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That's right

That is right

[jonask84]

Well, barring the fact that I'm no expert in the Allegro API (though I am somewhat skilled), I'm having problems finding a decent way of drawing only a segment of one sheet, and still maintain the alpha values.

I'm gonna sit down with it more thoroughly some day soon, but we don't forget the obvious question: What does alpha really add?
Will water look better when it's a series of overlapping semi-transparent cubes?
Will creatures look better? Will terrain?

I think glass would, of course. And maybe some volumetric stuff like mist (once we get that in).

We need mock-ups or something to better tell. And we've just been focusing our efforts elsewhere

Alpha support, as I see it, is not a high priority. I simply just don't see the awesome upside of it

This is the Allegro manual, for reference:
http://alleg.sourceforge.net/stabledocs/en/allegro.html

[Goinstadi]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just wanted to share my Philosopher's Tower.  It's not finished yet, but it looks very nice with the new fog.

Only thing is that the top two levels are completely made out of clear glass and it doesn't really look like it from here.

[Retro]

@Retro: [...]

Thank you, sir. Actually, the main reason I uploaded the screenies was because I noted a while ago that the ones in the first post seem to have broken links now. I haven't seen many people just posting screenshots of their forts lately, so I thought I might try and get some new screens out there. I don't know if you kept the original files for the first post screenies, but if any of mine work for you, by all means feel free to grab them - I imagine any screenshots are better than none. Stonesense is a great utility, and if the only support I can give is shots of it in action, then hey-o.

--incidentally, Goinstadi posted a terrific glass tower while I was typing this out that really demonstrates the new fog effect well, as another possible screen you could use.

Retro, your fort looks like it was practically made for this.

Actually, it was. I had visualizers (I use both this and VF) distinctly in mind when I designed everything, so I suppose if it turns out looking well, it was/is a successful endeavour. I'll be sure to post some some screenshots when I'm done digging out the next area.

I'm gonna sit down with it more thoroughly some day soon, but we don't forget the obvious question: What does alpha really add?
Will water look better when it's a series of overlapping semi-transparent cubes?
Will creatures look better? Will terrain?

I think glass would, of course.

Oh, please. Pleeeease. Glass is easily my favourite thing to build out of. Ah, the joys of translucency.

[CobaltKobold]

I'm gonna sit down with it more thoroughly some day soon, but we don't forget the obvious question: What does alpha really add?
Will water look better when it's a series of overlapping semi-transparent cubes?

Doesn't that basically apply, for no extra cost, an additional depth-shader? (And, as you point out, the bundles of clouds: mist, dust, magmamist, miasma, smoke...)

Also, Dithering transparency has some nice features for water: since the pixels line up perfectly, you have the effect that something is either behind water or its not. Which is less problematic than each individual block of water having its own alpha effect. (Cause different blocks will line up strangely- I should do a mockup to [a] make it obvious what I'm saying and [b] make sure I know what I'm talking about)

This is, sort of, a positive effect for water to only have a 'surface' surface, but it breaks as soon as you get any other translucent substance.

Will creatures look better? Will terrain?

I think glass would, of course. And maybe some volumetric stuff like mist (once we get that in).

Well, riverbottoms will look nicer imo.

We need mock-ups or something to better tell. And we've just been focusing our efforts elsewhere

Find me an (opaque) 32x32water tile and I'll see how it goes...my search-fu is not turning them up from this thread. I am guessing that the cube-matrix effect that kaypy fears will be worse than I think.

Alpha support, as I see it, is not a high priority. I simply just don't see the awesome upside of it

http://images.google.com/images?q=crystal+palace

Let me point out one of the big upsides: With dither-transparency, you are strictly limited to one and only one "translucent" sheet at any point on the screen. With alpha, you are not.

Do you prefer Stonesense as an installer or archive?

Where's the 'source' option? I'll wait for the X problem to be fixed.

[jonask84]

Yes, I have to admit I was septic to whole fog thing. IMO it works poorly with few levels (when you get the sharp contrasts). But I gotta say it looks pretty darn good in some of these screenshots.

So I think Japa deserves some credit here, he's the one who wrote the fog patch.

*Round of applause*

Also, Goinstadi: Yes! Beautiful! I'm gonna be putting these up in the OP if you guys don't mind

And lastly: If anyone wants to head over to DF Mode General and start a Stonesense screenshot-show-and-tell thread, that would be awesome. ( would organize it myself of course, but it kinda seems like touting ones own horn (of course, asking someone to tout it for you it totally kosher ))

Edit:
CobaltKobold
Yeah you're right, glass structures would look amazing...

Find me an (opaque) 32x32water tile

http://stonesense.googlecode.com/svn-history/r114/trunk/objects.png
^ an old revision of the objects file.

Where's the 'source' option?

The project is open source, just grab it off google code

[Footkerchief]

So I think Japa deserves some credit here, he's the one who wrote the fog patch.

*Round of applause*

Indeed.  With all the alpha talk I forgot to mention how great that fog looks.  It's not just cosmetic, either -- it provides a much needed depth cue that should help reduce the "Escher effect."

[CobaltKobold]

Where's the 'source' option?

The project is open source, just grab it off google code

I mean, for the poll

...Now, I discover that my script's method of mockup(copy, paste, anchor) actually doesn't play nice with alpha, as 50%+50% evaluates to 100%, as opposed to 75% like it ought to be... :-/ hmm.Disregard that. It only requires 7 or 8 layers to get to full opacity at 50%.

And yes, the depth fog looks pretty nice.

edit2: OK, here's some mocks.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

top-surface-only, 50% opacity, 1 tile deep, with kobolds (merged with water before tiling, because otherwise draw order is wrong)

50% opacity, 1 tile deep, w/kobolds

note: kobolds kept that snazzy Jadael floor tile, if you're wondering why it's gray.

50% opacity, 3 tiles deep, lava

25% opacity, 3 tiles deep, water

50% opacity, 3 tiles deep, water

50% opacity, 3x1x3, water

I'm awre that anything less than full water on a waterfall will look stupid, but that's a different issue which can be semi-solved by a ramp-code-like selection (and arting) of the 1-6 watertiles.

This neighbour-based selection could permit you to "only draw the surface" if you configured the tiles right as well.

The weird-cube-grid effect isn't as bad as expected in the middle, but that's mainly because everything gets to near-opaque reaallly quickly.
edit_N: weird-cube-effect made clearer: 3x3x3, 50% opacity.

[kaypy]

Part of the problem with transparency is that when looking at transparent objects we see surface effects much more than volumetric absorption. Which means that really we need to calculate where there are surfaces (ie not between two tiles of the same thing) and draw those. Which means an awful lot of processing.

Gasses would tend to work better because they do behave more volumetrically- so for example the path through the center of a tile of gas would be much less transparent than a path through the corner.

Edit: That said, I seem to recall doing some water mockups using alpha myself that wound up pretty reasonable

[Jadael]

Why not just draw only the surface of the water, but transparent, and let the new fog shader take care of a depth cue? Basically try to achieve the same effect as now but using alpha.

Each water tile could just check for whether there's water above it? That would screw up waterfalls though... THe algorithm for deciding whether a given tile of water is visible to the 'camera' might be too complex.

[Winterbrass]

Why not just draw only the surface of the water, but transparent, and let the new fog shader take care of a depth cue? Basically try to achieve the same effect as now but using alpha.

Each water tile could just check for whether there's water above it? That would screw up waterfalls though... THe algorithm for deciding whether a given tile of water is visible to the 'camera' might be too complex.

Not any more complex than doors and floodgates are now.

'Simplest' solution that I can think of? Have water tiles check to see if there are water tiles surrounding it, and if so, only display the top of the water tile.

[Dark_Tundra]

Where's the 'source' option?

The project is open source, just grab it off google code

I mean, for the poll

...Now, I discover that my script's method of mockup(copy, paste, anchor) actually doesn't play nice with alpha, as 50%+50% evaluates to 100%, as opposed to 75% like it ought to be... :-/ hmm.Disregard that. It only requires 7 or 8 layers to get to full opacity at 50%.

And yes, the depth fog looks pretty nice.

edit2: OK, here's some mocks.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

top-surface-only, 50% opacity, 1 tile deep, with kobolds (merged with water before tiling, because otherwise draw order is wrong)

50% opacity, 1 tile deep, w/kobolds

note: kobolds kept that snazzy Jadael floor tile, if you're wondering why it's gray.

50% opacity, 3 tiles deep, lava

25% opacity, 3 tiles deep, water

50% opacity, 3 tiles deep, water

50% opacity, 3x1x3, water

I'm awre that anything less than full water on a waterfall will look stupid, but that's a different issue which can be semi-solved by a ramp-code-like selection (and arting) of the 1-6 watertiles.

This neighbour-based selection could permit you to "only draw the surface" if you configured the tiles right as well.

The weird-cube-grid effect isn't as bad as expected in the middle, but that's mainly because everything gets to near-opaque reaallly quickly.
edit_N: weird-cube-effect made clearer: 3x3x3, 50% opacity.

My offering to stonesense; one (slightly grainy) alpha map base for transparent fog effects in isometric!
For when and if alpha channels get support


and as seen in a 3x3 grid



please remove the graininess if possible.
(I did my head in trying to work out an equation to tell me which shades to use to overlap to 50%; failed the equation; and spent quite a while trial and erroring values for a relatively stable fog.)
Intended as miasma, smoke, water fog, steam, magma vapor, etc.

What image host do you guys use? ultraxs seems to have recompressed my images...

[Seuss]

Just a reminder to account for filler floors, floors and blocks that aren't entirely transparent (eg. the shine on a glass block) when considering possible methods of transparency in blocks.
 

[CobaltKobold]

edit2: OK, here's some mocks.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

top-surface-only, 50% opacity, 1 tile deep, with kobolds (merged with water before tiling, because otherwise draw order is wrong)

50% opacity, 1 tile deep, w/kobolds

note: kobolds kept that snazzy Jadael floor tile, if you're wondering why it's gray.

50% opacity, 3 tiles deep, lava

25% opacity, 3 tiles deep, water

50% opacity, 3 tiles deep, water

50% opacity, 3x1x3, water

I'm awre that anything less than full water on a waterfall will look stupid, but that's a different issue which can be semi-solved by a ramp-code-like selection (and arting) of the 1-6 watertiles.

This neighbour-based selection could permit you to "only draw the surface" if you configured the tiles right as well.

Seuss: One of several reasons I don't like the notion.

Anyway, doesn't look half bad with that variable mask:

One thing with the alpha-water that I think might need considering is being darker but more transparent. Water occludes, but nowhere near as fast as we're making it do.

Why not just draw only the surface of the water, but transparent, and let the new fog shader take care of a depth cue? Basically try to achieve the same effect as now but using alpha.

Each water tile could just check for whether there's water above it? That would screw up waterfalls though... THe algorithm for deciding whether a given tile of water is visible to the 'camera' might be too complex.

Not any more complex than doors and floodgates are now.

'Simplest' solution that I can think of? Have water tiles check to see if there are water tiles surrounding it, and if so, only display the top of the water tile.

Also, ramps. Hellooooo, computation vs performance!

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?

[DorfDorfingdorf]

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);


Mother of beards, did you just do water cohesion code for Stonesense? I think I love you. Props from one programmer to another, great way to code that^.

Here's hoping they try to adopt that code. Better yet: it doesn't cause Stonesense's awesome SNES style graphics to slow to a crawl, though that's using a shockingly low level of calculations. Anyway, good job there.

[CobaltKobold]

Yes, yes I did, mostly... (Adhesion too.) You'd want to take a bit more care on lumping cases together really, I suspect I blew a number of them w/respect to U/D.

Japa pointed out on IRC that fixing pancake waterfalls is as easy as using the stream case (a thin-thick vertical stream of water) when the tile below is available (no floor here) and nonfull, which would mean only 6 more tiles needed.

Neither my code nor that fix will make stairstepfalls and rampfalls look nice though. Ramp particularly's when things get ugly (consider the 256(?) ramp cases, and realize that a ramp tile can have from 1-7 water...though 7 water will never need a special-shaped tile, for obvious reasons. It might need a special tile for not drawing surfaces that lead to more water, though.)

(Above code is roughly on a level with the ramps code anyway, so if ramps don't slow SS to a crawl...all you'll need worry about is the DF flow code eating your CPU to exclusion of SS )

New thought: You will probably want to do something similar for mists and vapors- though, in that case, 'cling' using your vapor density, so you are near to the center of the cloud.