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Graphical tiles for all materials

Graphical tiles for layer stone, decorative stone, and HFS stones

Graphical tiles for layer stone and decorative stone only

[RantingRodent]

I'm faced with a decision right now and I can't decide which way is best. Basically, the new version seems to have added a few more stone categories that should be identified with unique tiles. However, I've run out of good looking stone tiles that are distinct enough for easy recognition.

I can spend more time looking for more tiles, or learn to make stone tiles myself, which will delay the release longer. I can also shift to the same style ore tiles as my ASCII Loyalist tileset uses. I would replace the simple diagonal line background used for the Loyalist set with a stone background, like the current gem tiles.

Note: "layer stone" in the poll includes soils and sands

Here are the current tiles for the Overhaul font:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And for the Loyalist font:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If the least graphical option, #3 wins, the following tiles would be affected:
- HFS Stone
- "Special" Ores - Bauxite, Bituminous Coal, Lignite
- Iron Ore

It doesn't seem like much, but I'd like to know what everyone's feelings are.

[Phoebus]

I'm a big fan of your stone symbols, I've included in my tileset many of the mineral tiles from your Loyalist tileset.

I don't know if it's what you were looking for, but these are my observations about your tileset (both as a user and tileset creator):

Purely decorative stones and layer stones are redundant. I've considered dropping the layer symbols altogether and just go for one symbol for 'useless' stone. The only thing that stopped me was the glooming oppression of 50 levels of identical monotonous stones.
Talking about the Loyalist tileset specifically, the greatest part of your design is the small stone symbol used above the layer symbols. It's both a clear indicator of a stone, clear indicator that it's mostly worthless, and a clear indicator of the foreground color of that stone. That's really good.
The layer symbols are individually nice, but they don't look so great when tiled in large number.
My suggestion: Combine the Overhaul tileset's layer background with the Loyalist tileset's stone symbol. That could give you a chance to reuse those good stone backgrounds.

For metal ores and gems, either sets are great, except for the background in the Loyalist's, that could use some improvement.
I've found that, using PNG's alpha transparency, simply using a flat 50% opacity white background (resulting in a 50% foreground & 50% background color bend) was already a good improvement. It made everything look crisp, and was very easy on the eyes.

For the special ores.
Non-Unique ores (Iron, Fuel, Flux, Gypsum), those really deserve their own tiles, and those tiles are great already. Probably best not to mess with them.
Unique ores (Adamantine, Bauxite, Kimberlite & Obsidian). While them having an individually unique tile is nice, it's not really necessary. You can save tiles by having them all share the same graphic. Color coding and the users' eagerness to know the value and use of special ore should be enough to distinguish them.

That's my 2 cents.

[RantingRodent]

Thanks for the input. If anyone else has input like that, feel free to drop it here right now. I'm taking the opportunity to clean it up and make some improvements.

The main reason I use variation for layer stones is that each type of layer tends to contain different types of ores and gems. The stone itself may be mostly worthless, but knowing what kind of stone it is during mining is very helpful. Also, as you said, to break up the monotony. If anything, I'd rather have several layer stone tiles assigned randomly that are all worthless and just included for visual variety.

For the currently unique ores, I am trying to keep an eye towards modding. In a mod, any material that can contain diamonds should share the Kimberlite tile, and any magma safe stone should share the bauxite tile. So basically, I consider all of those to be in the former category of non-unique. The tile is tied to the property that makes them unique, not to the material itself. I have a plan to be able to support mods in this way fairly easily. To be unveiled once it's ready.

The current list of properties I plan to have tiles for is:
- Iron Ore
- Possibly Tin Ore, for Bronze Making
- Fuel
- Magma Safe
- Unmineable
- Diamonds
- Flux
- Gypsum
- Sharp

Adamantine deserves a tile just because it's Adamantine. IMO.

I had an in development 40d# version of the set already with the translucent background, yeah. I'm a fan. That's already prepared, once the d# changes are in.

[DrD_AVEL]

All you do is fantastical great, RantingRodent!
Thank you for all you want to improve!
Im sorry, but I think that I can't express all of my thoughts about your questions because I dont know english well for this... 
All I can say is that must be several highly-different sets/versions of your graphics. Keep developing up! We are all waching for your work.

[RantingRodent]

That's quite a landslide in favour of graphics. I will have to make an initial release using partial graphics just to get the set updated for 0.31. I'll see if I can handle maintaining both versions (since I personally prefer partial graphics). I have some ideas.

[Asatruer]

My preference is for more ease in at-a-glance recognitions of important stones/ores/gems and their values, but I have not found knowing at-a-glance what layer it is to be of much use.  Iron, Flux, Ore (with value), Gem (with value), Fuel and Adamantine are the most important to me. Magma Safe, Sharp, may contain Diamonds, are nice, but not necessary.  I  find the Loyalist set to be much better at recognizing the things that matter to me.

[Shaostoul]

All I got to say is I'm jealous of your artistic talent for making something small like tiles look great.

Keep up the great work RantingRodent. =-)

[hermano]

I much prefer the tiles of the loyalist font and have been using them since you released them. So I would appreciate if you worked more on that version of your tileset. I really like their clear and informative appearance (and put the tileset I mashed together for myself online, including your tiles, I hope that is okay for you).
I don't think more tiles are needed, except maybe for slade. I have not played much, but from what I read it is quite important to recognize it.
The thing I would be most interested in is improving the current tiles. The tiles for the different layers stones are quite hard to distinguish, imho. I'm definitely not a pixelartist, but I spend a few minutes thinking about how they could be depicted, this is what I came up with:



Igneous tiles have a volcano in their background, with a stone icons positon representing extrusive or intrusive layers.
I know these are not good at all, but maybe they inspire somebody with actual design talent...

Keep up the good work.

[BigD145]

I prefer the basic symbols. It's less busy and just easier on the eyes.