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That's right

That is right

[therahedwig]

Actually, I just wanted to make granite look like granite.


See, it's speckled. So are diorite and gabbro. They're slightly differently speckeled, but that would've been too little for me to actually show the difference, so I swapped th colour.
I suposse I could remove the speckles, but then granite wouldn't look like granite anymore, but like greyish stone #23, and decreasing the contrast will make it so that people will see the speckles as part of the shading, removing any kind of shape from the object, making it full-on noise.

Another part of the problem is that I like making a big fucking mess out of my bedroom section.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Workshop section.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Have some smoothed jail while we're at it too.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, using stonsense with wine makes things glitch, hence why there's glitchy things.

Also, Jadeal, I disagree with the notion that people dislike the superbright grass because of the noise. I say that people disliked the superbright grass because it's nuclear green. It catches too much attention compared to all other elements.

Anyway, I do really appreciate the critique. I'll try seeing if I perhaps should remove the speckles from the 'ceiling' parts of the walls AND/OR the floors, making a bigger difference between them, increasing visibility, while still retaining some speckels on the sides of the walls.

[Footkerchief]

Actually, I just wanted to make granite look like granite.

Spoiler: image (click to show/hide)

See, it's speckled. So are diorite and gabbro. They're slightly differently speckeled, but that would've been too little for me to actually show the difference, so I swapped th colour.
I suposse I could remove the speckles, but then granite wouldn't look like granite anymore, but like greyish stone #23, and decreasing the contrast will make it so that people will see the speckles as part of the shading, removing any kind of shape from the object, making it full-on noise.

That's what it looks like up close, but most things are speckled if you look close enough.  Here's an actual granite wall.  Note that the variations in the rock's color are no more pronounced than the light-and-shadow contrast created by the rock's texture:



And as your viewing point gets farther away from a wall, the contrasts become more muted and homogeneous.  Those speckles are what you'd see if you looked at a single chunk of rock up close, not if you looked at many far-away rocks.

Even if your depiction were realistic in that sense, it still wouldn't be a good idea.  A realistic texture stops looking realistic when it's tiled 1000 times.  Realistic rocks have macrostructure, not just a single pattern repeated over and over.  That's what makes your tiles noisy -- one tile might convey useful information, but the other 999 are just a redundant distraction.  Their eye-grabbingness is way out of proportion to the amount of useful information that they convey.

[therahedwig]

But it's not about realism, it's about someone being able to recognise granite when confronted with it. I mean, I could get away by taking the generic graphics and putting 'G' for granite on them, but then I would end up with a set only usefull for english speakers, because not all materials are named the same in every language.

Also, I'm a videogame artist in training, so you won't have to link to things like 'contrast' and horribly tiling textures, if that saves you time.

[Footkerchief]

it's about someone being able to recognise granite when confronted with it.

That's why I said:

That's what makes your tiles noisy -- one tile might convey useful information, but the other 999 are just a redundant distraction.  Their eye-grabbingness is way out of proportion to the amount of useful information that they convey.

I agree that it's cool and useful for players to be able to recognize granite.  Your tiles accomplish that, but they also detract from the comprehensibility of the image as a whole.  I think you could strike a much better balance by using subtler visual cues.

[Rose]

Personally, when I look at that granite, I see a stone wall over-run by cockroaches or ants or something.

[therahedwig]

Well, I'm first going to experiment a bit further, with removing the speckles from either the top sides or removing it from the wall sides, to see if it looks better, before completely removing the speckles. I think that if I have to remove the speckles completely, I will have to make sure the other greyish stone will look different from the ingenous intrusive ones.

[jonask84]

Hi guys, happy new years

It's good to be back at the computer again, Christmas has been a little crazy.
Gonna be nice to sit down and play a little bit again.

@therahedwig: I love the work you've been doing, these screenshots you posted look pretty great. I'm particularly a fan of the grass. If you ask me it's better contrast than what we used to have (especially with snow). I'm really excited to see how your graphics pack turns out. BTW, did you check out the Stonesense Content Repository over at the DF wiki?

Japa, what do you think about merging in at least the grass for now? I'm gonna try it when I get home but the pics looks pretty promising.

[forsaken1111]

Would it be possible to have the sprites change based on the season?

How cool would it be to have grass wither in autumn and winter? Trees drop leaf piles when autumn hits then are bare during the winter... etc.

[Rose]

the problem with that, is that they will still drop leaves if you play in a tropical climate.

[forsaken1111]

the problem with that, is that they will still drop leaves if you play in a tropical climate.

Perhaps a way to detect the climate from the biome data? I know it sounds complicated but I think it would add a lot to the visual presentation if you could see the seasons change.

[Jadael]

Maybe base it on a combination of temperature and season, so in hotter areas it doesn't die.

[Dante]

The problem then is that it's easy enough to generate maps with hugely different biomes. Snow next to hot desert, etc. So then you either have to check each individual tile's temperature value, or you have to work out an average over the map.

[forsaken1111]

The problem then is that it's easy enough to generate maps with hugely different biomes. Snow next to hot desert, etc. So then you either have to check each individual tile's temperature value, or you have to work out an average over the map.

Shouldn't the biome's general information be stored somewhere? Freezing/Cold/Temperate/Hot/Scorching etc

I really don't know, just an idea.

[Rose]

individual tile temperatures are in stonesense. if you enable debug mode, you can see them.

[Dante]

individual tile temperatures are in stonesense. if you enable debug mode, you can see them.

Ok. I just assumed that having to keep checking every tile on the map to update the tile contents based on temperature would be extremely processor-intensive.