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Why don't you use TWBT?

I didn't know about it
- 9 (18.4%)
ASCII forever! / I don't use dfhack
- 20 (40.8%)
It crashes / has bugs that affect me
- 5 (10.2%)
It affects FPS too much
- 3 (6.1%)
It doesn't have full support for Adventure Mode
- 5 (10.2%)
I don't need these features
- 7 (14.3%)

Total Members Voted: 49


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Author Topic: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin  (Read 6677 times)

mifki

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A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« on: September 01, 2014, 08:50:49 am »

As more people noticing that Dwarf Fortress doesn't look quite the same as before after downloading the latest starter packs, I decided to start a thread in this subforum to raise awareness of this plugin and address some questions/issues.

The main thread is here, but I'd like to keep it more for developers/advanced users, and this one for general audience.

So, what is TWBT (short for Text Will Be Text)? In short, it's a plugin that changes this
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
into this
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Specifically, on these screenshots you can see the following features:
1. Separate tilesets for the map area and text, no more coffins and other symbols instead of some letters and punctuation. Also, text and map fonts can have different sizes - smaller rectangular for text, and square for the map. Plus there's no more minimum number of rows/columns on screen, so you can use tiles of any size on any screen resolution.

2. Rendering of multiple levels terrain. Useful in many locations and especially in mountains:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

3. It's possible to load additional tilesets and override images used for certain items, buildings and terrain/construction tiles. On the screenshots you can see custom icons for various clothes, weapons and ammo by Meph and custom icon for up/down stairs by LeoCean. It's possible to change graphics for virtually any in-game object. You can have custom workshops with complete custom graphics.

4. Some other console goodies (well you can't see this on screenshots), full information is in readme.

Latest version is available here

Now, important notes:

1. There are two branches available - 3.xx, which doesn't support different sizes for map and text tiles and is slower, and 4.xx that has all the features mentioned above, is faster, but some users reported crashes with it, I'm working on this now. Once 4.xx is stable, the old one will be discontinued.

2. You don't have to enable all the features if you don't like them. You can continue to use the same tileset for map and text; you can disable multilevel rendering or set it to any number of additional levels, configure fog and shadows, eg. if you prefer more distinction between levels; you can use or not use overrides.

3. Version 4.xx is not currently compatible with stonesense overlay and rendermax plugin, and will not be at least for some time.

4. I'm primarily aiming at Fortress Mode. Adventure Mode works too, even multilevel rendering with 4.xx branch, but I don't play it so there're likely broken things.

5. It requires OpenGL rendering mode (PRINT_MODE set to STANDARD) in init.txt. This mode is not compatible with TTF text. If you want to continue to use TTF text, delete/don't install this plugin and be happy, but you won't get any other features of this plugin as well.

6. Currently there are not so much additional graphics available for overrides, so I'd like to attract attention of artists who can make new tilesets, not being limited by 256 tiles most of which are used for several things.

7. Be ready that multilevel rendering of course has some impact on FPS. I tried to optimize it as much as possible but anyway keep number of additional levels reasonable (the maximum is 15 and you probably don't want to use it). This is controlled with "multilevel 0-15" command.

8. In version 4.xx all screens except for the main fortress mode and adventure mode screens use text font. This means text font is used on worldgen and on pre-embark screen. One of the reasons is that map graphics doesn't work well for world maps. I have some solutions for this planned, but for now, don't be surprised.

9. I'll continue to add important things to this list based on people feedback and complains I notice here and in other threads.

Dwimenor

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2014, 10:34:29 am »

I don't use multilevel view, it changes my computer into very expensive air heater. Also I don't really need it - it's a nice eye-candy but can live without it.
On the other hand tiles/text separation is the 4th greatest thing - after Therapist, tilesets and workflow plugin for dfhack.
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Moon Label

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #2 on: September 01, 2014, 12:51:43 pm »

I've never liked tilesets, because I've always liked my text to be text!  I've grown to love and understand the CodePage graphics, but this might make me give tilesets a second shot!
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Quote from: Toady One on May 10, 2007, 10:59:00 pm
Quote
I've moved out of the office and turned in my keys.

Meph

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #3 on: September 01, 2014, 01:13:54 pm »

Your poll is missing one answer. ;)

Why don't you use TWBT?
 - But I do use it.
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::: ☼Meph Tileset☼☼Map Tileset☼- 32x graphic sets with TWBT :::
::: ☼MASTERWORK DF☼ - A comprehensive mod pack now on Patreon - 250.000+ downloads and counting :::
::: WorldBicyclist.com - Follow my bike tours around the world - 148 countries visited :::

BigD145

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #4 on: September 01, 2014, 01:49:37 pm »

Your poll is missing one answer. ;)

Why don't you use TWBT?
 - But I do use it.

Sh. This poll is not for you.
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #5 on: September 01, 2014, 04:45:55 pm »

I voted for fps loss. Haven't seen any crashes yet.
I suppose its caused by the multi-level view. I'd switch it off but I can't locate any documentation aimed at beginners yet so will go without until I get enough time to experiment.
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mifki

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #6 on: September 01, 2014, 05:22:58 pm »

I voted for fps loss. Haven't seen any crashes yet.
I suppose its caused by the multi-level view. I'd switch it off but I can't locate any documentation aimed at beginners yet so will go without until I get enough time to experiment.

Thanks for your feedback.
In 4.xx branch, multilevel rendering is the only thing that affects FPS noticeably (3.xx may be slow when there's really a lot items in stockpiles on screen and custom graphics for items is used). To turn it off just type 'multilevel 0' in the console.

Shonai_Dweller

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #7 on: September 01, 2014, 05:58:17 pm »

Multilevel 0. How simple!
And yes, now that you mention it the fps slowdown was with 4.xx.
The latest starter pack seems to have downgraded to 3.xx now so I'll give it another shot.
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mifki

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #8 on: September 01, 2014, 06:07:09 pm »

Multilevel 0. How simple!
And yes, now that you mention it the fps slowdown was with 4.xx.
The latest starter pack seems to have downgraded to 3.xx now so I'll give it another shot.

Sorry I wrote it not quite correctly. In 3.xx slowdown may be caused by multilevel rendering or large number of items with custom graphics. In 4.xx - only by multilevel, so 4.xx is better if it doesn't crash for you.

King Mir

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #9 on: September 01, 2014, 09:20:29 pm »

The main thing holding me back from using it is I like keeping up with Toady's weekly bug fixes, and DFhack doesn't. Or rather it remains to be seen how well it can.

mifki

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #10 on: September 01, 2014, 09:52:36 pm »

The main thing holding me back from using it is I like keeping up with Toady's weekly bug fixes, and DFhack doesn't. Or rather it remains to be seen how well it can.

Yes, that's understandable. But that's not forever, soon Toady will stop fixing bugs and there will be no new versions for a long time I suppose.

King Mir

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #11 on: September 01, 2014, 10:43:44 pm »

The main thing holding me back from using it is I like keeping up with Toady's weekly bug fixes, and DFhack doesn't. Or rather it remains to be seen how well it can.

Yes, that's understandable. But that's not forever, soon Toady will stop fixing bugs and there will be no new versions for a long time I suppose.
I hope not. Even if bug squishing dwindles down, there's a few smaller features due to be implemented soon, including fruit harvesting and a dwarf thought rewrite. This has been the first weekend without a release since 0.40.01, and that's probably because it's labor day and first of the month. I think we'll have weekly releases for a a while longer.


Rioluke

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #12 on: September 02, 2014, 01:20:44 am »

Quote
8. In version 4.xx all screens except for the main fortress mode and adventure mode screens use text font. This means text font is used on worldgen and on pre-embark screen. One of the reasons is that map graphics doesn't work well for world maps. I have some solutions for this planned, but for now, don't be surprised.[/size][/color]



This is why twbt is sort of bothering me, I generate A LOT of worlds and I find that using Ironhand or just about any tileset makes features far more clear and stand out much more, so at a glance I can tell just how many different civs have been generated and how quickly they are growing and how many sites are being created, which is very important. In ascii these maps are more uniform and changes are far more subtle. Otherwise, I was pretty pumped about it's addition after reading what it could do to clean up a lot of the screens  that are plagued with things just randomly going black and getting covered up (best example is the Health screen)
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Have a nice day.

mifki

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Re: A note on the Text Will Be Text plugin
« Reply #13 on: September 02, 2014, 01:38:35 am »

Quote
8. In version 4.xx all screens except for the main fortress mode and adventure mode screens use text font. This means text font is used on worldgen and on pre-embark screen. One of the reasons is that map graphics doesn't work well for world maps. I have some solutions for this planned, but for now, don't be surprised.[/size][/color]



This is why twbt is sort of bothering me, I generate A LOT of worlds and I find that using Ironhand or just about any tileset makes features far more clear and stand out much more, so at a glance I can tell just how many different civs have been generated and how quickly they are growing and how many sites are being created, which is very important. In ascii these maps are more uniform and changes are far more subtle. Otherwise, I was pretty pumped about it's addition after reading what it could do to clean up a lot of the screens  that are plagued with things just randomly going black and getting covered up (best example is the Health screen)


My plan is to support one more font specifically [designed by someone] for world maps. So I'll record you vote for this feature)
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