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[juhdanad]

Motivation:
As the graphical release comes out, I expect that more people will stream their gameplay on the Internet. Players understand what happens at z-level changes, as they press the corresponding key. But for viewers it is hard to tell if a z-level change is upwards or downwards. Giving a pleasant experience to them could persuade more people to try out the game.

Here is an example image:


For this I needed three images:

Image A: level 0	Image B: level 1 (only background, note the missing cobwebs and ogre)	Image C: level 1 (only current layer)

Going up:
First I render image A, then image B on top of it, then image C on top of them. The opacity of image B and C grows gradually from 0 to 100%. The position of image C also changes during the animation.
Going down is similar.

The advantage of this method is that it requires minimal modifications to the current rendering code (I suppose).
This is a simple effect, but the point is to make the game more understandable. I hope others will find it a good idea too, even just as a setting. Do you also think this can make the game more understandable, if implemented correctly? With proper animation speed, of course, otherwise it would be disturbing.

[Bumber]

Wouldn't this slow things down when you're just trying to scroll down a bunch of levels?

[Hl_Handgranate]

I like the idea - the gif convinces me, thanks for the effort. Would be nice for Let's Plays if it doesn't look too weird when scrolling 100 levels to your magma forge.

[voliol]

I think I would get nauseous if that played each time I scrolled levels.

[DwarfStar]

Wouldn't this slow things down when you're just trying to scroll down a bunch of levels?

You would definitely need to be able to still change z levels while the animation played. If you changed multiple a levels quickly you’d just see this effect blending the final z level with the previous one.

+1 for the suggestion!

[NEANDERTHAL]

What about an animation with less movement-- the tiles don't "shift" up/down, but they do fade smoothly in and out. This would feel more comfortable, and if someone wanted it faster, it would still look good. It's also less noticeable if the animation lags or skips.

[juhdanad]

What about an animation with less movement-- the tiles don't "shift" up/down, but they do fade smoothly in and out...

The whole point of this suggestion is that you can tell if you are going up or down. A fading animation without movement is the same in both directions, so unfortunately it is not enough.

I agree that this effect could be disturbing. It also does not fit to the "jumping" movement of the x-y plane and creatures. Maybe we should start a separate, more general thread, something like "Make z-level changes visually more intuitive". Others might have a better idea to achieve this goal.

[Moeteru]

I like this idea. It wouldn't bother me as long as it didn't restrict my ability to move through z levels quickly.

The only other animation that comes to mind is a fade-and-zoom effect. Imagine looking down on a stack of layers so the top ones appear larger than the bottom ones.
Moving up would make the layer above start out larger and shrink as it fades in. Moving down would make the current layer fade out as the one below grows to fill the screen.

[juhdanad]

...The only other animation that comes to mind is a fade-and-zoom effect.

Yes, thank you, that is the other idea. It is less disturbing as movement is only visible at the edge of the screen. What about something like this?

[DwarfStar]

I finally watched the last video update more closely, and it’s clear that the Steam version will have multi-z level rendering. The levels below the current level are drawn with a fog over them and they look great. To me that completely solves the OP problem of not being able to tell from watching whether the camera is going up or down.

Doing a nice blend when changing levels would still look pretty sweet, though. Could even have the fog distance change at a different speed.

[juhdanad]

Yes, fog is sufficient in most cases. However, my suggestion is mainly for underground fortress levels, as there are no visible fog,  since each level has a floor.

[A_Curious_Cat]

Why do the walls in your animations move left and right as you go up and down?

[NW_Kohaku]

I'd like to add my backing the notion that this would be unnecessary for most people playing the game on their own, who often are jumping between different z-levels fairly quickly, so this is best as an option for those who are those (likely very rare) few who are going to be DFTubers.  (At least, I sure move up and down a lot, I build much more vertical fortresses than a lot of others do.)

That said, the second example, with the "zoom in"/"zoom out" effect rather than the slide up/down effect is much less disorienting, and better gives the idea that you're moving "toward" the screen's axis (Z-axis) rather than just shifting along the Y-axis and having the walls rearrange for no reason.

[juhdanad]

Why do the walls in your animations move left and right as you go up and down?

I meant that as a zooming animation. As it gets closer, you see the layer grow in size.

[sanchezman]

Why not have a less-intrusive animation in, say, the top-right corner of the screen?  Maybe something like this: