition and I have impression that it looks a bit unnatural.

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Eleazar
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Eleazar »

Quetzalcoatl wrote:I found two things (however Im not sure if second one is a glitch)

1: Small mountain to water transition (on screenshot)
Thanks, i actually saw that one yesterday when i was looking into something else and then forgot exactly how to cause it.
Now, fixed in trunk.

Quetzalcoatl wrote:2: Cave path to terrain other than cave transition:
There is noticeable difference around edge of path hex and cave transition around it. Basically cave path is to bright compared to its transition and I have impression that it looks a bit unnatural.
Yeah, the cave path never had transitions of it's own. Since i plan to redo that terrain, i haven't fixed it yet.
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Re: Comment on Eleazar's Terrain Improvements or other threa

Post by Kraus »

What has bugged me a lot with the new water animations, is the lack of contrast and brighter lightning. Especially during day, when it is (to me at least) obvious the sun is shining, the water animation looks like the day is actually cloudy. The extreme parts of waves should bling and shine a lot more if the weather is sunny, or at least 20 years living at a lake makes me suggest that. :) Compared to other terrain right now water looks rather dead and monotonous - as if it's either cloudy that day, there's no waves at all, or water's very dirty. during night time, though, the expression is nice.

This actually is bugging me a lot with the new terrain graphics, so much I had to point it out. Other than that, the revision of terrain graphics and colours is great.
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