Looking for feedback... (tiles discussion)

[Galefury]

Sunny underground beaches. <3

[galehar]

Back then, the tiles for the main dungeon were different and much brighter.

[Bloax]

The walls are way too similar colour to the floors. There needs to be contrast between the walls and floors to make it easy to navigate.

I don't know about how you see it, but there's plenty of contrast between the floors and the walls as I see it. (And it's very pleasing to look at, too.)

As for shoals, the main eye-killer there is the water, which was fortunately dimmed down a bit in the latest versions. (Oh dear is it bad pre-0.11)
Great job.

[white_noise]

Here is even smoother variant of water: https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=6074

[mumra]

It's really nice to see some improvements to water, I think it has been needed for a while. In particular the Shoals water makes my eyes, uh, water. It's a shame because the principle of degridding and having the water overlap the land tiles is great. I think I remember reading a discussion that happened when those tiles were first committed - the developer put them together pretty quickly by taking that small shape (blue with a white outline) and copy/pasting/rotating it several times. It was probably only intended to test out the system with the hope of a tile artist coming along and drawing some much nicer ones (much like my spiderweb tiles which are still in the game but I'm no artist and I'd love to see them replaced!)

So I think Shoals needs something more drastic than just colour filters (although that is a clear improvement).

However something bugs me about water in the dungeon at large. It looks very strange when there's a single tile of water, lava etc. All these pools of water somehow manage to collect in very neat squares. We could either have something like the Shoals system in effect everywhere, or use something more like the spiderwebs, so a single tile of water would appear as a roundish pool, then if multiple tiles are next to each other we use versions that connect with each other so the water forms a larger mass. This is probably easier to implement than Shoals-like overlapping.

[white_noise]

Some water cuts in attachment.
Feedback from coders would be helpful.
How hard it can be to implement something like that for dungeons?

[edlothiol]

This certainly looks great.

• I'll have to think about how viable this is to implement; but it'll probably get pretty messy. Even if it's possible to implement, expect it to be a long while until that happens.
• It's important that it's still clearly visible which cells are water and which are land. (I think that's fine in your example; just a reminder.)
• How will it look next to walls?
• Changing dungeon generation is not an option, sorry. Also, I don't agree that never having deep water next to floor is more logical; often, the deep water is part of a structure, so it could have been intentionally put there.
• Related to this: In some vaults, having the water look like a natural lake might not be intended. If we implement this, it might be good to also keep the old, griddy water.
• Something like this would actually also be cool to have for some other tiles; grass for example looks pretty bad when it's used in vaults at the moment.

[white_noise]

[*] How will it look next to walls?

If you put water tile after the floor and wall tile after the water everything should be fine. The wall will "cut off" some water resulting the straight edge, but it's ok for walls to form this sort of barriers.

[*] Changing dungeon generation is not an option, sorry. Also, I don't agree that never having deep water next to floor is more logical; often, the deep water is part of a structure, so it could have been intentionally put there.

I thought so. And you are probably right about the deep water.

[*] Related to this: In some vaults, having the water look like a natural lake might not be intended. If we implement this, it might be good to also keep the old, griddy water.

If the whole feature will be implemented it would be very easy to make an additional water set with straighter coast lines. Or with some stone borders around it.

[*] Something like this would actually also be cool to have for some other tiles; grass for example looks pretty bad when it's used in vaults at the moment.[/list]

I can think of grass, sand, dirt and snow. It seems reasonable. Tell me if missed something.

[varsovie]

[*] I'll have to think about how viable this is to implement; but it'll probably get pretty messy. Even if it's possible to implement, expect it to be a long while until that happens.

In all case it will take moar CPU/RAM, it should be an option because I can think of some computer that actually lag on Crawl.

[*] It's important that it's still clearly visible which cells are water and which are land. (I think that's fine in your example; just a reminder.)

The "border effect" shouldn't be more than 20% of a tiles, it's already good in that aspect.

[*] How will it look next to walls?

For the effect to be applied, the game will have to look if the water need sharp (for vault and some location maybe) or soft edges, then look at the adjacent tiles of soft edged water and decide wetter or not add the effect (if wall, shop... not, otherwise yes). If yes, then map the adjacent water tiles, adding a number to the "softtilevalue" for every adjacent water tiles.

  Code:

(+1 )(+2 )(+4 )
(+8 )(AWT)(+16)
(+32)(+64)(+128)
AWT = adjacent of a water tile
+X = value to add according to the position of the water tile(s)


With this way you have a unique number of water edge than can be add as an overlay over any dongeon tile.
Pro: No edge artifact
Can include different type of edge.
Cons: Not the most CPU efficient
Need of a tile overlay for every possible combination (but lot may be achieved by rotation).

[*] Changing dungeon generation is not an option, sorry. Also, I don't agree that never having deep water next to floor is more logical; often, the deep water is part of a structure, so it could have been intentionally put there.

+1

[*] Related to this: In some vaults, having the water look like a natural lake might not be intended. If we implement this, it might be good to also keep the old, griddy water.

That would mean we need another value for water tile, edgable or not.

[*] Something like this would actually also be cool to have for some other tiles; grass for example looks pretty bad when it's used in vaults at the moment.

The problem with grass (and snow, dirt...) is that they are often used in special cases (vault) but can also be used as ground tile on a whole level. A distinction should be made, to avoid having to calculate edges everywhere.

For more insight, look at the code/thoughts of another project, goblin camp

[white_noise]

I've made another candidate for a loading screen.
I like to think that this is the same dude that entered the dungeon on my previous picture.
And it's my way to celebrate the first win.

[BlackSheep]

Nice! I like that a lot.

[Grimm]

That is excellent.

[Bloax]

That is some badass art, whoah.

Though perhaps there could be some kind of flashback-ish thingy to the previous image, hm.

[galehar]

I've made another candidate for a loading screen.
I like to think that this is the same dude that entered the dungeon on my previous picture.
And it's my way to celebrate the first win.

It's in, thanks. And congrats on your first win!

[white_noise]

Thanks )

[Bloax]

Hm.. Dunno, really.

The original has much more of the "Lone hero at the end of his quest, in the midst of darkness" theme to it, while what I can tell myself from this edit has more of a "This is it" vibe.

[Deimos]

I like your brighter orb better then White's, but otherwise I'm liking the original a bit more