Neorice's first tiles; Dungeon Walls

[Rhuvaen]

Okay, I made a first attempt at cutting these today, and it's nothing great - but it seems I figured out how to align the hex borders with the image.

In comparison, Allefant's tiles (which don't match up 100% with the hex in all cases) closely follow the normal cavewall transitions, which means they're less tall than these, and overlap the surrounding floor tiles significantly.

I've tried to do the cutting so that the floor-to-wall edge happens at the hex border.

Now I'm wondering - there's two ways to implement these walls (which means two ways to align the graphics in the hex):

• 1. Make them a wall terrain, that means it can stand next to any sort of terrain
  
  2. Make these special transitions to cavewall for various types of floor terrains

The first would make mixing and matching of various terrains with these walls possible (with all the glitches that could mean - whne placed next to castle/chasm/forest/mountain etc).

The second could mean that the wall would adjust its texture to the surrounding terrain, and that there would only be one logical wall terrain - and hopefully, all its transitions are made to look good together... This would obviously be perfect for all kinds of randomly generated maps.

[turin]

I vote for #1. There's some circumstances where you'd want the transition between wall and grass to be cavewall, and some where you'd want it to be man-made wall.

[Rhuvaen]

turin: I agree that a specific wall terrain for this does give designers the greatest freedom, and doesn't mess with existing maps and transitions.

My second attempt at cutting yielded a few parts (attached) that were somewhat usable to make transitions. It was funny that sometimes the parts overlapping outside the hex were shown, other times they weren't. So to fully make this work, I realized I needed to build a convex and a concave shape using these same elements (to make the parts overlapping into surrounding hexes work and also to better check overall alignment).

I've tried making these shapes, but the parts don't seem to align fully. I can only use the top and bottom parts of Jetryl's "dungeon blossom" for this, since the other cavities lack the central column (which is needed for the convex shape) and are laid out just a little differently.

In my attempt to create the convex shape I fudged it by placing the top wall three pixels lower. It still has some problems of alignment on the bottom pillars. The concave shape has the same problems (a shifted lower wall and problems with arrangement near the middle pillars).

If someone could take it from here and clean the convex shape I'm attaching in a zip (where the top and bottom walls are aligned properly), that would give me something to continue on, because it's not going to be easy for me to create something worthwhile.

EDIT: rephrased last sentence which was written in a silly pre-burnout mood to prevent people possibly taking offense.

[Jetrel]

A couple of notes:
- I very much intended for these to be octagonal, rather than hexagonal - overlaid on our tiles, it shouldn't be a problem that way, since certain transitions would accommodate the extra faces, and this terrain overlays darn near everything. It gives us a much-needed breath of fresh air in terms of shapes.

- I don't think this is unfeasible, although I'm willing to backtrack if things get too hairy. What I should do, though, if we go with octagons, is make a little bit of "floor that's part of the wall", and use that to overlay those little black areas of exposed hex->octagon uncovered space; either that or terrain WML can layer the dwarven castle floor underneath these.

- I will mess with it, but be patient with me; this wall project isn't my highest priority. Expect to have multi-day delays on this, between when I can do work.

[Eleazar]

Now I'm wondering - there's two ways to implement these walls (which means two ways to align the graphics in the hex):

• 1. Make them a wall terrain, that means it can stand next to any sort of terrain
  
  2. Make these special transitions to cavewall for various types of floor terrains

Go with #1.
I think #2 would be much harder, and probably end up breaking in a lot more circumstances.

- I very much intended for these to be octagonal, rather than hexagonal ..... I don't think this is unfeasible,

I'm no WML master, but i'm pretty sure this would need WML that is much fancier than has been employed before and lots of annoying special-case transitions--- especially if it's adjacent to castle or cave-wall terrains. Feel free to attempt it if you wish.


Has the difference in perspective been pointed out? The front face does not appear foreshortened at all, as the fortification (and much terrain) does.

[allefant]

In comparison, Allefant's tiles (which don't match up 100% with the hex in all cases) closely follow the normal cavewall transitions, which means they're less tall than these, and overlap the surrounding floor tiles significantly.

They're not really mine though, I just cropped them from the ones posted by Neoriceisgood earlier in the thread ( http://exong.net/wesnoth-attach/files/c ... le_114.png ). Here's what they would look like in-game (well, the game I used them for back then): http://home.gna.org/dungeon/screenshots/dungeon3.jpg

[Rhuvaen]

I very much intended for these to be octagonal, rather than hexagonal

Nice idea - I picture those octagons being aligned like this (crude ascii art...):

Code: Select all

 _
/ \
| |
\_/

That might even help remove the one glitch that's visible in both my attempt above and in scott's interior walls and for which I have no idea of cause or solution - the erroneous transition between two wall hexes immediately above each other. If the walls are just vertical lines within the wall hex, and the corner is on the concave outer part, that might circumvent this glitch.

What I should do, though, if we go with octagons, is make a little bit of "floor that's part of the wall", and use that to overlay those little black areas of exposed hex->octagon uncovered space; either that or terrain WML can layer the dwarven castle floor underneath these.

With the octagonal shape it might be possible for the transition to always reach into adjacent hexes (without covering them too much because of the added angle that runs parallel to the hex border). Also, AFAIK, there is only one possible transition between terrains per hexside and hex.

Expect to have multi-day delays on this, between when I can do work.

Same here and no problem.

I think what I'll do is just test the octagonal shape with some very basic placeholder art. Then I can test the transitions to my hearts content, and when I get it to work, you'll have a template to work from.

Go with #1.

Seeing how much trouble that already is, I'll gladly follow this advice.

They're not really mine though, I just cropped them from the ones posted by Neoriceisgood

Yes, but now I know how much work that is!

[Rhuvaen]

Here's a screenshot of the current WIP. EDIT: note that I didn't "bucket fill" the basic tile yet with that grayish color, which is why the walls look "jagged" on the inside.



EDIT2: a further note of explanation - this is placeholder art. I stretched the original texture into different shapes so I could test into what parts this needs to be cut and what geometries are needed.

I've tried to do the octagonal tiles at first by using an arrangement like this:

This caused a lot of problems with matching the 2-sided wall parts (moving them out further into adjoining hexes is not feasible). That's why I went back to hexagonal (although the double-sided wall parts go beyond the hexagonal geometry).

Problems remaining:
1. some glitches caused by transparency (:?:) in my placeholder artwork (note the hourglass-shaped transparent lines)

2. double-sided wall parts cover the adjoining hexes too much, especially they overlap units (or should I say, the units overlap them?)

3. some strange problem with terrain_graphics flags which are meant to prevent single walls from appearing on double-sided wall hexsides, but don't

4. the double-sided wall on the front side don't match the single-sided wall corners too well yet (the image needs to be stretched a wee bit). Perhaps having some of those pillars back could help.

Other than that, the parts match up pretty well and the transition WML is sound. Note that finally those N-S running walls are working properly. I'll be looking into using multi-hex tiles instead multi-hexside transitions for the double-sided walls next.

I'm attaching a zip of the .xcf (with all the parts as layers), of the individual parts as png's and the transitions cfg in the hopes that someone can either help me clean up the placeholder graphics a little, or make the real thing out of them.