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That's right

That is right

[neek]

I'd say start with number 3 and part of number 2; have material be reflected in construction and natural occuring places. It sucks building a road, and not really seeing in Stonesense. This can then make detailed workshops a little easier work with. Transitioned effects would be nice, but they aren't entirely necessary at the moment.

[jugglervr]

I'd vote for tile transitions over the other two.
Also: i was a little surprised to not see piles of stuff at my depots.
also: i noticed that SS cut off ~4-5 squares of the edge of my map (i've built right to the edge).

not sure if these are known "features" but i thought i'd mention it.

[Footkerchief]

Which of the following features would you most like to see first?

Those are all really good areas to work on.  3 is important for completeness, 1 would look gorgeous.

[Retro]

I vote #3 hands down, although I imagine it'd unfortunately be the least interesting for you. All I want is for the things I build in DF to be the same colour when I view them in Stonesense, really ( and metal ramps!! :3 ); I tried my own hand at proper colouration earlier in the week but  I just got a new laptop with Windows 7 (blugh, used to have XP) and they've reformed Paint into something wholly unfamiliar and unnavigable to me, at least for a few weeks. As for #2, I don't care so much for workshops but having more other constructions never hurts.

And of course tile transitions are always super sexy. It's just a matter of transparencies and overlay orders, right?

[Solifuge]

My plan for transitions was actually going to involve each boarder being unique, rather than an alpha-fade effect. Since we're working in Iso, it's a bit tougher, but the idea is to make an 8x4 pixel sub-tile for each type of transition, and layer that over the topmost surface of each tile. There would be a sub-tile for each edge (N/S/E/W) and for each transitional pairing (Grass Tile next to Water, Water Tile next to Grass, Sand Tile next to Loam, etc.) and these would be assembled to make each transition.

[quinnr]

Tile transitions. Nao!

[CobaltKobold]

Alright, I'm about to embark on another tile-spriting binge, and amidst all the things I'd like to do, I need to figure out where to start. Which of the following features would you most like to see first?

1) Tile Transitions:
Instead of having sharp tile edges, use smooth transitions from one texture to the next on the boarder. I'm thinking loose sand spilling out onto cracks in stone, tall marshgrass growing into a muddy-edged pond, rocky cliffside overhangs, and other pixely filligree. It's a lot of work, and may take time to integrate, but it would make things look far less blocky.
- Theoretical 2D Example:


2) Complete Workshops/Constructions:
Full tileset for all Workshops and Constructions, remastered and done to reflect the materials they're made of, and walkable tiles. Also, get rid of the Generic Yellow Cube siege engines, etc.
- More stuff like this:


3) Complete, Colorized Material Tiles, Floors, and Ramps (Natural or Constructed):
Full bank of tile textures, with recoloring as appropriate. Textured and colored ramps for all materials. Proper transparency effects for glass/ice. Multiple tile textures for grass, stone, water, etx. so large patches of a given material look more natural.
- (Example Forthcomming)

--
P.S. Jonas, do you think we might update the poll to reflect this?

3>2>1

About 1, you do realize you're going to need to do that for all ramp shapes to get it to work properly? This is a place where 3d 'isualisers get it easier.

Also, if you're not too busy, could you do a vertical, diagonal, undithered (it's easy to add later) 36tall 64wide water face? er. Lemme diagram so you can fill in, one moment.
Looks like...36w20h? Also lava.

Oh, or another spriter could. But I'm rubbish at creating new sprites.
(purpose: Cohesion/adhesion spritegen, I can steal the other faces from the extant sprites...though, lava sides need work.)

[Solifuge]

I'd be happy to help, but I'm a bit confused by what you're looking for, Cobalt... are you looking for a "ramp" shape, like water flowing downhill toward the viewer's perspective? What's it for exactly?

Which reminds me, another tile that needs to happen is Water/Magmafalls: Just set one of the 4 vertical faces (the one in the direction the water is flowing from) as the "bottom" and do 1-7 "depth" levels horizontally. Different texture too, but it should look okay.

[CobaltKobold]

I'd be happy to help, but I'm a bit confused by what you're looking for, Cobalt... are you looking for a "ramp" shape, like water flowing downhill toward the viewer's perspective? What's it for exactly?

Which reminds me, another tile that needs to happen is Water/Magmafalls: Just set one of the 4 vertical faces (the one in the direction the water is flowing from) as the "bottom" and do 1-7 "depth" levels horizontally. Different texture too, but it should look okay.

Vertical face but diagonal (NE/SW, is it?) And this is for that[fixing pancake waterfalls], but broader-thinking. Where did I put my cohesion pseudocode...oh, there.

...I suppose making new faces for that and the two straight displayed sides as "falling water" (and magma) would be also possibly useful.

...argh can't find the magma/water sprites of present. I think I have the old ones somewhere... Found them. Also, you already drew the waterfall faces, though 32x32...look in the older of your mockup tilesets.
edit: added link

But yeah, those vertical lines on the sides of the current magma are kind of blargh.

[Solifuge]

They're meant to show heated (bright) material moving vertically in a magma vent, doubling as flow-lines for a lavafall... but I agree on the fuglyness. I want to touch up so many of the textures and make them look better, but I've been trying to keep myself from doing that lest I make no progress whatsoever. I'm probably going to touch it up anyway, if flow textures get animated at some point.

Spoiler: The Reference Photograph (and yes, it's real) (click to show/hide)

CK, I'm currently working on remastering the water tile with something a bit different. Once I get it done, I'll start on your request. I like the idea of the vertical waterfall flows, but if you've got a solution it might wind up being a more elegant one.

[CobaltKobold]

Well, it doesn't work so well for static, nonfalling magma, which there's sure to be much of in established forts.
The solution is one something like the ramp code, checking neighboring(UDNSEW) tiles for the same liquid (water if water, lava if lava) or walls and, possibly using the seventh bit for ground underneath separately from water underneath.

Waterfalls aren't going to look nice until you make the lesser tiles adhere and possibly cohere (since the code and art are going to be so similar). Check six five- way-occupancy(NSEWUD) for (solid) and (water), choose art based on that and 'depth'. Then, a waterfall will cling to the surface it's falling along, and you won't get the "pancake effect". Of course, one can take this anywhere from simple (is_occupied, 448 arts maximum) to crazy (checking each adjacent tile's answer to this algorithm) in terms of code and art to sink into it.

It'll be a hell of a lot faster to just render these things than to draw, that's for certain.

Spoiler: Degenerating cases... (click to show/hide)

E = ESN, W = WSN, S = SEW, N = NEW

actually, hmm. What re the important cases we can get away with doing? Waterfalls aren't guaranteed orthogonal, so the waterfall cases of eight directions plus the shower case (water to up, no solids adjacent). Can fairly ignore the wide showers, as multiple streams won't look that bad. Hmm...how much trouble could we be in in the crazy... 7^6 = 117649

Perhaps this is not the visualiser for the grand water treatment. Still, fixing the pancake effect is easy to fix in six cases (take 7/7 tile, move a different surface away from its edge gradually to make 6-1, or notice that certain diagonals are parallel to the view for the two easy diagonls) and reasonable in the other two (need a flat-to-viewer surface to use)...

Code: [Select]

//where are my tri-state bitmatch operators when I need them. Should be able to generate a LUT for this, but this is easier for me to read.

if (depth == 7)
   tileindex=normal_tile;//no biasing on a full tile, skip checking.
else
directions_occ = directionmask;
switch(directions_occ){
/*
case __UDNSWE
0 = unoccupied, 1 = occupied by wall or at least 1 water
U/D case is pretty much "is there a floor here/above here" bridges...ugh, bridges would be difficult. But they're in setting directions_occ, not using its results.
*/
case 00xx0001:
case 00xx1101: tileindex=cling_east;break;//E!NSW ~ NSE!W. Can be changed later if/as more art arises.
case 00xx0010:
case 00xx1110: tileindex=cling_west;break;//W!NSE ~ NSW!E, "
case 00xx0100:
case 00xx0111: tileindex=cling_south;break;//S!NEW ~ SEW!N, "
case 00xx0101: tileindex=cling_southeast;break;
case 00xx0110: tileindex=cling_southwest;break;
case 00xx1000:
case 00xx1011: tileindex=cling_north;break;//N!SEW ~ NEW!S, "
case 00xx1010: tileindex=cling_northwest;break;
case 00xx1001: tileindex=cling_northeast;break;
case 00010000:
case 00011111: tileindex=normal_tile;break;
case 00100000:
case 00101111: tileindex=invert_tile;break;
case 0011xxxx: tileindex=trickle_tile;break;
default: tileindex=normal_tile;break;}
grab_tile(tile, depth);


a thought. What's stonesense do right now in the ramp+water case?  Ramps would present an easy(Ha) case of stealing their calculations and surfaces.

edit: Can't for the life of me remember (or find) what the "this number is binary" prefix for C++ is, or if it exists. 0b?

But, this reminds me of the issue of ramp tiles with water. Which would take rather many sprites, unless you figure out something.

Anyone know how it works presently? I suspect "it doesn't" due to neither binary draworder working nicely- cyclical overlap.

Given prior optimisations in the ramp code I'm sure you'd use a LUT instead of the pseudocode suggestions I wrote above.

But, if we ignore the ramps for now, then one can get away with a mere 60 new sprites. You'd only need draw 6 really once you get that diagonal face drawn, as prisms would do for all but the TRICKLE_TILE case (that is, water falling that has no adjacent walls) and those prisms can simply be drawn by C+Ping the faces and cropping and such.

Of course this is really a probllem you can throw an arbitrary quantity of sprites at.

On the side, my calculations put

Sevenths	Sixteenths nearest	Height used in spritesheet presently
?		0
1/7	2/16	2
2/7	5/16	4
3/7	7/16	7
4/7	9/16	10
5/7	11/16	13
6/7	14/16	16

[kaypy]

1) Tile Transitions:

Hrm. I can see this being a nightmare on the code side... Or at very least slowing the display down by a significant chunk... I could be wrong, but take it as a 'here be dragons' label 8-)

2) Complete Workshops/Constructions:
Full tileset for all Workshops and Constructions, remastered and done to reflect the materials they're made of, and walkable tiles. Also, get rid of the Generic Yellow Cube siege engines, etc.

I would dearly love to get rid of those last yellow boxes. My attempts at siege engines have been too sucky to even contemplate adding though. (Hmm. I think we still don't have directionality for buildings yet, but we could at least have a siege engine pointing some arbitrary direction)

Updating the workshops will be a rather non-trivial configuration exercise: the current ones are more optimized for configurability than for looking good... (OTOH, I haven't been making much progress elsewhere recently, so it might be the perfect time for a nice simple-but-slow config exercise)

3) Complete, Colorized Material Tiles, Floors, and Ramps (Natural or Constructed):

Again I would be worried about just how much the additional textures will slow things down. Has anyone set up the full Jadael set to compare the speeds?

Oh, and something else you may want to consider is checking out the item display branch- a whole bunch of the sprites there are decidedly 'first pass'. (Its pretty close to ready to go- I need to look at getting DFHack updated in the trunk first, and have been holding off because I wasn't really sure what I was doing there)

[Untelligent]

3) Complete, Colorized Material Tiles, Floors, and Ramps (Natural or Constructed):
Full bank of tile textures, with recoloring as appropriate. Textured and colored ramps for all materials. Proper transparency effects for glass/ice. Multiple tile textures for grass, stone, water, etx. so large patches of a given material look more natural.

When the colors for metals and stone and things get added, would it be possible to make the color of the texture based on the color of the material, rather than the material itself? i.e. instead of having seperate textures for obsidian, rhyolite, and mica, it would have one texture for, say, stone floors, and then color that based on the stone. Or at the very least it would only work like that if Stonesense didn't have a specific texture for the material in question. Would make stonesense more mod-friendly, is the point I'm trying to get across.

[CobaltKobold]

I knocked out cardinal waterfall tiles, SENW, 6-1 (7/7 is obviously going to just be normal)


Untelligent: I keep saying that, but...

[kaypy]

When the colors for metals and stone and things get added, would it be possible to make the color of the texture based on the color of the material, rather than the material itself?

That was the original plan with respect to materials, but there are some back-end issues to sort out with caching and such. Caching is getting more attention in some of the branches, so once we get that it (and we *need* it for a variety of reasons) then getting material colours should follow.