Jester, you shouldn't expect DF to look as good as Stone Shard. That's especially well made art of this kind even among the professional world, and the people doing the DF pack are just modders who got contracts. They're only able to work according to their own skill level, and also weren't aiming for that style in the first place. They've already shown us enough samples, it won't have that kind of painterly quality or palette control. Additionally, things represented in Stone Shard don't necessarily cleave entirely to a tile system; making the 3D procedurally generated trees of DF look like those in your screenshots wouldn't be possible no matter the skill of the artists.
I've thought some of the stuff Meph has produce in the past was of "Professional" quality, never followed Maydays work say can't speak for him but I wouldn't mark Stoneshard quality level as beyond them artistically, I would say its to expensive financially, it was less of a "DO DF LIKE THISSS!!!!" and more of a "when I imagined full graphics for DF this is what I pictured mentally." its why I said it was how I Imagined a high definition tileset would look would
I was thinking Script trickery with the trees, with multi level view being slated for inclusion anyway I could see each level of tree above the current view level being shunted one tile north for the purposes of drawing them, then apply a semi-transparency thing to the branches and leaves to create that style of "tall tree", combined with a tileset that isn't top down but has a fake perspective like those posted on the first page and you get something like my hack job here.
Do you think action/position based variants will be possible? examples being standing and prone sprites or dancing, singing and playing an instrument sprites?
Possible but not feasible. Since the sprites are meant to represent things accurately, each other possible state would need to include variation for clothing, facial features, and etc.
Even if the default tileset doesn't use it because of the reasons you've listed having it be a possible function of the graphics rewrite would be cool, then it could wither be added aftert eh fact or modded in by those willing but if the functionality itself never get done then it would end up as DFHack requirement thing, I would rather the functionality for this to be included in DF itself and not used then having to use DFHack to achieve it because it wasn't included in base.
As the contracted artists how feasible/realistic is such a thing as procedural constructed facial portraits based upon the preexisting descriptors for fortress mode description screens and adventure mode conversations?
Although this is doable, nobody made any mention of such a thing being planned, and it would require a certain amount of funding from Kitfox; since it's beyond what they've discussed, that may be a significant impediment. If not considering that, it's actually a pretty good idea for a way to extend support, but there would need to be some UI considerations for when dwarf faces would be shown. It would be a shame to do the degree of work that would be required and then sequester them into the unit description.
Never said it was planned, explicitly said it was based upon a suggestion that I had made as a QoL/Noob feature, most people in the mainSteam are used to seeing how a character looks not reading how a character looks.
I originally had the idea for adventure mode, I personally prefer adventure mode and once Adv. mode is more developed I probably wont play fortress mode at all so unit description was just my first thought, it could also be applied to Diplomat Meetings, Broker Trading, Sheriff Interrogations, Petitioners Requests and some announcements, so then when a dwarf gets a strange mood you see that dwarfs portrait.
Will it be possible to mod in larger Tilesets like say 64x64 or 128x128 for the truly committed?
Considering that's possible now and every indication is that strict requirements will actually become freer (E.G. transparency, units larger than their tile) I think you can be reasonably certain it will continue being possible.
Really? I thought there was an engine limitation that stopped larger tilesets from working without DFhack magic, oh well my bad.
Would/could it be possible for DF to switch between tilesets of different sizes depending upon zoom/scroll level?[/color] might make it possible to "expand" the official tileset after launch with higher definition tiles, provided DF sells really well.
That seems like a really awkward way to implement it, to me. Why not just make a bigger tileset and then let it resize automatically when zooming out? That works fine for current tilesets, after all.
Because resizing looks a bit dodgy I guess? its works but it is not the best aesthetically, a 64x64 tile set would look a lot better for adventure mode where you're a lot "closer" to the action while that might be too much for fortress mode where 32x32 looks better, if they did do both, one for each mode (unlikely I know), then allowing DF it dynamically switch between them based upon zoom level would be great, even just the functionality without being used would be great as then it could be expanded or modded in later.
It would be awesome if dwarves' hair matched their descriptions. It would be insane if their faces matched. What if a dwarf loses a leg? Does the graphic change? Could we see them in crutches?
Those are not too unrealistic expectations. 
Jester: The images you shown are amazing pixelart, but are not tile-based, and most things in it are just textures, not objects that can be interacted with or change. For example trees in df grow, lose leaves, change color, show flowers, seeds or fruits. Dwarves can cut them down, climb them, pick individual fruits...
In stoneshape, the trees are just images, with a "don't walk through trunk" clipping. Big difference.
It was less of a "DO DF LIKE THISSS!!!!" and more of a "when I imagined full graphics for DF this is what I pictured mentally.", on the issue of trees I never use DFHack but I thought some of the trickery it pulled could be used to to make it work.
I was thinking that with DFHack's trickery with multi level view being slated for inclusion anyway I could see each level of tree above the current view level being shunted one tile north for the purposes of drawing them, then apply a semi-transparency thing to the branches and leaves to create a style of "tall tree", combined with a tileset that isn't top down but has a fake perspective like those posted on the first page and you get something like my hack job here.
I admittedly don't know that it could be done it just seems like something that could be done and its probably not worth the effort to do anything more then include the fuctionality for future expansion or modding, the the kind of tables you posted could be done without DFHack trickery even if not included in base/premium.
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Topic: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Ironhand - Discussion and Suggestions (Read 461977 times)