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I consider it an essential part of Dwaf Fortress, and can't play without it.

119 (18.4%)

I use it for pretty screenshots, but otherwise don't use it during play.

211 (32.7%)

I only try it occasionally.

174 (27%)

I have no idea why I'm even in this thread, I don't use it.

141 (21.9%)

Total Members Voted: 642

[Graebeard]

I'll throw my lot in with B.

The DF classifications are great from a geology and world-generation standpoint, but in the context of a visualizer it makes sense to me to use a visual classification system.

[therahedwig]

A question for Stonesense users: would you prefer tile designs that convey Dwarf Fortress data, or tile designs that reflect how materials look in nature? More specifically, would you prefer...

A) Stones which match the general stone classifications DF uses (Sedimentary, Igneous Extrusive, Igneous Intrusive, Metamorphic)

or

B) Stones which match general groupings of how the stones appear in nature (Grainy Stone, Foliate Stone, Patterned Stone, Lustrous Stone)

I was more or less going type B. The main reason for me starting on grim dark was that I wanted to show all these stones in their natural prettyness.

though, it helps that stones within a certain catergory(aside from 'other stone') pretty much resemble eachother anyway due to they way they are created.

I actually kinda did both in grimdark. For example, Platinum IRL resembles silver a lot. However, in grimdark I used the same sprite as gold and made it lightgrey. Same with tetrahedite. This way people would associate it with gold.
Though I think I did the opposite with limonite and malachite. They're both clustering ores and therefore share the same sprite, but one is copper and the other iron. On the other hand, I think even a colour-blind person would be able to tell the difference between the malachite and limonite sprites.

RE: Painting along. What program do you use? I'd recommend using a program which has blender-brush capabilities. so, on the top of my head that be Painttool Sai, Painter, Photoshop, Illuststudio and MyPaint. The Gimp doesn't have it yet because it requires their graphics-handling core to be updated. I dunno of paint.net is sophisticated enough for it.
Thing with a blender brush is that it really reduces the time you spend on mixing the colours together.

Also: http://tnypic.net/b3430.png
A base for 256x256 files. It's a bit big.

EDIT: Finished loam blocks.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

spritesheet:

Can't really do the floors till dfhack's updated, due to tiled not quite being able to sandwich the floors between walls.
Seamless tiling is a bitch btw.

[Solifuge]

I like the loam walls, but they look a bit flat and over-blurred, especially when viewed next to the brown stone. I think either would work on their own, but together they have a bit of a stylistic clash going on. I think the loam could use a bit more contrasting shades, and/or a more grainy, crumbly texture.

An old WIP attempt at HD Clay/Mud:


Also, my preference is definitely for B as well, with as much game-type data conveyed as possible. It's how I was going for tile categories, but I wanted to get a feel for what people want out of SS for before I went much farther with it. As for arting itself, I use traditional sketches scanned into the computer, then paint over those with Paint Tool Sai, and use Graphics Gale for finishing work: limiting tiles to 16 colors, testing the sprites, making them tile well, fine-tweaking the color and assembling the final spritesheet.

This is my current wall/floor template:

(Click to Embiggen)

Still working on the ramp template, but I'm going to go with a curvy shape for natural ramps, and a more angular one for constructed ramps. Soil ramps might be semi-collapsed piles of dirt, while sedimentary stone ramps might be a crumbled pile of boulders and gravel, depending on how the walls look.

[Finn]

Okay, I'm jealous.  Everyone is posting screenshots except for me.  I can't seem to figure it out.  Here's the deal:

Windows 7, 64 bit
DF 34.07
...which came from the LNP for 34.07
Phoebos graphics
...which came from LNP for 34.07
running Ssense from DFHack
...which came with LNP for 34.07
I make ssense my active application, very pretty
It's in windowed mode, sometimes at the default size, sometimes I blow it up.
I press F5
now what? Nothing ends up on my clipboard.  Are these screenshots going to a file somewhere?

I see that fullscreen screenshots not working is listed under current issues.  However, if that's my problem then is there a workaround?  How is everyone else doing it? 

I wanna take screenshots like everyone else!   Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
<sniff>

Sorry, I'm okay now.

[Rose]

look at your DF directory.

[Finn]

</shame>

Of course, I scoured the LNP and Stonesense directories.

Thank you.

[therahedwig]

Your near-daily dosage of prettyness. This time made 4 variations on the craggy rock.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

spritesheet:


I have this thing where I make the up-side of the walls a bit more shinier than the floors. Right now the upside is like how it should be on the floors. Once I've made the floors, I'll make the wall's upsides a bit more shiny.

I made a little progress video of one of the tiles.

The four main colours I used in this where from light to dark in hsv:
H:22 S:50 V:69
H:9 S:55 V:46
H:8 S:62 V:25
H:0 S:0 V: 0
I hope that'll help a bit with making ramps.

Regarding the soil tile being a bit undetailed:
You're probably right? I don't know, I want kind of afraid that is would turn into noise when zoomed out if the tile had too much detail. I'll go over them later.
The bloudery-stone itself is also kinda questionable, as there's no such rockformation in real life. I'll be making more geologically pleasing rocky ground later.
Also, right now there's two comepletely different types of tiles(very strong texture vs very subtle texture) next to eachother. Maybe there will be less style clash when ores/wood shows up, if those are inbetween in strength of texture.

Anyway, I'm now going to do something incredibly radical: Play the game.

EDIT: I realise that I'm terrible at expressing myself after I've done lots of art, because I forgot some things.
1. I don't think it's neccesarry to down-grade your artwork to 16 colours. Infact, on a HD type of tiles you might want to avoid that because you might lose anti-aliasing.(Which you would like to keep, for smoothness)
2. I just realised bouldery-rock can be used for walls not made out of blocks. <__>

[Solifuge]

Time to satisfy my urge for self-indulgent rockdorkery...
Tile Materials, Volume 1:

Topsoils:
Soil: Loam, Silt
- For tillable soil mixtures.
Sand: Sand, Ocean Floor
- For coarse-grained sands and oceanic silt.
Clay: Clay, Peat
- For dense-packed soil and clay.

Stone Materials:
Windcarved Stone: Sandstone, Claystone
- For dull, smooth, thin-layered, grainy stones easily eroded by wind.
Layered Stone: Limestone, Shale
- For dull, smooth stone types with pronounced horizontal layering.
Angular Stone: Basalt, Phyllite
- For dull, flat-faced, rough-textured stones with angular cleavage.
Patterned Stone: Granite, Gneiss
- For round, sharp-fracturing stones with dark and light patterns.
Grainy Stone: Quartzite, Dolomite
- For rough, flat-faced stones with a grainy texture, and milky reflective flakes.
Shiny Stone: Obsidian, Flint
- For smooth, shiny stones with sharp, irregular cleavage.

Constructed Materials:
Raw Cobblestone: Example
- For walls made of raw Igneous or Metamorphic stone.
Raw Flaky Stone: Example
- For walls made of raw Sedimentary or Metamorphic stone.
Stone Blocks: Example
- For walls made of processed stone blocks.
Wood Logs: Example
- For walls made of raw wood logs.
Wood Planks: Example
- For walls made of wood blocks.

[NW_Kohaku]

If it helps you guys, I have some old things from when I was helping with a 3d visualizer...

These are all "tileized" from a close-up view of the rock in particular - that is, I used GIMP to make the patterns repeat if you put them together so that they blend in with one another. 

If you rearranged them, and made them smaller, they might work, but they wouldn't look like the cartoony type of stones you guys have been making so far...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

granite, obsidian, microcline

[therahedwig]

@solifuge: Awesome, I'll use that as example.

@MX_Kohaku. Thanks, but you're right, it would be too different from the cartoony ones. On top of that, when zoomed out it'll probably lose quality and become very grainy instead :s I tried putting in texture like that before, but people said it looked like my hallways were crawling with ants. Thanks anyway

So... I got distracted...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

using the old 34.07 build.

You see, grass, whether HD or pixeled takes about ten minutes for me to make so it's very low hanging fruit. Only one biome is done though.
This should remove the 'too cluttered complaint' but I think I'll need to make a it more dense...

Also, is it just me or is there a memory leak in 31.07? I had to restart stonesense a few times and on the last attempt it wouldn't move at all and DF was taking up 1.2 gig of ram.(DF wasn't the only thing that was open, but it's still very high by DF's standards. usually it only takes up 200mb or so.)

EDIT: Also, the original set for stonesense wasn't developed with modularity in mind. when I opened up stonesense it still had the 'happy grass' underneath the sprite-grass, and when I removed the happy grass I first had to go searching in an xml file to find where the other grass tile I wanted to remove was.
I would like to intergrate future things with a bit more modularity in mind.

For grimdark, I basically had a seperate xml file for every stonegroup and the grasses appart, so that these groups could be disabled by only modifying the index file. Now a part of this structure is already used in the workshops and creature files. But the terrain files are a mess. I would like to see a structure where one can basically decide that they don't want special graphics for sand anymore, remove that from the indexfile and then have it work.

Maybe we could have like:
General.xml(gives everything a wall and floor tile, fall-back xml.)
Materials.xml(assigns a general material tile to both floors and walls. Glass/soil/metal/stone/wood/water/ice etc.)
Grasses.xml(EVERYTHING related to grass)

And then we'd get specifics.
Wood.xml(all the wood-types, both floor and walls)
Soil.xml(all soil-types)
Sand.xml(all sand)
clay.xml(all clay)
Etc.

I know it's already sorta there, but I just don't like hunting down that one specific tile that has grass on it, and there's like three xml files it could be in.

[Solifuge]

I'm wholeheartedly with you there, especially if we're going with less recoloring, and more original sprites for each wood type, etc. Organization is pretty key to modularity and accessibility for other modders.

Currently working on listing out plant types now, starting with ground cover. Believe it or not, a lot of ground-cover plants have major differences... and not just the tentacles/eyeballs either. Tall stuff like cattails, bamboo, and reedgrass might be a pain in the arse to render, though... if only there was an elegant solution to making critter sprites appear partially covered by the plant sprites... maybe by making a back-sprite and fore-sprite for tiles that critters and dorfs could potentially walk into?

[therahedwig]

I'm wholeheartedly with you there, especially if we're going with less recoloring, and more original sprites for each wood type, etc. Organization is pretty key to modularity and accessibility for other modders.

Currently working on listing out plant types now, starting with ground cover. Believe it or not, a lot of ground-cover plants have major differences... and not just the tentacles/eyeballs either. Tall stuff like cattails, bamboo, and reedgrass might be a pain in the arse to render, though... if only there was an elegant solution to making critter sprites appear partially covered by the plant sprites... maybe by making a back-sprite and fore-sprite for tiles that critters and dorfs could potentially walk into?

Uhm. Snow does that, doesn't it? I mean, that's how it is that the grasses pop out of it in the screenshot.

And yes, I'm aware of the weird differences between grasses. There's about 40 grasses in dwarf fortress, and for 39 of them I made sprites(the original pixelates grasssprites I mean)(I couldn't find an interesting way to distiguish needlegrass from dropseed grass.) The temperate grasses, cave grasses, desert grasses, mountain and tropical grasses will largely be no problem. Marsh and wetland grasses however will be. So will dropseed, needlegrass, cotton grass and I think satintail.

Dropseed/needlegrass and reedgras I already made though, but I can adapt them for a 'snow' styled grass. (Will have to update the xml bigtime though Messy xml is messy)

[Solifuge]

It would be similar to the snowgrass, but reversed; grass/ground cover that partially displayed over a critter, and partially behind it. Since grass is fiberous and stuff, it means it would have to be painted in layers, basically... no easy process to separate them into layers.

Also, does snow still have multiple depths? If not, I kinda like the default snow covering up most flimsy ground cover (grasses and leaves, not trees and such) since they'd be weighed down by the snow. Also, it looks more wintery.

[NW_Kohaku]

Actually, just on the topic of rockdorkery, I'd point out that even when you're trying to separate out stones by what they look like, you're still separating stones by what classification they are. 

Igneous stones look different based upon how they cooled.  Magma is like water with a lot of silt or other things that don't dissolve in a mixture - if you freeze it just after you've shaken it up, everything looks uniform, and the fastest cooling stone is obsidian, which looks pure, jet black, and has a smooth appearance.  If you let the whole thing freeze slowly enough that all the grains settle, you get granite, the slowest-cooling felsic intrusive stone, which has those clearly stratified brown and red and black and white flecks and patches in it. 

Intrusive igneous stone is different from extrusive igneous because extrusive stone cools faster, so it has less time to separate. This makes extrusive and intrusive igneous formations look significantly different, as intrusive stones have patterns in them, while extrusive stones at most have little swirls of color.

It's a lesser concern, but mafic magma is magma with a high iron and magnesium content, while felsic magma has let its iron and magnesium separate and solidify while the rest of the magma (with a lower freezing/melting point than those two metals) was still liquid-hot.  This also makes felsic stone lighter-colored, because magnesium makes very dark stones.

Obisidian => Basalt (Mafic Extrusive) => Rhyolite (Felsic Extrusive) => Gabbro (Mafic Intrusive) => Granite (Felsic Intrusive)
Smooth ================> Medium =======> Grainy

I'd try making some of these myself, but I'm not really sure how to go about making the sort of watercolor effects that would make the things I make blend in very well... I'd just try to do my standard pixel art work with shading on a rough splotch of what the stone looks like.

Of course, there's also the fact that I was doing job icons and sort of drifted away from that   (I'll get back to it when I'm done writing up some changes in a suggestion thread I've been back-burnering, really!)

[therahedwig]

It would be similar to the snowgrass, but reversed; grass/ground cover that partially displayed over a critter, and partially behind it. Since grass is fiberous and stuff, it means it would have to be painted in layers, basically... no easy process to separate them into layers.

Also, does snow still have multiple depths? If not, I kinda like the default snow covering up most flimsy ground cover (grasses and leaves, not trees and such) since they'd be weighed down by the snow. Also, it looks more wintery.

Yes snow is still measured by amount, stonesense shows the 'number' of snow there is on a tile when you use the debug mode cursor.
I don't really get what you're on about. Snow, as it works now, first paints a snow-sprite, then paints everything else on that layer, and then it paints another snow-sprite on top, making it seem asif the sprites in between are in the middle of the snow. The grass in that screenshot is only an example of what happens. Grass could work the same way but we'd have to look at jappa, as snow is currently hardcoded it seems.

@NW_Kohaku, yeah that's what I found when I was doing grimdark. Gabbro, Granite and Diorite ended up using the same sprite because I had no clue how to define them proper without getting lost in trivial details. I found the same when I was doing the metamorphics(though those had a bit more variation) and when I was researching for the sedimentary(also more variation, but still a lot of stones resembling eachother). If we make stones similar to how we see them in real-life, we'll probably end up making a sensible icon-set for players anyway.