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[Tierre]

Hello.

We all know that DF is good enough with ASCII but a lot of people prefer graphical versions - like Ironhabd or Phoebius. Now i was thinking of a simple way to give modders more ability to increase beaty of the game.

If Toady could add more tiles to tilesets (255 is not really enough right now). I know it will increase memory load but will it be that significant? It will enable to add a lot of items and creatures right into tilesets.

Also right now only creatures can be assigned graphics. If it would be possible to assign graphics to items (like wheelbarrows and weapons or tradegoods liying on the ground) it would give us the ability to make much more visually pleasing game experience. Also it would be very good to be able to assign to creature graphics colors (so that it can represent material it is made from).

Please comment your opinion on this matter.

PS: I found this in the devplans: Core50, TILESET SUPPORT, (Future): Allow graphical tiles to be used for all game objects... So i guess my second part is actually not needed.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I agree with the idea of item graphics. I'm not quite sure what you're talking about with the colors and stuff, but it sounds possibly kinda neat.

Of course, we have to ask ourselves: Is it worth Toady's time? Eventually, yes, but now?

[Tierre]

By color stuff i meant that items are made of different materials and should have a color of that material - like wheelbarrow of wood or from metal - graphics can't do it now. So it would require assigning some of the mechanics involved in tileset managing to graphics, so that colors of material can replace some parts in .png pictures.

[therahedwig]

I believe Baugn was working on something that basically allowed you to assign anything to new tiles, but then he got swallowed by his job again.

So it's actually already sorta in progress.

[UHaulDwarf]

I think it would be nice if there was a way to make the spites bigger without them become distorted.

[NW_Kohaku]

I think it would be nice if there was a way to make the spites bigger without them become distorted.

What exactly do you mean?

If you're talking about sprites being resized in-game, then "distorting" them is pretty much the only way to do it.

If you're talking about allowing new sprites that are larger than the 16x16 pixels, those are already allowed.

[UHaulDwarf]

I think it would be nice if there was a way to make the spites bigger without them become distorted.

What exactly do you mean?

If you're talking about sprites being resized in-game, then "distorting" them is pretty much the only way to do it.

If you're talking about allowing new sprites that are larger than the 16x16 pixels, those are already allowed.

I guess what I really want is a ASCII lager graphic pack.

[NW_Kohaku]

I guess what I really want is a ASCII lager graphic pack.

Have you tried CLA's tileset?  It looks very much like standard code page 437 "ASCII", but has an 18x18 pixel tileset and smoothed font and sprites.

[Tierre]

I was actually thinking of allowing more than 255 tiles to be used when i started this thread.

[NW_Kohaku]

I agree with the idea of item graphics. I'm not quite sure what you're talking about with the colors and stuff, but it sounds possibly kinda neat.

Of course, we have to ask ourselves: Is it worth Toady's time? Eventually, yes, but now?

Well, Toady is now having to use inverted tiles to add rails and carts to the game because all the other tiles in the game already are being used for something.  If Toady wants to keep adding more things into the game, he's going to have to find new ways to visually represent them, so that means he's going to need unique tiles for each new thing he adds...

I was actually thinking of allowing more than 255 tiles to be used when i started this thread.

Yeah, but at the same time, this is basically only a half-step away from the "Full Graphic Support" idea that Toady is going to have to eventually move towards fulfilling. 

It shouldn't be too terribly difficult for Toady to just let us put in arbitrarily long tilesets the way that graphics .pngs can be of any arbitrary dimensions, and declare ahead of time that we're using a tileset with 1024 tiles or 2048 tiles, and with every currently hard-coded use of those tiles assigned to an init option. 

[Tierre]

Only question is when? Right now i use Ironhand and manually assign different animals to tiles which seems like the thing i need. Unfortunately i can't draw good enough myself. And i don't have enough time for that (i even can't find time to answer your PM Kohaku;( ). Right now it is pretty near the point then Toadyy needs to increse it IMO. Of course it's his call but rails are really showing it. He had to make new inversed representation to make go - this shows how stretched he already with tilesets. So we can only await his decision:)

[NTJedi]

Yeah, but at the same time, this is basically only a half-step away from the "Full Graphic Support" idea that Toady is going to have to eventually move towards fulfilling. 

Once there's improved graphics the size of the dwarf fortress gamers will increase in size by at least four times.  The FPS troubles and battle\military issues should be fixed first.   

[Bohandas]

I wholeheartedly agree that we need more than 255 different tiles

(It would also, BTW, be nice to go to a 32 color palette, but that's not nearly as important as the tile thing)

[Tierre]

For that matter if DF had better graphics i would've been able to make my wife play it:)

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, for graphics, I'd like to see the extra time spent to make materials keep their colors.

In an absolute moonshot ideal, however, I'd like to see each material have its own texture map, a separate graphic tile that acts as a mask on the actual item shape tile.  This would mean, for example, that marble, instead of just being white, could have a texture of white with brown flecks and streaks in it, and anything made of marble will appear as white with brown streaks in it. 

It's far from impossible to do, and it would greatly expand the graphical capacity of the game.