Tweaking terrain transitions
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Tweaking terrain transitions
A while back I started to toy around with overlaying multiple terrain transitions on top of each other. For example, for hills next to water, I could layer a grassland-to-water transition under the normal hill transition, creating a smoother coastline, which looks a lot nicer, without the need to draw new graphics for it. These tweaks are for the most part to how terrains transition with water.
Attached is a screenshot of the changes which I personally would like to suggest. I expect some differing opinions on some of these, but at least hills and mountains no doubt look better than before. Also note that the same transitions that are used with shallow water in the screenshot will also be used with deep water, swamp and river ford. I didn't cram everything into the screenshot, but they look ok. Swamp transitions might deserve some special attention later, though.
I can commit the changes as soon as a result is reached on which ones should go in.
Attached is a screenshot of the changes which I personally would like to suggest. I expect some differing opinions on some of these, but at least hills and mountains no doubt look better than before. Also note that the same transitions that are used with shallow water in the screenshot will also be used with deep water, swamp and river ford. I didn't cram everything into the screenshot, but they look ok. Swamp transitions might deserve some special attention later, though.
I can commit the changes as soon as a result is reached on which ones should go in.
- Attachments
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- tweaked-transitions-1.jpg (204.29 KiB) Viewed 3343 times
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- Retired Terrain Art Director
- Posts: 1113
- Joined: November 29th, 2003, 11:40 pm
- Location: Norway
* Hills and mountains: Looks good
* Disable encampent dirt transition towards dirt
* Hills under castle/enc looks ok, although I would prefer grassland or sand
* Cave floor going into encampment doesn't look good.
* I don't want additional transition on cave terrain. I would rather see a cave floor<->water trans made similar to the chasm.
* I don't much like it on ice/snow either, snow already has a special trans towards water which I think look better. Having sand under the ice edge looks strange
* I'm indifferent towards road
* Dirt looks slightly less good imo.
* Disable encampent dirt transition towards dirt
* Hills under castle/enc looks ok, although I would prefer grassland or sand
* Cave floor going into encampment doesn't look good.
* I don't want additional transition on cave terrain. I would rather see a cave floor<->water trans made similar to the chasm.
* I don't much like it on ice/snow either, snow already has a special trans towards water which I think look better. Having sand under the ice edge looks strange
* I'm indifferent towards road
* Dirt looks slightly less good imo.
- Eleazar
- Retired Terrain Art Director
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- Joined: July 16th, 2004, 1:47 am
- Location: US Midwest
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Oddly enough i totally agree with frame's comments.
...except i actively dislike the hills under castle/encampment. That may sound good, but it looks bad IMO.
...except i actively dislike the hills under castle/encampment. That may sound good, but it looks bad IMO.
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
-> What i might be working on
Attempting Lucidity
-> What i might be working on
Attempting Lucidity
In terms of graphics, terrain transitions are a lot more important than people give them credit for. Everything goes fine until a map designer puts two odd terrains next to each other and all of a sudden you get this ugly transition. One that struck me recently was the mountains/cave wall transition which looked pretty bad. Why would you ever put the two terrains together? You could have a half underground map where the player goes through hills and mountains to reach a cliff where he must go underground.
Creator of Under the Burning Suns