Which UtbS terrains can move to mainline

[SkeletonCrew]

With the new terrain engine we can move the custom terrains of UtbS into mainline, the question is; is this wanted. I'm no artist so I don't want to judge their quality. There also seem to be some unused terrains in the terrain directory of UtbS.

Another problem is the lava in UtbS it uses a custom letter since it aliases to snow but uses the same images as the normal mainline lava. The mainline lava has been greatly enhanced latetly. For 1.2 I tried to get the same result in UtbS but when I copied pasted the definition in the UtbS terrain-graphics.cfg I got a lot of glitches, the stone path transitions where getting over the lava in the air, which looked ugly. I fixed the problem by coping the transitions to the main terrain-graphics.cfg and all worked. So what would be the best future solution?
The lava is used in one scenario, see this screenshot http://www.wesnoth.org/images/sshots/wesnoth-1.2-f.jpg

I think the best solution would be to let UtbS use it's own letter (eg _l) in it's own terrain.cfg and move the transitions into the main terrain-graphics.cfg. (Note I reserved all letters starting with an underscore for special purposes.)

According to terrain.cfg there should also be a custom terrain in Eastern Invation but that seems to be no longer the case.

[Darth Fool]

With the new terrain engine we can move the custom terrains of UtbS into mainline, the question is; is this wanted. I'm no artist so I don't want to judge their quality. There also seem to be some unused terrains in the terrain directory of UtbS.

Another problem is the lava in UtbS it uses a custom letter since it aliases to snow but uses the same images as the normal mainline lava. The mainline lava has been greatly enhanced latetly. For 1.2 I tried to get the same result in UtbS but when I copied pasted the definition in the UtbS terrain-graphics.cfg I got a lot of glitches, the stone path transitions where getting over the lava in the air, which looked ugly. I fixed the problem by coping the transitions to the main terrain-graphics.cfg and all worked. So what would be the best future solution?
The lava is used in one scenario, see this screenshot http://www.wesnoth.org/images/sshots/wesnoth-1.2-f.jpg

I think the best solution would be to let UtbS use it's own letter (eg _l) in it's own terrain.cfg and move the transitions into the main terrain-graphics.cfg. (Note I reserved all letters starting with an underscore for special purposes.)

According to terrain.cfg there should also be a custom terrain in Eastern Invation but that seems to be no longer the case.

If UTBS needs to have its own terrain file, I think it best if it stick with the convention of using the xyz letters to denote a custom campaign specific terrain. It is OK for mainline campaigns to have such terrains, and in fact it is probably even a good idea to have some since the mainline campaigns act as examples of WML for new campaign makers.

[SkeletonCrew]

If the desert tiles are not good enough for mainline then the can use the custom terrain letters.

The only problem with the lava is that we don't want it in mainline but the config needs to be in mainline. This might be considered a bug in the terrain graphics code but might be difficult to resolve. The order of the definitions seems to be important. So I don't want it to use a custom number since it might clash with other custom content and I don't want it in mainline. Thus I think using a special internal character is the best solution.

[SkeletonCrew]

Zookeeper updated the lava in UtbS so that can stay a custom terrain for UtbS and no longer needs to be put in the main terrain-graphics.cfg. Zookeeper added new transitions to the existing lava in UtbS.

He asked on IRC for better custom graphic for it something with a little bit of rocks or something. a bit like a lava version of river ford.

The question about the other custom terrains in UtbS still stand.

[Jetrel]

I'd defer to any decision by eleazar/freim/pekka, but I'll take a look at this.

[Eleazar]

in keeping with my "on vacation" status, my answer will be short, and won't represent much work on my part.

• I don't see a problem adding the desert tiles to mainline— though they probably won't be used much.

• I'm a little confused by the description of the lava issue. However, i can say a lava bridge should be added to mainline before 1.4, thus making special graphics unnecessary— i think.

• The dark-floor should probably remain specific to UtBS, part of the purpose is to give a unique feel to that last (or next to last) level. It doesn't have transitions anyway.

[SkeletonCrew]

in keeping with my "on vacation" status, my answer will be short, and won't represent much work on my part.

• I don't see a problem adding the desert tiles to mainline— though they probably won't be used much.

• I'm a little confused by the description of the lava issue. However, i can say a lava bridge should be added to mainline before 1.4, thus making special graphics unnecessary— i think.

• The dark-floor should probably remain specific to UtBS, part of the purpose is to give a unique feel to that last (or next to last) level. It doesn't have transitions anyway.

The lava can stay as custom terrain after Zookeeper's changes. I talked on IRC with freim and he agrees with what Eleazar said. So I'm going to add the desert terrains to mainline.
I propose the following letters
Dc - Desert crater
Dr - Desert rubble

I'll add them sometime next week.

[SkeletonCrew]

I moved the terrains to mainline but the rubble has some strange problems. The transition doesn't always look good, so I wanted to experiment with making the rubble itself as an overlay but that fails
When I use the SHEX definition the same way as Vdt with the rubble the rubble is not drawn, anybody any idea's? (is it some alpha channel thing?)

[mog]

I moved the terrains to mainline but the rubble has some strange problems. The transition doesn't always look good, so I wanted to experiment with making the rubble itself as an overlay but that fails
When I use the SHEX definition the same way as Vdt with the rubble the rubble is not drawn, anybody any idea's? (is it some alpha channel thing?)

I'm not quite sure of the reasons, but I assume that the alignment of images depends on the "map" parameter. If the map is larger (as in the SHEX macro), the image needs to be larger as well. Look at one of the village graphics for the correct size/position.

It's still a strange behaviour, as the image is not displayed at the wrong position but not at all. But at least it can be easily worked around.

[SkeletonCrew]

I moved the terrains to mainline but the rubble has some strange problems. The transition doesn't always look good, so I wanted to experiment with making the rubble itself as an overlay but that fails
When I use the SHEX definition the same way as Vdt with the rubble the rubble is not drawn, anybody any idea's? (is it some alpha channel thing?)

I'm not quite sure of the reasons, but I assume that the alignment of images depends on the "map" parameter. If the map is larger (as in the SHEX macro), the image needs to be larger as well. Look at one of the village graphics for the correct size/position.

It's still a strange behaviour, as the image is not displayed at the wrong position but not at all. But at least it can be easily worked around.

Thanks, I looked at the desert tent and used that to fix the rubble.