More organization for the images folder

Website · Post by **Sapient** » January 25th, 2007, 2:07 am

Eleazar wrote:BTW, i'm not pleased with the name "terrain-objects" Ã¢â‚¬â€ it's too long and vauge. Anybody has another idea, please speak up.

anything you are putting in terrain-objects probably belongs in:

"scenery" - natural things that blend in with existing terrain (e.g. rocks)

"structures" - large constructed things (e.g. buildings and gates)

or "items" - something conspicuous enough to not be scenery, but small enough to not be a structure.

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » January 25th, 2007, 4:59 am

Sapient wrote:or "items" - something conspicuous enough to not be scenery, but small enough to not be a structure.

items i'm defining as "something meant to be picked up". These won't go in the terrain-whatever folder.

Website · Post by **Sapient** » January 25th, 2007, 12:33 pm

Eleazar wrote:
Sapient wrote:or "items" - something conspicuous enough to not be scenery, but small enough to not be a structure.
items i'm defining as "something meant to be picked up". These won't go in the terrain-whatever folder.

I meant to have those three folders instead of the terrain-whatever folder, not inside it. (Just because something is used as a terrain object doesn't mean it couldn't also be used as a game object.)

The problem with defining items as 'things meant to be picked up,' is that implies the need for a folder of items not meant to be picked up. And really that sounds like a fine distinction / subjective determination.

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » January 26th, 2007, 9:56 pm

Sapient wrote:"scenery" - natural things that blend in with existing terrain (e.g. rocks)

"structures" - large constructed things (e.g. buildings and gates)

Hmmm, these things could be added to terrain-graphics and simply be placed by the map editor.

Thoughts? especially from scenario designers.

Post by **SkeletonCrew** » January 26th, 2007, 10:12 pm

Eleazar wrote:
Sapient wrote:"scenery" - natural things that blend in with existing terrain (e.g. rocks)

"structures" - large constructed things (e.g. buildings and gates)
Hmmm, these things could be added to terrain-graphics and simply be placed by the map editor.

Thoughts? especially from scenario designers.

Could be done, but won't that cost a lot of letters for each possible option? eg rock on grass, savanna, desert etc. (Not that the available letters are a limit anymore soon.)
AFAIK campgen can already place overlay objects.

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » January 30th, 2007, 6:02 pm

Well, now that we can subfolderize the terrain, it's time to figure out how to do it.

The simplest way might be via terrain archetype, or similarly each group of terrains that get their own initial letter for a terrain code.
Either way there would be under 20 folders. Some of these folders would contain hundreds of images (castle), while others would contain a handful.
i don't think that's a problem as long as it's easy to guess where any images would be located.

Hybrid terrains will be tricky, that's why i mentioned the terrain codes, which also have to make arbitrary choices about how to primary categorize hybrid terrains.

Post by **SkeletonCrew** » January 30th, 2007, 6:25 pm

If you do it stored in a subdirectory based on the first letter you can always make another subdirectory in that directory for the second letter. But the transition terrains are a little bit tricky yes.

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » February 1st, 2007, 4:30 pm

He're a more explicit proposal for terrain subfolders. The lines in bold are pretty obvious, and i don't expect dispute about them. For the other choices i can think of reason chose or reject them all. But i'll probably do the bold ones soon, since i since gradual implementation isn't a problem.

Arctic (A)
Bridge (B)
Castle (C, K) (done)
Desert (D)
Forest (F)
Flat (G, R)
Hills (H)
Mountain (M, X)
Unwalkable (Q)
Swamp (S)
Underground (U, X)
Village (V) (done)
Water (W)

The letter(s) in brackets indicate the initial letter of the terrain code.

Edit: "Fog-Shroud (_f, _s)" removed.

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » February 1st, 2007, 4:39 pm

as for the terrain enhancers/objects/items, Sapient has convinced me somewhat to his way of thinking.

Items: small objects drawn in the more obvious style of the units. Scale is close to or larger than unit scale.

Scenery: large things drawn to look like part of the terrain. Scale is closer to terrain scale.

The distinction between Structures and Scenery, didn't seem to hold up well in the case of many current graphics: the mine, dwarven doors, gryphon nests, monoliths.

Post by **SkeletonCrew** » February 1st, 2007, 4:55 pm

Eleazar wrote:He're a more explicit proposal for terrain subfolders. The lines in bold are pretty obvious, and i don't expect dispute about them. For the other choices i can think of reason chose or reject them all. But i'll probably do the bold ones soon, since i since gradual implementation isn't a problem.

Fog-Shroud (_f, _s)

IIRC The fog and shroud are hardcoded in the source so moving the might cause trouble so maybe they should stay in the terrain directory.