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[Manveru Taurënér]

1/4/7 feels a bit too bland/empty, rest an okay middle ground I guess if wanting to avoid "too distracting" (even though I'd personally prefer a lot more). Also some of the flowery/grassy stuff feels a bit too smudged/blurry (grassy bits in 6 and blue flowers in 8 in particular).

Edit: Oh, there's red flowers in picture 7, didn't even notice :s (stupid defective eyes).

Ah, right, the pictures posted on reddit were way clearer than the ones here, so ignore the bit about stuff being blurry.

[voliol]

Personally I really like #2 and #8, as in they are gorgeous. #3 kind of hurts my eyes, more than #4 which I think is excused by the fact that you can't do anything about the varied surface. #1, #5 and #7 are too flat, I'd argue it would be a waste of all those pretty grass-textures you've made. I wouldn't mind getting #5 or #7 though, if they turn out to be the most popular.

Also, I wonder, what are the green spherical "bushes"? You've shown them before, but I'd assumed them to be generic placeholder sprites for the above-ground crops. Now there are others though, like the strawberry plant, that are in a different style, so perhaps they are something else?

[Manveru Taurënér]

Reposting this link since there seems to have been some loss of quality somewhere in the other one:



Based on these images, yeah, looks really nice overall (except the first one which is just boring). For the grass patterns in particular, 5 and 7 feels like they have too big patches of samey stuff, which to me makes it more distracting as the patterns those patches form draw my attention too much, unlike the rest where it blends together into a much smoother "whole". Particularly like the last image, the flowers and everything is just gorgeous.

[socate]

#2 is varied without being "busy". Very nice.
#8 is a good option too.

You've definitely put some love into all of them though.

[ror6ax]

Thanks for taking time to refine the grass - since it's so abundant it is really affects the overall feel of the game.

Number 2 looks ok but lacking in some tiny colourful flowers present in 5,6 and 7.
3 looks like small rocks all over the place.
4 looks dry and bleak. I would restart the fort if I had to be looking at this. The colour of the mug cracks(?) is very weird, feels like pink chromatic aberrations in a cheap photography lens. Could you try adjusting the hue to something brown-yellowish?
5, 6 and 7 look nice.
Last one is a bit too much for my taste - with added vegetation it will be very busy and hard on the eye.

6 is *almost* so irregular/natural that I perceive it as a real field, not a chessboard of individual tiles. Really damn good.

How does autumn/winter grass look like?

While we are on this topic - what exactly are the grey tiles? Rock coming out onto the surface? They are a bit too artificial/lifeless for me, rock is usually partially covered with moss when it's found out in the open. It's also usually not that flat and has subtle colour variation.

[Starver]

Well, the obvious rocks are obvious and not flat (could be more licheny, if not mossy, but go too far and - like in real life - they blend in with the undergrowth and are a hazard to shins and toes amongst other bits of limb, etc). Unless I missed it, the 'flat' things are dried (bits of) pool, as distinct from the "mug (mud?) cracks" I take it are ungrassed soil-floors.

And if I've got any of that wrong, my apologies to the artist and use that as my own pointers as to what the next revisions might need to be...

[Rekov]

I know I'm probably an outlier here. I like variation. Dwarf Fortress has so many different types of grasses, and an embark site usually has a combination of these. I think if the different grasses looked subtly different (maybe not each individual grass, but you could group them reasonably), then that would provide enough visual variation.

As it is now, the plain grass with no variation at all looks too uniform to be natural, and it looks bland visually.

[Starver]

Just returning to my last post (written while outdoors, glare from the sun and a crashy-browser[1] not conducive for additional scrutiny) I'm wondering if #4 is a result of having liberally dumped water on flat ground, rather than natural pooling. Surviving/regrown grass (and boulders, vegetation), muddied ground (with some boulders, rarer bits of vegetation growing/grown after the flood) and ⅐th water (maybe ripples, might look like cracked-mud pool-bed to some?) yet to have evaporated.

It's a different treatment to various of the other 'mud' tiles. In #7 there's a 2x1 'pool' half water, half 'mud', but it looks more sandy/silt rippled exposed pool bottom, but it matches in outline a doubley-watered 2x1 (and single 'dried' tiles exactly match the full profile of single 'wet' ones, but that could be more the nature of the grass overflowing the edges from neighbouring tiles, as per that artistic development) so whatever water-feature it depicts I assume that's the dried-version in these others.

I'd love to run my loo(k)-cursor around to make sure I was correctly identifying the true nature of each tile...


[1] Although there's any number of things wrong with the latest update for Android Firefox (since they did away with the tabs, which I hate), it's just when I scroll over the post(s) with eight landscape images in a row that I've found that it's been closing on me. Might have been better to have done "(spoiler=grassland 1)(img)grass1.png(/img)(/spoiler)(spoiler=grassland 2)(img)grass2.png(/img)[...]", especially as it'd be easier to find out which number I am looking at, and which one someone else is referring to...

[Cruxador]

EDIT: Since I did a text wall, I did a TL;DR at the end with the main points.

If I'm not mistaken, people who see these as "options" have misunderstood; other than the first (which shows what's currently in the version used for promotional stuff) these are a variety of different places in the game that occur naturally, with different species of already-tiled grasses, not types of things but representations of what's already there.

The ramp does look a bit odd, I think a freestanding 4-way ramp would fit better there.

Anyhow, what do you guys think about the grass? We cut back on the more varied grasses after some worries about it looking too distracting. We haven't really touched them since, but now I think it's time to revisit that area. Here the look of the current sprites. There would be some variation added with lighter/darker tiles, just like the grass in the latest screenshots/video.

Spoiler: images hidden for ease of thread reading (click to show/hide)

I think that categorically, these grasses look good (aside from the first, which is terribly boring). Although there's always something to quibble over*, I can across the board say that I like the grass tiles. As far as distracting goes, they're far less of a problem than two other elements common here. Firstly, the terrain variation. This is probably the fault of not having different grass tiles for different thicknesses of grass, which would be cool but probably more work than is reasonable... Although there's the gameplay argument that it's relevant information for pastures. However, the contrast between multiple types of terrain, especially in the 4th image, where there's three types all in high prominence, is visually rather annoying and definitely exceeds the "distraction" element of grasses by orders of magnitude. It's really quite bad, and since I don't think there's really a good solution, it's fortunate that these landscapes are kind of rare.

EDIT: Thinking about it more, I wonder how much could be achieved just by removing the hard dark line which delineates the different types of terrain. /edit

The other thing that looks not so right is the bushes in image 6. The hard black lining isn't a big problem in 1 or 6, where there's few of them, and in 4 it's even kind of necessary due to the general visual chaos, but when there's a ton of them, it looks bad. Although depending on how many you've done already this could be a very a big thing so I'm hesitant to recommend it, it might be a good idea to do plants without the black line. Of course, this is subjective, since the more contrast there is, the more you emphasize that it can be picked, but I feel like with the current aesthetic, it's almost to the point where they must be picked in order to have a nice looking yard. I would consider a more muted linework as in the saplings and the other bushes to be more appropriate. Though, maybe this is already known and just not implemented and I'm saying useless things.

But yeah, with regards to the grass, they look great, I thought they were basically good before despite having nits to pick, and they look great in game. I was worried that they wouldn't capture the way that vanilla, despite being ASCII, was able to capture the beautiful effect you feel when al the flowers bloom in spring, but I think it should be fine.

Reposting this link since there seems to have been some loss of quality somewhere in the other one:

Spoiler: as before, shrinking the image (click to show/hide)

Based on these images, yeah, looks really nice overall (except the first one which is just boring). For the grass patterns in particular, 5 and 7 feels like they have too big patches of samey stuff, which to me makes it more distracting as the patterns those patches form draw my attention too much, unlike the rest where it blends together into a much smoother "whole". Particularly like the last image, the flowers and everything is just gorgeous.

I don't see any blur, I think what you're seeing is actually reduced saturation. It's especially apparent in the yellow flowers of the bushes, but you can clearly see the difference in all of the non-white flowers, really. I find both of them to be tolerable on a screen that boosts saturation and contrast (the kind commonly optimized for movies and gaming) although the aesthetic appeal of the non-white flowers is largely lost, but viewed on a more muted screen, as is usually intended for computing, reading, and similar, I agree that the one posted here is woefully dreary and indistinct in comparison. I still think it's basically okay, but especially the red flowers in 5 and the lavender flowers in 8 are really sad.

4 looks dry and bleak. I would restart the fort if I had to be looking at this. The colour of the mug cracks(?) is very weird, feels like pink chromatic aberrations in a cheap photography lens. Could you try adjusting the hue to something brown-yellowish?

I live somewhere that spends a lot of time dry, I think the issue really is just the amount of contrast.
5, 6 and 7 look nice.

Last one is a bit too much for my taste - with added vegetation it will be very busy and hard on the eye.

I see where you're coming from, but I think it's down to that single grass type. Since magenta tends to be very vivid on computer screens, it would make sense to darken it a fair amount. That luminosity change might also correspond to a saturation change but I don't think that's where the issue is.

3 looks like small rocks all over the place.

I feel like this perception may stem in part from the fact that literally everything else in that color range in image 3 is a rock... Although depending on your screen settings, what Meph posted originally definitely looks a lot less flower-like than the version Manveru linked.

While we are on this topic - what exactly are the grey tiles? Rock coming out onto the surface? They are a bit too artificial/lifeless for me, rock is usually partially covered with moss when it's found out in the open. It's also usually not that flat and has subtle colour variation.

They're rocks, yeah. You can see them in classic DF too but they don't stand out as much because they're just a different color but the display is still mostly black. One thing to keep in mind with regards to moss is that DF does model it, so adding it to stuff that doesn't have moss is misleading. You can argue that these things really should have moss, and I would agree, but it's a gameplay issue rather than graphics. Lichen doesn't exist in DF as far as I'm aware, so that would arguably avoid this issue, but that's definitely something for Toady to weigh in on rather than something that should be decided on a purely graphical basis.

I know I'm probably an outlier here. I like variation. Dwarf Fortress has so many different types of grasses, and an embark site usually has a combination of these. I think if the different grasses looked subtly different (maybe not each individual grass, but you could group them reasonably), then that would provide enough visual variation.

As it is now, the plain grass with no variation at all looks too uniform to be natural, and it looks bland visually.

I only took a cursory look at the reddit thread so far, but you really don't seem to be an outlier. Even though Meph led the discourse a bit** by talking about the "distracting" problem of the past, a whole lot of folks have been expressing satisfaction with what's currently on display, with relatively limited caveats.

(bamboo is going to be a challenge, though, given that it doesn't look like a lawn or pasture in real life).

I feel like this may be rooted in misconception. Although large bamboos are best known due to being particularly unique and charismatic among grasses, there are plenty which stick to the the small meadow-like scales appropriate for a DF grass, outside the realm of landscaping. The first five or so in this reference gallery are broadly suitable, I reckon: https://imgur.com/gallery/iI5EEJa


TL;DR:
• Looks good
• Saturation in the reddit post is better across monitor types
• Contrast between terrain types is excessive, might improve just by removing the dark lines, which did seem to help in my mockup
• Black lines on harvestable plants are probably too intense
• Magenta flowers in 8 could benefit from less luminosity on some screens




*In this case, image two has shadows for flowers that aren't blooming. And there are some specific cases where the transition between types of grass is imperfect, though probably unavoidable within reasonable constraints, as these are grasses which don't really bunch up. Addressing this is a rabbit hole that could eat near-infinite time for only marginal benefit.
**Not a criticism; it's a necessary measure to get useful feedback.

[Uthimienure]

For the grass, my votes are #2, 6, 8.   

[Dishmab]

 being a dwarfy game, i see the surface as a tangled mess, so it does not bother me to see it look that way, if you get what i mean... I would like to see sprites that depict to the best of their ability what the game says. The variation of tiles can help bring the game to life. there should be some uniformity to what plants are in a biome, but that seems like more of a coding thing.

[MoltenIdol]

Deleted

[MoltenIdol]

Depends on if they can parse what's going on in the image I guess, to me at least it just looks really weird.

At the very least there should be shading between the ramp and the hall, like there is at the bottom of the ramps.

This. + 1

Also, the Idea of lichen plants helping the transition between terrain sounds good, even though that means making a whole new plant.

Im thinking tho, as a purely graphical solution, would it be possible to have all tiles, that are next to a grass tile, have a little bit of grass on them, spreading out from the neighbouring grass tile?
If you understand my meaning.

Regarding what grass looks better, i personally enjoy looking at #2, and #8, their subtle variation is good. It is not distracting,, but clear enough to notice that there is a variation in grass types. I like that.
Also, #2 and #8 are the least "flat" looking ones.
The grass seems unkempt and of varying heights, but generally pretty tall and dense.
Id say #2 is probably the best, as it seems just a tad less busy somehow.

Obviously, #1 takes the place for the most uniform. and flat looking.

[Starver]

Also, the Idea of lichen plants helping the transition between terrain sounds good, even though that means making a whole new plant.

I mentioned lichen, but not at all in that context.

Im thinking tho, as a purely graphical solution, would it be possible to have all tiles, that are next to a grass tile, have a little bit of grass on them, spreading out from the neighbouring grass tile?

This we have (mild overlap, breaking up the grid). Do you mean more so?

[MoltenIdol]

Also, the Idea of lichen plants helping the transition between terrain sounds good, even though that means making a whole new plant.

I mentioned lichen, but not at all in that context.

Im thinking tho, as a purely graphical solution, would it be possible to have all tiles, that are next to a grass tile, have a little bit of grass on them, spreading out from the neighbouring grass tile?

This we have (mild overlap, breaking up the grid). Do you mean more so?

Cruxador also mentioned lichen, in the context of easing the transition between tiles

Yes, i realize the grass tiles overlap, which is great. I was thinking, some small patchy pixels of green, spreading out from the grass tiles, on to neighbouring dirt and stone etc.
So it doesnt go from "all gras" to "Zero grass" in such an instant. Let It fade into eachother, blur the lines Even more.


If you ever tried playing around with the Warcraft III World Editor,  you might remmember placing grass-textures on a fresh map. Warcraft III was all squares as well, but they had some interesting and effective ways of hiding that with textures.
Of course, the grass would overlap into other tiles, like here, but they also had different versions of the same grasstype, with varying grass-density, that you could place to ease the transition between dirt tiles and grass tiles, using the half dirt/half grass tiles, thus bluring the lines even more.
I was thinking this could be achieved, but purely as a graphical overlay, not as a new type of grass tile.

Just a thought