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[MoltenIdol]

Why not just superimpose the dragon upon the wall tiles? Why would the creature layer be above the terrain layer on the tile it's on, but below the terrain layers on adjacent tiles? I think it would be best to just keep the dragon tile on top of all terrain.

My opinion is that it is better to try to extend the creature sprite in the y direction as much as possible, then maybe add a little bit of overlap to the extra x dimensions. Use the tools you have to the best extent. Use the serpentine dragon body to Convey size in y rather than let it occupy a wide X dimension. IT works better with effects such as fire breath and fireball.
When restrained to a single square, rather than going for a uniform perspective, you can conpartmentalize the perspective to isomeric at the base, legs etc. with a side perspective extending upwards to convey size, while small animals are fully isometric. I donđt know if that makes sense, but I think it is way better than having small animals have a realistic size compared to a larger one - rather let the perspective components convey the size difference.

TLDR: Head centered in X, extending to y, while tail can slither around in x.

+1

Your own tileset is a good example of this, but now it can be done slightly less crammed.

[voliol]

Procedural creatures! Praise be! I assume the backwards joints aren't implemented, though, because I don't see any difference between the two.

[Meph]

Nah, I didn't do the backwards joints, because that would change the positions too much. The hands, arms, legs and feet are always in one location for a purpose: Equipment.

[voliol]

Nah, I didn't do the backwards joints, because that would change the positions too much. The hands, arms, legs and feet are always in one location for a purpose: Equipment.

I think it is too bad, backward joints sound like they’d be visually interesting, but I do get your point.
...Now that I think of it, what does ”backwards joints” entail - which joints would be backwards? If you do just hip and ankle (which is equivalent to just the knee), you would only be burdoned with making extra pants. And that only if these parts be used for larger experiments as well, because IIRC night trolls never wear pants.

[Starver]

There's goatlike 'backwards joints', though in reality, unguligrades just have a proportional difference (their 'ankle' is a toe-joint, their 'backwards knee' is the ankle, raised but normal , their actual knee-equivalent is tucked up almost into the torso with the hip up well above that - in the rear it's almost 'shoulder' height, though the "front hip" 'shoulders' are only half way up their trunk, typically, with far shorter humeruses/humerii than femurs

They look backwards if you don't notice the humerus/femur element of their limb and extrapolate downward without realising the offset of joints you think they are from actuality.


There's also "overextension" of the knee (or other hinged joints), which can be a result of deformity or just well-trained contortionism (probably easier if you're already prone to lax ligaments), and enables (or maybe forces) humans to 'bird walk' (bird legs are similarly arranged to ungulates in their digitigrade manner, most easily noticed in long-legged birds like waders or specialist runners).

I think there have been case of true reverse-knees in a particularly severe form of birth defect, but often that comes with other issues (e.g. paths of veins and arteries through the legs).


In mythical creatures, though probably inspired by ungulates (the god Pan) or overextensive/contortionist abilities (Japanese mythologies seen a lot in anime and film) I suppose it would 'just' be "legs backwards on the bodyplan" (but feet, if plantigrade, still pointing forward). It's not like they need any explanation why they're so different from the base quadraped/biped theme only rarely seen changed (e.g. some arboreal swingers having more shoulder-like wrist joints, for better twistability of their gripping hands).


In imagining how to fit armour to 'reverse jointed' limbs, you probably have to consider whether there'd be a poleyn ('knee cap' element of full armour, a couter being the elbow equivalent) on the front-but-inside of the reverse knee, or would that interfere with movement? It's a tricky point to protect, the inside of a joint (knee, elbow, armpit, groin, neck) without creating loss of flexibility in the process, like some shin/foot overlapping armours that all but imobilise the natural flexibility of the ankle.

Then you have to draw it. As said, with a thought of portability. Perhaps easier with vectorised/skinned 3d art (already able to deal with arbitrary rotation my linking the limb mesh backwards?) but not so easier in this case. No easy one-solution-fits-all. At best, double up with separate overlay rasters to cater for the unarmoured (or otherwise 'not clothed') limbs they overlay/replace with armoured(/clothed) versions. Lot of work, just for an edge case. Might not be top priority for a while, certainly.

some various typos corrected

[Cruxador]

The one with four horns kind of looks like he had a headcrab on his shoulder. I wonder if it wouldn't be more readable to go with straight thin horns.

Nah, I didn't do the backwards joints, because that would change the positions too much. The hands, arms, legs and feet are always in one location for a purpose: Equipment.

Do these guys even use equipment? Or I guess these are the trolls. Definitely a shame, almost makes me wonder if it wouldn't be worth making the one with that trait always be pantsless.

[jecowa]

Is there still a lot to do for the graphical update? It seems like it's coming along pretty quickly.

[PatrikLundell]

The one with four horns kind of looks like he had a headcrab on his shoulder. I wonder if it wouldn't be more readable to go with straight thin horns.

Nah, I didn't do the backwards joints, because that would change the positions too much. The hands, arms, legs and feet are always in one location for a purpose: Equipment.

Do these guys even use equipment? Or I guess these are the trolls. Definitely a shame, almost makes me wonder if it wouldn't be worth making the one with that trait always be pantsless.

Trolls, ogres, and humanoid experiments can definitely use equipment. I've seen humanoid experiments with 3 tails, but I haven't checked equipment specifically to see which monster are "animals" and which are "sapients".

[Kiloku]

Is there still a lot to do for the graphical update? It seems like it's coming along pretty quickly.

There probably is a lot to do. Many of the screenshots we've been shown were mock-ups. Work on Overworld maps seems to only have reached the concept stage. There's still the UI Overhaul. I bet Adventurer Mode will need some graphical work that we haven't seen in the thread yet (visual range, glowing eyes, eyesight indicators, "last known position" indicators, tracks, noise indicators, fog of war, etc.)

[MoltenIdol]

The one with four horns kind of looks like he had a headcrab on his shoulder. I wonder if it wouldn't be more readable to go with straight thin horns.

The creatures description says curved, but I get your point. They look like medusa hair. The first two big horns looks nice tho.

Nah, I didn't do the backwards joints, because that would change the positions too much. The hands, arms, legs and feet are always in one location for a purpose: Equipment.

Do these guys even use equipment? Or I guess these are the trolls. Definitely a shame, almost makes me wonder if it wouldn't be worth making the one with that trait always be pantsless.
[/quote]

Maybe for backwards jointed legs, only show the thigh part of the pants? Just cut away the pants sprite below the knee joint.

[PatrikLundell]

The one with four horns kind of looks like he had a headcrab on his shoulder. I wonder if it wouldn't be more readable to go with straight thin horns.

The creatures description says curved, but I get your point. They look like medusa hair. The first two big horns looks nice tho.

Nah, I didn't do the backwards joints, because that would change the positions too much. The hands, arms, legs and feet are always in one location for a purpose: Equipment.

Do these guys even use equipment? Or I guess these are the trolls. Definitely a shame, almost makes me wonder if it wouldn't be worth making the one with that trait always be pantsless.

Maybe for backwards jointed legs, only show the thigh part of the pants? Just cut away the pants sprite below the knee joint.
[/quote]
Still won't do it. The "thighs" (see the biology lesson above) would be angled backwards, while the pants sprite would be angled forwards. On top of that, "just cutting off the sprite" would still mean a duplication of all pant sprites, even though the erasing might be performed using some kind of automation.

[Starver]

Maybe a compromise stance, to allow the thighs of both to be congruent... Won't look comfortable or even balanced for either type of standing figure, of course.

(Just piping back up to interupt the stribg of imbalanced quote-tagging. Absolutely not going to suggest bitplanes added to all garment graphics to define 'reverse-joint skew factor' to optionally apply to the visible layer of pixels. }

[Cruxador]

The one with four horns kind of looks like he had a headcrab on his shoulder. I wonder if it wouldn't be more readable to go with straight thin horns.

Nah, I didn't do the backwards joints, because that would change the positions too much. The hands, arms, legs and feet are always in one location for a purpose: Equipment.

Do these guys even use equipment? Or I guess these are the trolls. Definitely a shame, almost makes me wonder if it wouldn't be worth making the one with that trait always be pantsless.

Trolls, ogres, and humanoid experiments can definitely use equipment. I've seen humanoid experiments with 3 tails, but I haven't checked equipment specifically to see which monster are "animals" and which are "sapients".

Yeah, I was thinking about things from the troll update in general, really, though I guess my terminology was too limited. I don't think any of them would be too jarring if they're pantsless due to satyr legs, but I suppose it's a tradeoff as long as they continue to wear pants (or skirts or whatever) in-game. Either way it's wrong.

Of course, there's another question: Are we sure they're digitigrade? Toady usually uses the correct terminology where available, even when it doesn't have a traditionally fantasy feel. Maybe reverse joints is supposed to be like the backwards-handed rakshasas.

Is there still a lot to do for the graphical update? It seems like it's coming along pretty quickly.

The pace is lively but it's a huge job. And the stuff we're seeing now is only half of the update, the UI work is bound to be the bigger portion when it comes to code, since it's slated for a thorough overhaul and both Fortress and Adventure need as much UI as any game, and then there'll probably be stuff done for Legends, Arena, and Worldgen as well.

Plus, the more gets done, the more graphical functionality that's just over the horizon for us to hope for. They're planning on a minimum viable product for initial release, but since the graphics are the main thing people are paying for, that's still not a trivial threshold, and the UI especially needs to be polished enough that new players aren't turned away in confusion as has often been the case for the last fifteen years.

[PatrikLundell]

:

Is there still a lot to do for the graphical update? It seems like it's coming along pretty quickly.

The pace is lively but it's a huge job. And the stuff we're seeing now is only half of the update, the UI work is bound to be the bigger portion when it comes to code, since it's slated for a thorough overhaul and both Fortress and Adventure need as much UI as any game, and then there'll probably be stuff done for Legends, Arena, and Worldgen as well.

Plus, the more gets done, the more graphical functionality that's just over the horizon for us to hope for. They're planning on a minimum viable product for initial release, but since the graphics are the main thing people are paying for, that's still not a trivial threshold, and the UI especially needs to be polished enough that new players aren't turned away in confusion as has often been the case for the last fifteen years.

There are at least 3 different parts to the graphics:
1. Define and test out what to do and what will work (will probably be revisited several times). That's the current part.
2. Implement the functionality decided on properly, beyond quick hacks for testing out some concepts and to cover all the fiddly cases. Would obviously have to be revisited if changes result from revisits of part 1.
3. Fill the big functionality cavern dug out with actual images. The artists will continue with that work long after Toady has joined Threetoe with the "UI" work (quotes since it's not only presentation, but some underlying functionality as well). This will probably be continuing up to the finish line for the Premium release, and may well be continued afterwards with refinements and additions, if I've understood the comments on this forum correctly.

[Bumber]

So you're going with a simple darker shading for the stockpiles instead of the checkered WIP?

Both examples are in different environments, so I can't really say if one works better than the other. I would expect the simple shading to be less noticeable on something like an obsidian or gabbro floor. I suppose it doesn't really matter for the usual case of reasonably sized stockpiles, where you have the stockpile borders.