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[Schmaven]

It looks like a fine windmill.  Since windmills have to first be designated to be built, the player should know it is a windmill once it has been constructed and generating power like this, and I imagine their first encounter with it would be something like, "Cool, the windmill moves in the wind"  Considering the top down view, it might make it more clear would be an extra frame or 2 of animation like has already been mentioned, but otherwise it certainly looks like a windmill.

[Bumber]

I don't know if these designs actually function.

[Cruxador]

Those overlapping shadows aren't accurate to how shadows actually work. One straightforward way to fix that would be to make shadows all just opaque as images, but then apply their layer at partial opacity.

I don't know if these designs actually function.

Well not as depicted there, certainly.

[Starver]

I don't know if these designs actually function.

(IANAExpert but...) Probably. In both designs there are struts across one or other side of each panel that seems to give sufficient freedom for the 'sail' to behave slightly different on each side of the rotation (and perhaps catch the wind sufficiently differently as they pass across the windward arc), so you'd probably get some torque. Maybe enough to overcome the output and transfer frictions.

Doesn't look as offset in this as it could be, but it's not totally impractical, and obviously balances against the need to (hand-?)render the graphics in a number of key-frames.

And even though the game-artists have access to CAD, and CFD modelling, they're depicting a world that doesn't and so it's probably better that it looks like it's been speculatively lashed together from staves, ropes and sailcloth in a 'good enough' manner than being too over-designed.

(Apart from any 'skill tree ladders' for upgrading resource buildings, and across playable civ variations, your very first windmill in a resource game will probably look identical to your hundredth. No finessing by your builder-class when you click to place a new resource building, based on lessons learnt from the prior one. Well, not in a game that isn't soecifically addressing that socio-innovative mechanic.)


I should shut up now. Sorry. Too much pondering on my part, recently. Carry on, everyone else!


(Being not artistic, myself, nor being asked to evaluate optical functionality, I of course ignored the issue just pointed out about the illumination patterns. )

[Uthimienure]

I don't know if these designs actually function.

They don't look very viable because like Starver posted, there is too much symmetry (only mitigated by the diagonal braces) so the wind would push nearly equally on two vanes at the same time, mostly cancelling out the rotation. If they work, they would be very inefficient as shown. No, I'm not a wind generator expert, but have been a mech. engineer for years.

[voliol]

Are the tree shadows representative of what's above, or are they just an arbitrary shadow for clarity?

As for the windmills I'm kind of unpartial about the designs, as none seem to work from a real-life-physics standpoint, and the player personally constructing windmills means that kind of confusion should largely be avoided, but you should avoid adding cloth to the sails as only logs are needed for the construction in-game.

A return to world maps is exciting!

[Meph]

I thought about the horizontal design, but the windmill in the game atm turns to face the wind direction. Toady clearly had the traditional windmill in mind, and that's why it follows that design.

Tree shadows are just a representation. Maybe they will take into account the top layers at some point, but trees are difficult. Mike is working wonders while getting a headache.

[Manveru Taurënér]

Would it work to perhaps have some very minor shadowing on the windmill when the shafts are in the diagonal position to show it's at an angle? Mainly the very middle wooden bits that feel too similar between positions.

[Cruxador]

I think windmills are just a case where top down isn't perfect, but not doing it top down would be a lot harder.

[Hommit]

Tree shadows are just a representation. Maybe they will take into account the top layers at some point, but trees are difficult. Mike is working wonders while getting a headache.

how hard would be to take rendered "leaves layer", turn it into mask and render it as shadow?

[Rose]

The issue is how many layers do you want to look upwards?

[Starver]

Assuming you want to put in shadows for anything up there, including overhead gantries you might have built up there out from nearby staircase stacks or between the peaks of various hills you may have fortified round, technically as far as the sky goes.

Though I'd suggest that shadow should only exist on the ground if, for every Z above the ground that an obstruction is, it has an equal X and Y spreading. A simple search up the Z stack and then out in ±X and ±Y should reveal what (if anything) might justify occultation. A narrow line of aerial flooring passing several Z over won't because the shadow diffuses/the sky illuminates round.

(Hard shadows that move according to the movements of the sun would be interesting, especially giving the opportunity to create a sundial, but it wouldn't work well in fortress mode, and you'd only see the effects when adventuring. So probably not worth troubling over.)

For trees, this would mean very little (if any) leaf-shadow for slender trees (thinking of Minecraft firs,vas a visual aid), but anything billowy and lower would at least have a tile or two of shodow surrounding the trunk base.

For my part, though, I don't see it as necessary for trees alone, just "anything up there" rendering, a continuation of what even vanilla uses when you're (for example) Z-scrolling up and down a dug-out pit of great depth with bridges traversing across various levels within it, some "sky" tiles in the middle (X, Y and Z) rendering differently according to what might be several Zs away. Just apply the same flavouring to ground graphics as well.

'Just'.  SMOP.

[Rekov]

I think the windmill needs a fin pointing away from the wind. It would help to clarify which way the windmill is pointing.

Based on how windmills look, it seems like the wind would be coming from the right. But because of how drag works, it would have to be coming from the left unless there were a fin to drag it toward the wind.

[Starver]

Instinctively, I saw the animation as having wind from the west, I must say.

A trailing vane (or fantail) would make sense if the wind direction varies, in game. But does it? If so, it must have started since I stopped seriously using them. I always assumed they were set up, solid, to the prevaing-and-eternal westerly/whatever.

[Uthimienure]

... but the windmill in the game atm turns to face the wind direction. Toady clearly had the traditional windmill in mind, and that's why it follows that design.