Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[penguinofhonor]

stuff

I like it, but I think that the "Empire" tab needs some serious renaming. Like "Information" or something. And Zones shouldn't be in it, because it's about viewing info. Zones should be in [d]esignate.

And you have to remember that each of the menus would have to have a keyboard shortcut for us mouse-haters. And I like my backgrounds the traditional gray, but this brown one still looks neat. Otherwise, I find this my favorite interface ever.

[Davion]

This might have been a waste of time but I like it :|

[MMad]

So, does anyone feel up to making a mockup of an isometric view? I'm curious about whether it could really work in practice, and drawing a mockup is one of the best ways to find out.

[Davion]

So, does anyone feel up to making a mockup of an isometric view? I'm curious about whether it could really work in practice, and drawing a mockup is one of the best ways to find out.

This mock-up gets passed around a lot, though it doesn't address a lot of things

[nornagon]

Here's a quick-hack mockup I just pencilled up in OpenGL.

The default view would be the normal top-down view, but with the added feature that lower levels are progressively darker (perhaps up to a point -- maybe 4-5 levels down should be visible, and beyond that is 'sky')


But when clicking and dragging on the map (or possibly with a keybinding to temporarily toggle to a fixed preset camera perspective)...


I just tacked the interface bits on in the gimp from a screenshot, so they're (obviously) not quite right... but they're not really relevant to my point

I've also left out the up/down arrows due to being lazy, but I think having them there would be a help -- they could even be angled in the oblique view.

[Omega2]

Now that looks interesting.

But since Sky is generally that teal-like color, why not make the levels further down that color as well instead of black, so people don't mistake it for chasms or just darkness? I think it would work great if the creatures and objects also showed up, so you can actually see the whole path for crossbow bolts being fired from one level to the other, or to get a real advantage settling on higher ground (you see any approaching enemies without having to change z-level), for example.

[nornagon]

But since Sky is generally that teal-like color, why not make the levels further down that color as well instead of black, so people don't mistake it for chasms or just darkness? I think it would work great if the creatures and objects also showed up, so you can actually see the whole path for crossbow bolts being fired from one level to the other, or to get a real advantage settling on higher ground (you see any approaching enemies without having to change z-level), for example.

The sky thing could also be easily done. Perhaps just put a 'transparent' sky tile over the lower-level tile, that gets more and more opaque as the depth increases.

My intention was for all structures/units to show up on the map, yeah... possibly with creatures 'hovering' slightly above the terrain to make them stand out. I'd really like to try my test app on real DF data, but I don't have an easy way of importing it at the moment.

[geggis]

But since Sky is generally that teal-like color, why not make the levels further down that color as well instead of black, so people don't mistake it for chasms or just darkness? I think it would work great if the creatures and objects also showed up, so you can actually see the whole path for crossbow bolts being fired from one level to the other, or to get a real advantage settling on higher ground (you see any approaching enemies without having to change z-level), for example.

The sky thing could also be easily done. Perhaps just put a 'transparent' sky tile over the lower-level tile, that gets more and more opaque as the depth increases.

My intention was for all structures/units to show up on the map, yeah... possibly with creatures 'hovering' slightly above the terrain to make them stand out. I'd really like to try my test app on real DF data, but I don't have an easy way of importing it at the moment.

Hmm, I love the initial top-down/faded levels image - that would work really well. And I like the idea of the sky becoming incrementally opaque as the view goes lower from the current z-level then after so many levels down it goes solid (black could be reserved for cliff faces, chasms etc. that lead underground). The sky teal colour could incrementally get more transparent to accommodate the underground darkness, then you'd know you were digging deeper and deeper. Bye bye skye.

[Tormy]

This is how an isometric game looks like. I am wondering can we see a graphic quality like this in DF If toady would decide to implent an isometric gfx engine one day? If not, we better stick to top-down 2d for good, thats quite decent, and easy to make graphics for it.

[Omega2]

And there's one problem with trying to implement DF in an isometric perspective: every tile has the same lenght and width, so walls and doors would be humorously thick. 

[Areyar]

hmm...looks nice. Would be very nice with a holdrightmouse=:pause, change angle with central tile as pivot. combined with arrow-scrolling.

But how are you going to show tunnels?
a +\- key to set more or less z-layers to be opague/see-through?

One feature I'd find usefull in this regard, would be a 'tunnel-vision' showing all 'inside' area as solid, while turning all else vague and see-through.

Brainstorming:
How about displaying creature-icons etc as diagonal pop-up-like sprites, with multiple creatures etc displayed in the opposite diagonal.
maybe states can be displayed above them, but this might become confusing in tunnels. unless an area of headspace is reserved above creatures, but below the ceiling.
rotation, squashing etc can be used to denote some states

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

status colours:
brown (prone) display sprite horizontal overlaying floortile
other status while prone sleeping/unconcious/paralysed/webbed display above or with usual alt.colour
purple (fighting) display fist or sword above unit, used weapon if possible.
blue (flying) display sprite horizontal, above floor.

something like so:
http://www.box.net/shared/vjmd6i5w8o
the prone unconcious elf has been rotated -90degrees AND squashed 50%.
The miner is attacking

[Davion]

And there's one problem with trying to implement DF in an isometric perspective: every tile has the same lenght and width, so walls and doors would be humorously thick. 

And unless certain creatures were multi-tiled, larger creatures such as dragons and colossi would be the same size as a dwarf and about as tall as a door.

[GlennS]

Some ideas that I think might work:

I would like to see mouse scrolling.  Push the mouse to the edges of the screen in full-screen mode, or click and drag to pan.

Clickable mini-map for instant jumping around.

Perhaps a left-click on an unknown underground tile should designate it for mining by default, while clicks on trees and herbs should designate those for chopping.  Actually make that a toggle (so click again would undesignate).

I think some things could be consolidated a bit: stockpiles and zones could probably be the same menu.  Meanwhile, construction and digging are sort of similar, but slightly different processes to these.  It would be good if they were all consistent with each other, so that once you've learned it once you know what to expect for the others.

Scroll-wheel zoom would be nice as well, but I suspect that's a bit much for the moment, so probably bind the scroll-wheel to Z-levels or lists by default.

I'd also like to see a sort of stockpile summary, showing what it contains at the moment.

The string-filter facility which was recently added to the dwarf language name selector is excellent.  It be useful everywhere else we have lists of stuff in text.

Left-click: context sensitive left-click action. 
Left-click-hold-drag: selection box? 
Right-click: context sensitive menu pop-up.
Right-click-hold-drag: pan the map.

Or, i've you've selected an action or mode to use (designating stuff excetera), then:
Left-click: perform action here.
Left-click-hold-drag: perform action in an area if applicable, otherwise ignore the silly user.
Right-click: cancel mode or action.
Right-click-hold-drag: pan the map.

And have a sort of context priority to decide what gets selected/menu opened in case of conflict:
1) Your creature
2) Enemy Creature
3) Item on ground or in stockpile (but probably not in normal room).
4) Room/stockpile (since creatures are usually smaller than rooms).
5) Trees/magma/water/whatever.
6) Tile

Actually, this has given me another idea: hyper-link like behaviour.  Suppose you've left-clicked to view a tile?  Perhaps the things listed in the tile view should also be clickable to select them for viewing.

With most of this, auto-pause functionality probably wouldn't be helpful.  Perhaps instead reserve one key to pause/unpause in any situation, and do nothing else.

Edit: while I'm having a bit of a brainstorm...
Some sort of view mode for the mouse while nothing is selected, so that whichever tile it's over is displayed.

This then implies we need a way to unselect stuff, but I've already used right-click for context menus, and you can't left-click off anything because the played might want information about anything, so every tile will have something you can select or do.  Gah, don't know how to fix this.

Right-click context menu should always include 'help' at the bottom.

Might be some use for double-clicking, e.g. pull a lever.

[numerobis]

Davion, this is awesome.

Minor thing: we don't really need the sidebar if we have the menu bar.

More importantly: How could the community get together to help generate that flowchart?  Make a wiki page, perhaps?  What data would be important?

[FlexibleDogma]

This is how an isometric game looks like. I am wondering can we see a graphic quality like this in DF If toady would decide to implent an isometric gfx engine one day? If not, we better stick to top-down 2d for good, thats quite decent, and easy to make graphics for it.

*REMOVED GFX*

Now that's an interesting looking game.  Is it any good?   (I figured out from the URL it seems to live @ http://www.daimonin.com/)