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[Boltgun]

Something that realcolors do badlly is that black items are... well black. Putting a lower limit to a dark blue will help with sprite making.

I'm quite excited to see mounted sprites. Making it a simple system of mounted version of the creature + the mount behind will do the trick with little effort. You'd still have to make mounted version of the creatures but in normal gameplay only fighters and generals use mounts.

Will you also fix the royal / justice / taxmen version of fighters ?

Another suggestion: civ version of sprites. A dwarf raised by goblins will not go into combat into their shiny steel armor.

[Ironhand]

Oh man it's happening!!!

Also congrats on the contract, Meph!

Also, DdP, I can't wait to subscribe to the GemSet mod on Steam!

[Lemunde]

We haven't discussed colors and color schemes with Toady yet, but I agree. The ingame color additions muck up a lot of things; TWBTs -top files are a godsend to keep the color you actually used when making a sprite. It's certainly a topic that will be discussed; once we have a playable beta version and can see all the sprites ingame.

I think the reason Toady hasn't changed the color system is to maintain compatibility with the ASCII version. I think we have to keep reminding ourselves that first and foremost DF is an ASCII game and I think Toady has been careful not to stray too far from that. That being said, with all the other graphical additions we're seeing I guess anything's possible.

[Oab]

This is great news! The official tile set looks great! Nice and clean with good readability.

One of my biggest disappointments was the limitations of caste types, and the shared tiles for objects. I had been working on making a complete tile set, but the obstacles to do so were a large turn off. This release will prompt me to continue it.

I agree with Dragon a simple animation would be more than enough for now. Any more than that and sanity will surely be lost.

I have some questions if you don’t mind answering them Meph.

1.   Will this version support different tile sizes as well? Am I bound to the grid when creating sprites? I have a bunch of tiles made ranging from 24x24 to 54x54 from different projects that I would consider making use of for this.

2.   What are your thoughts for multi tile creature integration on the tile set side of things? I can see this being problematic, but it would be nice to see creatures scaled more appropriately at some point.

3.   Will there be animated tile support specifically for things like water, weather, miasma, smoke, wind reactions, etc.? Those would provide the most for visual improvements imo. Having 2-3 frames would be ideal.

4.   Would it be feasible to be able to adapt the appropriate beard, hair, nose, and eye colors and styles to my dwarfs matching their in game descriptions using a modular/layer tile set approach? I already made a prototype for the faces a while back, and it worked quite well so this wouldn’t be a problem from the art side of things.

5.   Could it also be used with outfits and weapons using layers? If so this could also be used for were beasts by applying a layer over the original sprite to replace the head and add other features like wings behind the sprite. This would save a ton of time on sprite creation.

6.   I made my sprites front facing because I didn’t like them facing the opposite direction they were moving in. Would it be possible to flip the sprite when changing directions? I understand flipping them would fudge lighting so how possible would it be to add directional tiles? It would be nice to have all four directions represented but just having east and west would be great.

7.   Is movement on a pixel scale something that has been discussed? Sprites teleporting from tile to tile looks odd. Animated movement support would be nice, but sliding the static sprites between tiles would still go a long way at improving this.

8.   I can see the keyboard shortcuts being a huge negative to most steam users so I am guessing there are plans to update the UI before the steam release. If so will there be tiles specifically used for UI elements?

9.   Is there a separate tile designated for engraved walls? Doing so with the old method was a pain to figure out.

Apologies if any of this has been answered already elsewhere.

[Meph]

Personally I think you can get away with a simple 2-frame 1-pixel bob for all of your creatures. If the goal is to add movement so they stand out against background tiles, that is enough. When you animate this very slowly (think 1 frame per second) and synchronize all onscreen characters, you get something similar to Fire Emblem or Brogue. Anything faster or more complex than that can come across as hyperactive or visually-distracting for a slower-paced game like DF.

Thanks for the advice.

Oh man it's happening!!!

Also congrats on the contract, Meph!

Also, DdP, I can't wait to subscribe to the GemSet mod on Steam!

Wait, Ironhand uses GemSet?

Something that realcolors do badlly is that black items are... well black. Putting a lower limit to a dark blue will help with sprite making.

Will you also fix the royal / justice / taxmen version of fighters ?

Another suggestion: civ version of sprites. A dwarf raised by goblins will not go into combat into their shiny steel armor.

Black is currently not solid-black in our mock-ups. I think we will try to keep it that way.

Fighters will get a lot of changes. Don't know if different squads get different sprites, but it would be cool.

Civ versions of sprites: I did suggest different looks for weapons/armor when equipped by different civs. It only requires 5 sets and would add a bit of character, like spiky goblin armor or grown-wood shields with little leaves sticking out for elves. Not sure if that makes it in though.

We haven't discussed colors and color schemes with Toady yet, but I agree. The ingame color additions muck up a lot of things; TWBTs -top files are a godsend to keep the color you actually used when making a sprite. It's certainly a topic that will be discussed; once we have a playable beta version and can see all the sprites ingame.

I think the reason Toady hasn't changed the color system is to maintain compatibility with the ASCII version. I think we have to keep reminding ourselves that first and foremost DF is an ASCII game and I think Toady has been careful not to stray too far from that. That being said, with all the other graphical additions we're seeing I guess anything's possible

True, the colors are absolutely necessary in ascii. For graphical sets it's better to only recolor specific parts of a sprite. For example a sword should only get a recolored blade based on the material, while the handle remains brown. We'll see how that will be handled.

This is great news! The official tile set looks great! Nice and clean with good readability.

One of my biggest disappointments was the limitations of caste types, and the shared tiles for objects. I had been working on making a complete tile set, but the obstacles to do so were a large turn off. This release will prompt me to continue it.

I agree with Dragon a simple animation would be more than enough for now. Any more than that and sanity will surely be lost.
currently animations are just a pipe-dream by me.

I have some questions if you don’t mind answering them Meph.

1.   Will this version support different tile sizes as well? Am I bound to the grid when creating sprites? I have a bunch of tiles made ranging from 24x24 to 54x54 from different projects that I would consider making use of for this.
Text and ingame will use different tile sizes. In general we plan oversized sprites, mostly for creatures. Maybe furniture. The actual object would still occupy 1 tile, but the sprite can be larger.

2.   What are your thoughts for multi tile creature integration on the tile set side of things? I can see this being problematic, but it would be nice to see creatures scaled more appropriately at some point.
Nope. As I've said, objects will be 1 tile. But you could make creature sprite that is 3x2 tiles in size. The actual creature will be single tile, with multi-tile graphics. That's planned for sure.

3.   Will there be animated tile support specifically for things like water, weather, miasma, smoke, wind reactions, etc.? Those would provide the most for visual improvements imo. Having 2-3 frames would be ideal.
We haven't gotten that far yet. Animations will be approached once everything is done. First we have to make sprites for all the things that already exist, then we can figure out what features to extend.

4.   Would it be feasible to be able to adapt the appropriate beard, hair, nose, and eye colors and styles to my dwarfs matching their in game descriptions using a modular/layer tile set approach? I already made a prototype for the faces a while back, and it worked quite well so this wouldn’t be a problem from the art side of things.
Absolutely not, no, never. https://i.imgur.com/BXRVhLc.png & https://i.imgur.com/sb1jn7U.png (super WIP) It's a lot of combinations and colors and some of them don't quite work well together. I'm all for it, while Mike rather wants to stick with a smaller selection, which might not fit the description perfectly, but will end up looking far better.

5.   Could it also be used with outfits and weapons using layers? If so this could also be used for were beasts by applying a layer over the original sprite to replace the head and add other features like wings behind the sprite. This would save a ton of time on sprite creation.
Yes. That's planned.

6.   I made my sprites front facing because I didn’t like them facing the opposite direction they were moving in. Would it be possible to flip the sprite when changing directions? I understand flipping them would fudge lighting so how possible would it be to add directional tiles? It would be nice to have all four directions represented but just having east and west would be great.
Maybe, this falls under the same category as the animations. It's a stretch goal for sure.

7.   Is movement on a pixel scale something that has been discussed? Sprites teleporting from tile to tile looks odd. Animated movement support would be nice, but sliding the static sprites between tiles would still go a long way at improving this.
We haven't talked about it yet, but I agree. Smoother movement is something I will suggest to Tarn.

8.   I can see the keyboard shortcuts being a huge negative to most steam users so I am guessing there are plans to update the UI before the steam release. If so will there be tiles specifically used for UI elements?
Currently we have a list of 351 UI specific sprites to do. So... yeah.

9.   Is there a separate tile designated for engraved walls? Doing so with the old method was a pain to figure out.
I'm fairly sure that there will be an overlay of the smoothed/engraved parts on top of the wall sprite. Either that or an entirely new sprite.

Apologies if any of this has been answered already elsewhere.
No need, that's why I made this thread.

Disclaimer: Please note that everything is wip and might change. All I can say is what we plan and would like to do. In the end it comes down to code changes, how it affects FPS, how many sprites are needed, time, etc.

[Death Dragon]

7.   Is movement on a pixel scale something that has been discussed? Sprites teleporting from tile to tile looks odd. Animated movement support would be nice, but sliding the static sprites between tiles would still go a long way at improving this.

I brought this up, too, in the other thread. Would really love to have this in DF.
I posted this gif from KeeperRL, which is also a tile based game, but it animates the movement of the sprites from tile to tile in a very satisfying way:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/467795961406816276/531687892381335552/Peek_2019-01-07_15-15.gif

[Kromtec]

7.   Is movement on a pixel scale something that has been discussed? Sprites teleporting from tile to tile looks odd. Animated movement support would be nice, but sliding the static sprites between tiles would still go a long way at improving this.

I brought this up, too, in the other thread. Would really love to have this in DF.
I posted this gif from KeeperRL, which is also a tile based game, but it animates the movement of the sprites from tile to tile in a very satisfying way:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/467795961406816276/531687892381335552/Peek_2019-01-07_15-15.gif

Yes, KeeperRL has really cool animations with completly static sprites!


Would be cool if something similar could be possible, even without the particle effects.

4.   Would it be feasible to be able to adapt the appropriate beard, hair, nose, and eye colors and styles to my dwarfs matching their in game descriptions using a modular/layer tile set approach? I already made a prototype for the faces a while back, and it worked quite well so this wouldn’t be a problem from the art side of things.
Absolutely not, no, never. https://i.imgur.com/BXRVhLc.png & https://i.imgur.com/sb1jn7U.png (super WIP) It's a lot of combinations and colors and some of them don't quite work well together. I'm all for it, while Mike rather wants to stick with a smaller selection, which might not fit the description perfectly, but will end up looking far better.

5.   Could it also be used with outfits and weapons using layers? If so this could also be used for were beasts by applying a layer over the original sprite to replace the head and add other features like wings behind the sprite. This would save a ton of time on sprite creation.
Yes. That's planned.

Wow, I can not believe this is even on the table! That would be awesome!

[Oab]

@Meph Good stuff! I am glad Toady brought you guys into the fold for this. Thanks for the answers!

More questions:

Is 32x32 the only option for the grid size or would it be possible to do a 48x48 overhaul?

Will there be access to the relevant information for authors to have their sets available day one of the steam release?

@Death dragon and Kromtec This actually looks better than what I had in mind. This would be a great alternative to animations and would save months of time manually editing sprites for a similar effect.

The walls cracking as they are mined is a nice touch and the other effects definitely add a lot of value to the scene . Those effects are actually pretty simple from the art side of things, only requiring a couple extra frames made to loop. A dozen well placed animations like this would do wonders to improve the overall visual for the game.

[Meph]

Grid size / tile size can be anything you want, just like it is now. 8x8, 8x12, 16x16... 48x48. Your pick.

[CLA]

I'm wondering how transparency will change.

Right now, we use transparency (i.e. alpha channel) in png tilesets to show the background color, while black pixels remain black and white pixels show the foreground color. It's used for a variety of effects, some of which may not be necessary anymore in the future (i.e. having nice engravings or hiding minecart track graphics in other tiles), but I'm still wondering how it's planned to handle.

Will there be a differentiation between "background tiles" like floors, walls, tracks and grass and "foreground tiles" like creatures and objects? Or will simply the lowest layer show a background color with the other layers showing transparency?

[Oab]

So I started my dwarf mock up for the upcoming steam changes, and now I have questions.

Obviously the pieces need to assemble using layers, but I just noticed that the mockup doesn’t appear to separate the hair, beard, moustache, or sideburns into different layers. Is this the case? If this is the case would it be possible to layer them instead?

If it is layered what order are you guys planning on? The only order that seems to work well on my mockups is: from bottom to top Base body > Armor > Skin/Eyes > Beard/Hair > Sideburns/Moustache > Shields/Weapons.

[Mike Mayday]

Let me just say is that it's WAAAAY to early to be worrying about that. Once we have something actually ready in-game, we can tell you. And even then Tarn might end up rolling it back due to unforseen problems.

[jecowa]

Will the new version remove the minimum horizontal tile resolution of 80 tiles? Currently if you want to use a 32x32 tileset, you kind of need a screen resolution that is at least 2560 pixels (80 x 32) wide.

Also, are edited raw objects files for graphics packs still going to be a thing with the new version?

[CLA]

[A]re edited raw objects files for graphics packs still going to be a thing with the new version?

I very much doubt that. The (seemingly) easiest and most reasonable approach would be to handle it like creature graphics, i.e. you have a separate file that handles which tile is used in which file and allow a more or less arbitrary number and organization of image files for any object in game.

[jecowa]

It would be nice if all the tile and color stuff had their own files. It would make it much easier to update graphics packs.