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[Drakale]

My only gripe with the fog is that it will conflict with the representation of actual fog/miasma in the game. But those are rare enough that it's hardly an issue.

The blur one does a better job of conveying height, but might get hard on the eyes after a while...

I can't decide which one i like best 

[chucks]

Well, the different types of things that would also be represented by fog could be shown with different image effects.

For water and magma, you could have an image that easily represents liquid.  Some sort of semi-transparent tile with little waves on the top could be used for this, and the transparency would still allow you to see items or structures that are submerged in the liquid.  Also, water could be various shades of blue, magma shades of orange or bright red, and blood shades of dark red.

For miasma and mist, you could have an image that easily represents gases or clouds.  There's a ton of random clipart of the 'fluffy white cloud' variety that could be used for this purpose.  These could be semi-transparent in the same way as liquids, so you could still see whatever items or structures are enveloped in the mist/miasma.  Mist could be white or a very light shade of grey, and miasma could be either purple or a sickly green color.

[Exponent]

As a developer, I would certainly prefer the fog rather than the blur.  The fog is much easier to implement, and is going to require less processing and work on older video cards more reliably.

Also, with blurring, the distinction between levels is hard to notice, and it very quickly gets very hard to notice the deeper you go (at some point, it all looks more or less equally blurry), unless you really crank the blur level up significantly for each z-level change.  But doing so also increases the performance cost significantly, if I'm thinking correctly.

With fog, it is easier to see each z-level change, and until you've reached the level where the fog causes a complete lack of visibility, the visual change between each z-level is pretty consistent regardless of depth.  And regarding concerns about how it looks, and how it might interfere with in-game elements such as water, smoke, or miasma, I think a careful selection of colors and translucencies can largely remedy that problem.  For example, water could be clearly blue, and moderately translucent.  Miasma could be clearly purple, and moderately to highly translucent.  Smoke could be gray and only somewhat translucent.  And the depth fog could fit in by being gray (maybe with a bit of blue) and highly translucent.  Since it isn't strongly blue, nor is it's opacity as high as water's opacity, it wouldn't be easily mistaken for water.  Nor would it be mistaken for smoke for similar reasons.  And miasma would just look quite different from them all by being purple.

[Wrote this before chucks; those suggestions for distinguishing among gas/liquid/fog types sounds potentially better than mine, though the idea remains the same.]

[PTTG??]

I can't say much, but I can say that Fatwall is more consistent to DF's engine. I'd prefer that.

[chucks]

As a developer, I would certainly prefer the fog rather than the blur.  The fog is much easier to implement, and is going to require less processing and work on older video cards more reliably.

Also, with blurring, the distinction between levels is hard to notice, and it very quickly gets very hard to notice the deeper you go (at some point, it all looks more or less equally blurry), unless you really crank the blur level up significantly for each z-level change.  But doing so also increases the performance cost significantly, if I'm thinking correctly.

With fog, it is easier to see each z-level change, and until you've reached the level where the fog causes a complete lack of visibility, the visual change between each z-level is pretty consistent regardless of depth.  And regarding concerns about how it looks, and how it might interfere with in-game elements such as water, smoke, or miasma, I think a careful selection of colors and translucencies can largely remedy that problem.  For example, water could be clearly blue, and moderately translucent.  Miasma could be clearly purple, and moderately to highly translucent.  Smoke could be gray and only somewhat translucent.  And the depth fog could fit in by being gray (maybe with a bit of blue) and highly translucent.  Since it isn't strongly blue, nor is it's opacity as high as water's opacity, it wouldn't be easily mistaken for water.  Nor would it be mistaken for smoke for similar reasons.  And miasma would just look quite different from them all by being purple.

[Wrote this before chucks; those suggestions for distinguishing among gas/liquid/fog types sounds potentially better than mine, though the idea remains the same.]

Great minds think alike.

Also, proud megalomaniacs, like yours truly, always think they're great.

[Solifuge]

Looks aside, a gradual Fogging effect is much easier to achieve than a gradual Blurring effect. On that note, I think a non-saturated Fog tone such as Black or Dark Grey would work best for the coloration, since both would "wash out" and draw attention away from the Background.

[Footkerchief]

Looks aside, a gradual Fogging effect is much easier to achieve than a gradual Blurring effect. On that note, I think a non-saturated Fog tone such as Black or Dark Grey would work best for the coloration, since both would "wash out" and draw attention away from the Background.

For anyone interested in prior discussion and top-down mockups of depth effects (including darkening, fogging, scaling and blurring), check out this thread.

[Lap]

Arguing on the actual depth effects seem pretty pointless as the effects themselves should take a relatively insignificant time to make. Which means anyone should be able to just go to the options menu and select one of the many options.

[chucks]

Which means anyone should be able to just go to the options menu and select one of the many options.

That's a very nice idea.  Also, layering of the different depth effects and what order the effects are applied as a configuration option sounds SWEET.

[Tormy]

There you go:

Ok, this looks much better than the blurred image. 

[Silverionmox]

That's looking good. We could let the colour depend on the amount of light available: chasms would be steadily darkened, towers would be brightened.

That makes me think: the angle could be looking up instead of looking down. Another tileset would be necessary, of course, but it's the only way to display the marvelous vaulted ceilings we make.

[QuakeIV]

There you go:

Ok, this looks much better than the blurred image. 

A different color, it looks submerged.

[qwertyuiopas]

From a programming point of view, how about a simple two-stage rendering: one at 100% alpha, REVERSE DRAWING ORDER, and then overlay it with "regular" drawing order, ~50% alpha.
A semi-hidden dwarf, the transparent dwarf is not visible, as it matches the regular one, but a transparent wall would reveal some parts behind it.

Better: on the first pass, only draw terrain, and on the second(transparency) pass, draw non-terrain fully opaque.

[QuakeIV]

hey mayday you still into this idea?

[LegoLord]

I can't say much, but I can say that Fatwall is more consistent to DF's engine.

Structurally, yes, but not visually.  When you have a T-shaped formation of walls, the wall tile at the cross section looks like a T as well.  Walls are also represented by two lines on either side of a thick line of black, with some space between the edge of the tile and the lines as well.  Fat wall at the moment seems to lack the ability to portray the walls the same way the game does (but from a different viewpoint and with different texture, naturally).  Instead, each section of wall (regardless of position) is represented by the same cube.  This would result in anything other than rectangular structures looking as though made of blocks.  In an ASCII view, this isn't so bad (plus diagonal wall tilesets can  help with that).  But in isometric (which I imagine might be harder to mod the graphics of), in which you can see multiple levels of such a thing, it looks less appealing.  Just look at any 3D visualization of a round structure, or even one with diagonal walls.  Some sort of "corner smoothing" option might help with this issue.

in short:  Fat wall is nice but we should be able to smooth out the corners.