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[Manveru Taurënér]

Awesome stuff! That bit in the middle would be the only thing of note really, but I'm sure the missing shadow will fix that well enough ^^

Any thoughts on less rigid transitions between rocky and grassy ramps like you had with the rocky patches on flat ground? The stark contrast makes it harder to take in the 3D aspect of it imo (but not sure how much better it can get really).

[Meph]

I have a mock-up with grass transition on ramps flying around, it looks a little bit better.

[Manveru Taurënér]

I have a mock-up with grass transition on ramps flying around, it looks a little bit better.

Nice!

[MoltenIdol]

Not really in context to the current ramp subject (which is starting to look really great though!), but here goes.

Not really related to the tileset, but now that you guys have a direct line to the Toad about graphical changes to the game, do you think it would be feasible at all to make movement animations more fluid? So that instead of teleporting from tile to tile, the sprites would actually slide along the path?
Here's an example gif of how it looks in KeeperRL:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/467795961406816276/531687892381335552/Peek_2019-01-07_15-15.gif
I guess maybe this belongs more in the FotF.

Ive always wished for something like this in DF, to see the busy hallways bustling with movement, actual movement, and Japa does it in his Armok Vision project.

 - No animations or extra sprites needed, just the sprite 'sliding' from one tile to the next (with a speed based on how fast that creature actually moves from tile to tile), while "bobbing up and down" slightly. It would be such a slick way of representing movement (maybe without the 'bobbing' for creatures like snakes tho (and it of course shouldn't apply to eg. a wheelbarrow being pushed by a creature, only the creature itself should "bop"), without having to draw any new sprites.

- Directional facing (only left and right of course) by mirroring the sprite to face the direction its currently moving/attacking/looking/interacting etc., would also be such a nice visual feedback to have (even though it might not have any actual functionality in-game, and might mess up shadow directions, but all worth it i say!).

 - Melee attacking (and maybe also interacting with certain objects like levers?) could be visually represented as the 'attacking/acting sprite' "bobbing into/towards" the target, as seen in Stoneshard for example.
I think it would actually work better than having animations for everything, as all the animations would muddy the screen (and be a huuuuge amount of work ofc).
   The "bobbing" would instead just be a simple movement, easy on the eye, when a big melee battle is happening, and a simple way of showing that something is attacking something, without having to rely on blood spatter or the combat log to show combat actually happening. Smooth.

The 'tick' with a red overlay for creatures taking damage, would probably work well too, combined with the "sprite-displacement animations" (I don't know what to call it). If it's "subtle" enough (not using a 'too bright' red), I think it would go well with blood spatters on the ground.

I personally hope you also do the idle "animations". Any "movement" (teleportation from tile to tile doesn't count) will definitely help distinguishing living things from terrain.

    All of this could also be used to give different creatures
    a kind of "personality" to their movements.
    The quickness of their walk, the frequency of their
    attacks, it might indicate an undead creature if very
    slow? Or big movements could imply a BIG or heavy
    creature!

Cheers to wishful thinking !

         Quick question: Have you talked about grass
         animations? Like grass waving in the wind.
         Just curious.

I know all of these "animation" requests might not be in the spirit of DF, but it would be a welcome change to me. I stumbled upon DF when i was twelve , and have been loving it ever since! But alas, while the ASCII has its beauties, i could never help but to imagine Dwarf Fortress with some more visual representation. Nothing fancy, just seeing stuff happen on a more than complete basic level.

PS!: I also looked at the animal-people sprites (animal heads combined with humanoid bodies), and i must say it works pretty well for most, some could use more custom work (as you have probably already thought yourselves). But the tigerman!.. I hope his face gets reworked to have a more "Feline" look to it.
Right now, its mouth/pucker is too big,which makes it look like a lion or a great dane. Maybe not, but more importantly, it lacks the 'mane' of a tiger.
The "roundness" of the furry white mane with black stripes that looks so menacing!
Tigers are pretty "broad/round headed", if you include that bushy hair on their neck/jaw, which gives them that distinct tiger-look.
I can imagine a tiger-mans "mane/neck fur", bushing out from the hole in the armor where the head goes.
Right now, it looks a bit like a shaved lion.
I'm only mentioning this, because i would love to play as a tiger-man in the graphical release, and would love for it too look more tigerish (menacing with spikes of fur!)

Example image: https://imgur.com/a/k3gckbX

Lots of love for you guys, your'e doing awesome work, truly grateful for your efforts and obvious passion to deliver, its gonna be so sweeet, and i absolutely cannot wait (sorry for the wall-of-text, but I'm invested at this point!)

[Schmaven]

I agree, having the sprites just bobbing around in general would make it really cool.  There is an incredible amount of combat happens all at once.  In a matter of seconds, several pages of combat logs can be filled.  And with dwarves dodging from tile to tile, I'm having a hard time visualizing how this would look.  Already, the blood, limbs, and teeth being thrown around gives some nice action to be seen.

Applying the bobbing would be to miners would be really cool too - having them shake around as they mine the tile.  The graphics pack I currently use has the stone blocks go through a few different stages of being mined out which is also a really great way of showing something is happening.  Wobbling around as they actively craft in workshops would also be nice.

[CL3AR]

Yeah, adding some animations would make the game a lot clearer instead of just having stuff teleport around.

[MoltenIdol]

I agree, having the sprites just bobbing around in general would make it really cool.  There is an incredible amount of combat happens all at once.  In a matter of seconds, several pages of combat logs can be filled.  And with dwarves dodging from tile to tile, I'm having a hard time visualizing how this would look.  Already, the blood, limbs, and teeth being thrown around gives some nice action to be seen.

The dodging could be a quick jerk to a neighboring tile, as fast as need be. It might look a bit weird i agree, but it might not? I think i would have to see it in action, in order to judge. I think one could make it work.
I can imagine a big battle, with dorfs quickly jumping to another tile in order to dodge, while others are clearly seen attacking with lesser motions towards the goblin next tile. In any case, i think it would look less confusing than the good ol' one-two-teleport-sidestep. I'll have to think on that for a bit ! (as if i had any say in the "final" product)
(Also, when dorfs dodges off of a cliff, falling dorf sprites could be "laying down" horizontally (also for sum sleeping/dead dorfs hurr hurr))
A lot could be done with only one sprite and some disjointing from its tile.

Now thinking, it would be cool to see the sprite of a tooth being knocked out (or other body parts hehe), actually do a small curve from the tile where the creature it belongs too stands, and land on the tile it should.

    "The severed part sails off in an arc!"

Just make the sprite of the tooth begin its arc at the top part of the tile where its arc starts, so it doesn't look like the tooth is being knocked out of his feet, if you can visualize what I'm trying to say.
Of course, if we're talking about a leg, the leg sprite should begin its arc at the bottom of the tile, where its arc should start, visually.
Maybe its starting position ON the actual tile of origin, is not that important.
Maybe none of this is, but i would love to look at it.

Purely brainstorming here

Applying the bobbing would be to miners would be really cool too - having them shake around as they mine the tile.  The graphics pack I currently use has the stone blocks go through a few different stages of being mined out which is also a really great way of showing something is happening.  Wobbling around as they actively craft in workshops would also be nice.

Yes, i played with a tileset like that myself, very nice feature indeed! Hope it gets implemented.

Maybe, just maybe, the wobbling action in all of the workshops  might be too much? Might also totally work. I'm imagining a great hall filled with workshops with wobbling dwarves in them. It actually kinda works in my minds picture.

I think i also mentioned stuff like levers. It would be cool to have the sprite make that little "jerk motion" towards the tile with the lever being pulled. I cant think of other examples of objects being interacted with, that could have the little animation, but I'm sure there are some.
It would absolutely work for mining as well, with the miner sprite making a small motion towards the block being mined, every time the mining damage "ticks".

All of this "animation" talk should be taken with a grain of salt tho, as it could easily be overdone, I'm talking slight, SLIGHT motions here, or it just might not match the stillness of everything else, and just be plain disturbing to the immersion and imagery/aesthetic in general.

But oh boy, would it look good if done right!

[MoltenIdol]

I have another "animation" idea! Regarding undead creatures. Just gonna throw it in the mix.

So, the idle animation you showed us, is basically the unit "breathing" right? Just moving its chest and head up and down a bit.
Is that gonna be visible through armor?
Is the chest and head part of the sprite "disjointed" and simply moved up and down, or do you make several sprites? i think the ladder right?

Anyway, if all living creatures were making the idle "breathing" animation, and the chest amour moved up an down with the chest as it was breathing, how about if all the undead units were NOT making that idle breathing-looking animation? I know it might not be intended as breathing, and more of a "this unit moves a bit" kind of thing, but they could do something else, like small pixels dripping from wounds (even tho they're dead and their blood is not pumping) as they stand around, or something with their head or arms, just not breathing, like the plump helmet man you guys showed.
It could be a way to distinguish them even more from living creatures.

Take a zombie in a full, i mean FULL plate armor as an example. Fully masked, you couldn't possibly tell on a glance that its an undead, as it has no undeadish walking animation or any other visual clues, like purple skin showing. Unless, of course, everything else was breathing, and the undead wasn't. (Or it could have eyes glowing through the helmet visor, but id prefer the first, if we cant have both ;-P)

I think it could add a sense of immersion, actually a sense of dread IMO, to see everything (maybe not everything(but then again, maybe everything?)) breathing, except for the undead versions. They would just be still, until suddenly jerking in motion, slowly "bopping" towards their target. ugh!

[Meph]

No new animations are planned for now; those were all mock-ups showing Tarn how it would look ingame. We first have to do everything else; animations would be possible additions we might tack on at the end. That being said, if he adds a bit of code support for the community to create 2-3 frame animations using ALT_TILES for more objects/creatures, I'll be the first to make you guys a set with that.

[MoltenIdol]

I'm hereby claiming page 76 of this forum post as my personal brainstorming soundboard for animation ideas.

[MoltenIdol]

No new animations are planned for now; those were all mock-ups showing Tarn how it would look ingame. We first have to do everything else; animations would be possible additions we might tack on at the end. That being said, if he adds a bit of code support for the community to create 2-3 frame animations using ALT_TILES for more objects/creatures, I'll be the first to make you guys a set with that.

Ah, well, i sure hope dear Tarn will take it into consideration, I would love to see you and others do some pixel magic with something like that.. Now, it feels important for me to mention that I'm not talking about animations and redrawing of sprites, but more like, in the case of the zombie breathing example, taking the sprite, cutting it up by chest, legs and head, and disjointing them from each other, designating them as seperate parts, to be able to move them a bit around and create "animations" with one sprite. You could then generalize this method trough all sprites , to make a general idle animation, and this could make wonders with a procedural creature generation system.
In the case of the walking, just take the whole sprite in its wholeness, and bop it up an down a bit while its sliding from, to another tile, no legs moving or nothing. just a bopping slide.

I realize you probably know this is what i meant, and it might not be the time for all of this, but I just have to make it REALLY clear, that I'm not talking about new custom drawn 'animation sprites' for each creature and action, but simply the system I'm trying so hard to describe, in inferior non coding language.

BUT, of course, ALT-TILE sets would look AMAZING obviously. But a lot more work i presume? Hard to tell maybe, since my idea is all theoretical.

PS: i edited my former replies to better reflect all my ideas and their limitations. I hope i can inspire you in some way, as i firmly believe a simple animation system using only the single sprite, could be super effective at showing differences in states of being, in a simple manner, eg. laying horizontally for death/sleeping on the ground, and slide-bobbing around when walking, not to mention directional facing and jerking towards elements being interacted with or attacked, would liven up the picture, and bring a lot of visual options to the table, without too much work (as in TONNES of new sprites drawn kind of work), and without making things overly complex, visually, and workload wise. Both for modders, and in case of new vanilla creatures being added, in need of a quick idle animation, or even procedurally generated creatures.

As mentioned earlier, it could also bring some personality to different creatures, such as bop-moving elephants, making bigger more heavy bops, indicating that they're HEAVY, now that you wont be doing enormous size differences.
Or some undead creatures having long intervals between their attack bop, which indicates that theyre slow and dead.
You could essentially make different kinds of bop-movements for different kinds of creatures, making that distinction even clearer. Just a thought.


PSPS: That tiger mane is really important to me! <3
https://imgur.com/a/k3gckbX
(for the tiger sprite, the tigers "mane" is missing, and the iconic head shape isnt really there, at least when looking at the tiger-man sprite, IMHO)

[Meph]

Well, I don't have a tiger mane atm, but I can give you the formerly mightiest of all creatures:

BEWARE THE GIANT SPONGE!

Now, it feels important for me to mention that I'm not talking about animations and redrawing of sprites, but more like, in the case of the zombie breathing example, taking the sprite, cutting it up by chest, legs and head, and disjointing them from each other, designating them as seperate parts, to be able to move them a bit around and create "animations" with one sprite. You could then generalize this method trough all sprites , to make a general idle animation

This is still an amazing amount of work. There are close to 3000 creatures sprites. Take them apart into pieces, lets say legs, arms, torso, head, means 6x3000.

Please don't get your hopes up on any fancy animations.

EDIT: Toady is really fast. I'm impressed.

[Jiri Petru]

One thing that has been bugging me since forever...



...is that the cat is absolutely monstrous. As big as a dog or a pig! I know you have limited options, having to show everything in a same-sized square, but the cats never stop bothering me.

Other potential scale issues (albeit not as strong ones): the goose and the muskox.

But overall, I'm amazed with the great work and can't wait to play this!

[mko]

Yeah, rabbit and duck work well. But pig-sized cat is weird.

[BLazerules]

One thing that has been bugging me since forever...

...is that the cat is absolutely monstrous. As big as a dog or a pig! I know you have limited options, having to show everything in a same-sized square, but the cats never stop bothering me.

Other potential scale issues (albeit not as strong ones): the goose and the muskox.

As someone who plays SS13, sprites are not exactly representative of the true size of something.

If you want everything scaled true to size it'd be hard to see (Somethings would be super tiny, others super large multi tile monstrosities), sizes would be all over the place and it'd no doubt be a massive pain to do that. Obviously the chicken and goose aren't as big as the horse for example.

Like... where would you draw the line? There's a guinea pig in that image. How small would that be? 1-5 pixels?

True to size chicken and horse.


So I personally think it's perfectly fine but I'm also used to all things being in 32x32 pixels as a max limit regardless of their real size. What matters most is that you can make out what the thing is, even just having a basic "small things are 10x10, medium are 32x32 large are..." type thing would still be a pain.

You'd have to scale things up to properly show things that are smaller and still be able to tell what the pixels are trying to represent I think?