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That's right

That is right

[jonask84]

Any chance shadows and depth shading will be in Granite? It would really add a lot to complex fortress designs I think

We have tech demos of both those working in the works right now, but the thing is neither look particularly good:
Shadows just don't work right, from DF. What's inside and what's under open sky/light/dark is simply not too loose a concept (again, I don't want to spark a huge debate. Just trust me on this one )
Depth shading looks really nice in some cases, and horrible in others. And it's certainly something we're gonna add later. The only reason it's not getting into Granite is because it's too heavy to render, and we don't have time to merge it in.

As for the facing thing... And again, I don't want to set off that huge argument
It comes down to the level-of-detail debate:
I think when 200 dragons can fit on one tile, there's a leap of faith here somewhere.
Personally I think facing directions is an unnecessary level of detail.
And since it would require A LOT of dubious code and assumptions,
it's my opinion that even though some people have requested it,
it's simply way too little visual bang for the programming buck.
Creatures don't face any direction in-game, and so they won't in Stonesense.
Hope that clears that up for now 

[Khalan]

• Yes. Kaypy and I've been talking all day, and it looks like we're gonna launch a release candidate of Stonesense 1.0 (codenamed Granite) tonight. There will only be a few new on-the-surface features, since the BIG improvement here has been easier Custom Content management.

Brilliant!

• I agree, objects are the one last remaining thing. Right now it's something on our wish list, and it's something to work towards in a 2.0 release... The main problem is the share number of objects of course (Please, guys, don't flooded the thread with theoretical discussions of how it could be done unless you seriously know what you're talking about )

Sounds good.   I imagine it would need to be similar to how DF does it, ie. alternating the visibility of different items on one tile.

• Animations is a thing I personally am a bit on the fence about... Subtle animations, sure. They work.
  Having things bounce and skate about, try to hack in improvised movement... Not so much. See what I'm getting at here?

Totally understand, I like the windmill animation etc, and I'm happy with the movement being the same as DF, ie. jumping from tile to tile.

I appreciate the replies, thanks very much.



Some pixel art I've done for one of my older projects, some feedback from people would be great so I can decide whether to try contributing or not.  Obviously not all of this is 32x32.  The trees are pretty flat now I look at them, there are definitely things to improve on.

I'm used to doing 3D artwork, such as this (an item I made for Mount&Blade):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...so tips and constructive criticism on the pixel art would be good.
PS. the tiles were purposely made to display the grid lines.

[Haspen]

Creatures don't face any direction in-game, and so they won't in Stonesense.
Hope that clears that up for now 

They do.

Play some Adventure Mode and pay attention to combat messages, with proper charging/dodging you can get "You strike the Giant from behind (...)" as a proof that creatures are 'facing' one of 8 directions.

[JanusTwoface]

Or it means that the program is generating details in a manner to how I do when GMing RPGs without facing (a la D&D). It sounds cooler but may not actually be based on anything, just randomly generated.

Also, Stonesense cannot implement it until DFHack does (if DF itself actually has this data) anyways, so the point is still somewhat moot.

[Footkerchief]

Play some Adventure Mode and pay attention to combat messages, with proper charging/dodging you can get "You strike the Giant from behind (...)" as a proof that creatures are 'facing' one of 8 directions.

We've gone over this like a billion times in this thread already, but that "facing" only exists while creatures are attacking:

Right now it doesn't have "facing", but it has a directional bias that builds up as you attack in a certain direction repeatedly (which then opens you up to attacks).  That will be changed during the combat arc when I add something like a situational awareness skill.  I'm always wary of a strict facing.  I dislike vision cones and having to change direction manually.  It just doesn't seem that realistic, especially if you are in an alert state.  You have a neck to see all around you, which shouldn't take a turn to move and therefore you shouldn't have to control at all, the ability to use a stance that's more complicated than simply pointing in one direction (for example, how you position your legs can help determine whether you are more prone to being knocked over from the front or from the sides), and the ability to walk in all directions, not just the direction your head/body is facing.  On the other hand, you should be able to sneak up being a lazy guard that's facing away from you (rather than just using a magical sneak mode like we've got now).  I was thinking of doing momentum when you can differentiate between running and walking.

I have done a bit with this -- if you fight in one direction in adventure mode now, you'll become focused on that direction and more susceptible to attacks from behind.

It's still possible to fake the facing from movement, of course.

[jonask84]

Thank you Footkerchief, that is exactly what I was hinting at

[Neonivek]

Well obviously the solution is to have these creatures shrugging and looking confused with their googly eyes going every which way.

[tobias]

Yes. Kaypy and I've been talking all day, and it looks like we're gonna launch a release candidate of Stonesense 1.0 (codenamed Granite) tonight. There will only be a few new on-the-surface features, since the BIG improvement here has been easier Custom Content management.

There will be a post for this, right? I keep getting nervous I'm gonna miss it.

[Truean]

Competition:

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=34633.0

With GUI.... Things we can learn from this? Things we can improve upon? Discuss.

[kaypy]

Competition: http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=34633.0
With GUI.... Things we can learn from this? Things we can improve upon? Discuss.

Actually, Khazad was on the scene first, by about 6 months. There is a fair amount of sharing between the projects- they are based on the same library, (which I believe was itself originally part of Khazad before being libraryized)

The main differences are that Khazad is 3d while Stonesense is sprite-based. The sprites make it easy for old-style pixel-pushers to contribute, and between that and a well timed youtube video Stonesense got all the press...

[Impaler[WrG]]

kaypy sums it up nicely, their is a good amount of sharing going on already.  Mostly it's being able to ideas works and how they feel, but its good that we have separate approaches, more chances to hit the mark.  I'd say I've learned a lot from Stonesense and even plan to use some of the artwork on Khazad though it will be a weird 2D-in-3D kind of look that I'm going to experiment with.  The shared DFHack library also means it's easy to share any new developments their and for more people to start their own visualizers.

[jonask84]

kaypy and Impaler said most of it; we all hang out on the same IRC channel and bounce ideas off each other.

Further I feel there's a big difference in what our two visualizers do. What I mean is, Khazad loads the entire map, everything, and displays it in a very easy to understand and beautiful 3D landscape. Awesome for fortress planning and management, especially mega projects etc.

Stonesense can only display a tiny bit of the screen at once, but it can do that realtime. So it's closer to a user interface (although we have a bit of a way left to go)

[Khalan]

Sounds like some nice new features in the changelog (many more sprites, drop shadows, sprite pack support etc), looking forward to it
Thanks to the programmers and all the artists for all the hard work.

[jonask84]

Ladies and gentlemen!

Stonesense Granite is here!
Don't delay, get it right away!

This is the FIRST RELEASE CANDIDATE, so please report any errors.

Also launching Right Now is The Stonesense Content Repository!
What is the Content Repository you ask?
Well it's the most wonderful thing ever!
For months now, you wonderful and creative people have been uploading cool artwork and crazy content to this thread for us all to see. But there has yet to be an efficient way of distributing this awesome landslide of creativity.
The Stonesense Content Repository seeks to ease this pain!
It works exactly like the Tileset or Graphics set repos we already know for DF, but this is for Stonesense!

So if you've changed all the dwarfs with mario toadstools, made 100 extra plants for your mod, or swapped all the walls with Legos:
Why not share it with everyone?

Upload your stuff to the Stonesense Content Repository today!



"But wait Jonas, we're so much in awe of all this that we almost didn't realize we're totally clueless as to how to make a Content Pack" you might think (you better!).

Fret not! We've thought of that, and written Tutorials! These wonderful masterpieces of modern literature can be found on the DF wiki, on the Stonesense page. Right here, that is.


Now, enough talk! Let's get creative!
(And I will be right here, answering any and all silly questions )

[Footkerchief]

Jonas -- if you want to retitle the thread to catch people's attention, you can do so by editing the OP.  Also the images in the OP are still broken.