Well, there's an interesting discussion.
I can honestly say the art in Stoneshard is way beyond my skill level, but then you also have to remember that DF is a completely different game. I consciously decided on a more contrasting palette and simpler details because a typical DF screen is extremely crowded - so the goal is to provide a clear visualisation of what's going on. So it's not just a matter of skill and being strictly tile-based, it's a also a matter of what you might expect to see on the screen. Also remember the locations in Stoneshard are hand-crafted to look good - there's no such thing in DF, where the locations are procedurally generated with almost no attention to visual attractiveness - and then we have to slap a graphics set on top of that and have it all be be readable and good-looking at the same time.
So yes- even if we had as much skill as the Stoneshard artists, it's impossible for DF to maintain a similar style without huge art-oriented changes to the whole game - which, I assume, nobody is really interested in.
I personally wouldn't say its impossible to have a
similar style difficult absolutely but impossible is not a word I like to use especially went its not in relation to a hard limit of reality like FTL travel, I could envision system where though some scripting tricks it would be possible to do a facsimile of Stoneshard art style, it wouldn't be an exact copy but similar.
A change to how roofs exist/work so that instead of floors being roofs there was an actual "roof" construction/thatch with styling like with ramps shown earlier in this thread would an enable a similar thing with towns, using Alehkh's mock up you could do the cut shunting to show multi-levels of wall at the same time.
Ah, I wasn't meaning full isometric, but just that the "southern" face of the walls be perceptible, rather than entirely parallel with the player's view.
A quick, 1-minute mockup:
My dodgy as fuck mock ups are done from an adventure mode perspective with the troll as the adventurer I guess.
tree leaves
no tree leaves
inside
Would look better done by an actual artist and even better still with a higher resolution tileset but the idea is shown.
Change the colour of roof thatch to help it standout from the ground, the idea is based primarily on two things, first that what ever mechanical changes Toady make for graphic now are basically going to be it until multi-tile creature require a revisit, second an adventure mode perspective where there is a distinct focus point, either the adventurer themselves or looking cursor point.
With fortress mode the focus point is either the centre point of the screen or a one of the many looking/inspection cursors, Toady would have to write the script so that the area around the focus point get cut down/more transparency allowing the player to see what there doing while also providing a more stylised look for things outside the focus point.
All in all it is probably not worth the extra time and art assets needed but its not outright impossible, but even if its not utilised with the release graphics I think that adding the functionality now would enable modders to use it and for the official graphics to be easily extended to support it after release if DF sell well enough to justify such an expansion without needing Toady to do another pass over of graphics, I bringing it up here because questions about graphics are being redirected here and Meph and Mayday are acting as both artists and consultants so it seem like the best place to put it.
Basically I want to see DF's new graphics system to be as robust and modifiable as possible for ease of future expansion by the official artist themselves without you needing to wait for Toady again or for modders even if the official art doesn't get a another pass for 15 years.
Yeah, and please mind that I'm a modder and curator of content first and foremost. While I do pixelart for fun, the "professional" work you've seen in my own tileset might as well have been some of the many free art assets by other authors (listed in each release post in the credits).
Mike is the actual digital artist here. 
Fair enough but I counter with this my own stubborn logic.
The moment you accepted a contract and started getting paid for your art under that contract you became a "professional artist" in that you are "a person engaged or qualified in a profession." that profession in this case being pixel artist, you could add this to your resume or portfolio so I say it technically counts Meph McArtist.
That may be, I'm not familiar with the full body of what he's done, but just enough to be familiar with his style. But professional work isn't hitting a high note occasionally. Art is a competitive field, and professional work therefore requires being able to consistently output excellent work, and with an ease that allows it to be a financially rewarding use of time. As far as I'm aware, the only professional artist who does DF stuff is ......... and his art isn't really of the sort suitable to a tileset. Plus, he's presumably busy with his art career.
We have different definition of professional, a professional is anybody good enough to earn a wage getting hired to do a thing, the text book definition is "a person engaged or qualified in a profession." and both Meph and Mayday have been "Engaged" to produce art for a commercial product, they are therefore professional artists as far as I'm personally concerned, are they at the very top of their field probably not but that is just the nature of art, nobody can ever be the very best because of stylistic BS.
I personally don't think most "professional" art is actually any good anyway so the term in relation to art has less meaning to me.
I don't mean to belittle wither Meph or Mayday by saying this, but I'm not sure you understand the amount of knowledge on display in that game. The mastery of both palette and shading that's on display there is impossible to replicate without both training and practice, and not a tiny amount of either. Not only do I think it's beyond Meph and Mayday, but I think it's beyond anyone who hasn't spent years of their life with the primary aim of gaining skill in that style or in a similar style but in applications very nearly identical to that situation. Everyone who can do that is probably doing it for money right now, unless they've retired. Most games that make it to market don't have anywhere near that level of art, and it isn't because the idea of having better art never occurred to anyone on the dev team.
I got to be honest and just agree to disagree, But that is because I don't view professional art with same.... reverence you seem to, I'm not saying its not a skill as it definitely is a skill but it is not a skill that
requires a degree to be considered a professional, unlike say a doctor or nuclear physicist where the degree is required.
This would be less representative, and wouldn't look as good as your example game or necessarily better than what Mike&Meph are planning now anyway.
I personally think it would be more representative as its showing you more info at the same time, it allow you to see the height of the trees with a glance and the same could work on walls so the you could see a castles high walls without having to change your viewing level, and like I said it was not a "Make DF exactly like this" but aim for something closer to this stylised look rather then pure top down terrain but pure fake perspective creatures.
I personally would rather both creature and terrain use the same perspective, so if its top down for terrain then I would vote top down for creatures, but top down for creatures sucks so I want creature from a perspective which means I want terrain from a perspective, its just my minor ocd, its like how I don't like the map and fort mode tile set being different sizes, it doesn't really matter to me the practicality of it, they don't match and it is irritating to my delicate sensibilities so I vote against it, doesn't mean much but I'm still going to say it.
As for the quality, well it is a hack job by a guy that doesn't do art so of course it doesn't look as good, get someone that knows what their doing to redo it instead of a guy using paint and the cutting tool to cut and paste shit and it would look better.
Sad as it is, the DF community isn't as alive as it was in the 40d-2014 era. If Meph doesn't do something, graphically, it's not reasonable to expect that someone else is going to do more. At least in the foreseeable future. The Steam release may bring in more people, but we should also remember that it's doing this by lowering the barrier to entry, so new people may not be more productive, especially in areas where the barrier to entry is actual rising, as when it comes to making tilesets.
Plus, adding this functionality would use Toady's time. If it's very quick and easy then fine, but instead of graphical gimmicks that may never be used, he could also spend that time on the actual game.
The point of adding the feature even if it is not used initially is to make doing it easy for modders, there was a lot that never done with tilesets until TWBT was made and it was after TWBT that tilesets started getting more high quality with lots of little details, rather then wait and see try to get as many features into the graphics rewrite now as there is no telling how long until the next time graphics will be worked on, there has been talk about changing the dev cycle but a decade of habits is hard to break so I don't see such change really taking off.
Well yes, if you had then that wouldn't have been much of an answer from me, would it?
No, but you talked about it not being planned when I said it was from suggestions forum, seemed redundant, my response was as tongue in-cheek as the initial "question" was a suggestion dressed up as a question.
Now after reading though the whole thread and seeing how you guys are in effect consultants on all things art I feel I should ask, both for your opinion and because, truthfully if the idea appeals to you, you might take it to Toady in house circumventing the suggestion forums processes altogether
I was saying "I made this suggestion but you guy's (Mayday and Meph) seem to be both artists and consultants on DF's graphical rewrite so what do you think about it?" just more tongue in-cheek and phrased as a fake/leading question because that often happens in FotF questions and I thought it would be amusing to parody it here, its why I used lime green for the questions.
That is more or less the look I'm planning already:
Which does look good, it's just jarring to my sense of perspective to have a top down tree trunk next to a troll with a front left angle perspective, I'd rather one or the other, top down or faked perspective not mixing both, it hurts my delicate sensibilities, problem is I really want perspective for creature so that means I also want perspective for terrain, I'm the kind of guy that will buy one bag of each colour of jelly beans and put them out in separate bowls during a party, except purple, they're mine and mine alone.
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Topic: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Ironhand - Discussion and Suggestions (Read 461967 times)