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[ebenezer]

Are you an ASCII freak? Do you find graphic sets confusing and eye-boggling? Still, you hate to confuse groundhog pups with goblins, elves with giant eagles, hippos with horses...

This graphic set will change your life!

(edited on March 27: An updated version is available here: http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=1948
see more recent posts for details)

The idea it's not entirely new and very simple: creatures are depicted with letters that have different formatting depending on their condition. The graphic set is based on Cooz 16x16 tileset (I love it, it's sleek and elegant) but:
- normal creatures have, well, normal letters
- pups are smaller
- skeletal characters are thin (skeletal) and italics
- zombie characters are cracked, rotten, in other words "zombified"
- trained creatures have small (but clear) superscript symbols. at present one triangle for hunters, two for war creatures.
Have a look:



Each civ has its own character:



And this is an example for the megabeasts:



Color is handled by the game, therefore pups will still be red, bowgoblins green, etc.
I think this is a good compromise: a lot of information is conveyed, without increasing confusion. If you like the idea, I will appreciate some feedback before releasing a playable version.
Future plans include:
- a specific set for giant creatures (with pups, skeletal, zombie, ...):

- gray background symbols to distinguish classes of creatures (domestic, flying, whatever)
- a "prehistoric" formatting for beastmen (sorry no preview available)

Tell me what you think, in particular what are the features that are important to include. I haven't played fortress mode a lot, and no adventure mode at all, so I might be ignoring something essential.
Yours sincerely,

Ebenezer

[RantingRodent]

I'd considered doing something like this. I think it's a great idea.

[o_O[WTFace]]

You have struck awesome-ite

[Deon]

I need it man!

[Kaelem Gaen]

I agree that looks great!  And will be useful.

[ebenezer]

Just an update.
A first version of the graphic set is ready , with tiles for civs, normal creatures, giant creatures and megabeasts.
While working on the graphics I have made also a python script that will be extremely useful (I hope). What it does is to generate the graphics.txt files directly from the creature raws. No matter how many creatures you have added or modded (I'm thinking about the ark project), the script should generate a working graphic set with the right tile for the right creature (giant, megabeast, etc.).
Stay tuned.

[DennyTom]

I have seen something simmilar here - someone used several characters to describe different creatures. This is really interesting also but we need screenshots!

[ebenezer]

A preliminary version is available here:
http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=1921
It contains:
- graphics for default, child, skeletal and zombie creatures.
- graphics for giant creatures (child/skeletal/zombie)
- graphics for (semi)megabeasts
- graphics for civs.
All the creatures of vanilla DF are included, just unzip the file in the graphics folder.
Any comment is welcome, I have other things I would like to add but not before having received some feedback (there might be some mistakes). Enjoy!

I have also a few simple screenshots, mainly taken at embark sites since I have only one fortress running.
Here you see a war dog, a hunting dog, a kitten, a puppy, a muskox calf, a donkey foal and a horse foal.

Children playing near the loom

Giant eagle...

... Giant cave swallow and giant rat.

I did my best to embark in terrifying surrounds, but all I got are these lousy zombie groundhogs!

(no screenshot of skeletal creatures, I'm afraid!)

And finally an elf retreat:


Let me know what you think!

[DennyTom]

Looks great! Only the zombie letters need to be more dissorted - those using tilesets with background noise for ground will not notice.

[ebenezer]

I think I will have an updated pack ready before the Easter break, with beastmen, improved giant creatures and improved zombies. I also had in mind a specific set for corpses, but unfortunately corpses are not supported...
I've seen that a handful of people have downloaded the graphic set: any thoughts?

[TiagoTiago]

i didn't look right in windowed 1024x768 with 80x50 tiles :/

[ebenezer]

Here's version 0.2.1 (http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=1948), with significant improvements, and a small utility that you may find helpful (I hope).

Graphics set for:
- common creatures (child, zombie, skeletal, trained)
- giant creatures (child, zombie, skeletal)
- beastmen (child, zombie, skeletal)
- megabeasts (DF vanilla only)

makegraphics4.py
If you have modded creatures, use this python script to generate a new graphics_basic.txt file. Each creature (standard, giant, megabeast or animalman) will be assigned to the right tile. Please note that 1) giant creatures are defined by the _GIANT suffix 2) animalmen are defined by the -MAN suffix + [CAN_SPEAK] token 3) megabeast tiles are assigned based on [megabeast] and [semimegabeast] tokens 4) vermin is ignored.

How to use it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1. move the script in raw/objects
2. create a input.txt file listing all the creature_*.txt raws.
3. run "python makegraphics4.py input.txt"
4. move the newly generated graphics_basic.txt file into raw/graphics
PS: I am crap at programming, but it works on my Mac (OSX). It should work on other platforms. Comments welcome.

I'm not sure about what to add further, still toying with the idea of shapes on the background to distinguish classes of creatures (flying, domestic, ...).
Enjoy!

i didn't look right in windowed 1024x768 with 80x50 tiles :/

mmm... as far as I know the window size should not make a difference... what is exactly looking wrong?

[TiagoTiago]

i think i messed somthing up when i tried to set things to use your tiles, some of the characters, even with the graphics set to NO, look funky, and some half digged terrain looks almost black (3 tiny dots on the bottom) :/

[TiagoTiago]

paying more attention to the actual measurements of the window itself and the space left for the image, i have the impression the exact pixel measurements defined in the init.txt file are not respected in windowed mode with graphics on...

[TiagoTiago]

actually, at leas tin part, it seems to be a matter of finding the right multiples of 16, some of them don't work all that well together