Idea: Forest drawn as overlay

[freim]

I'm experimenting with a new way to draw the forest. Instead of having a spesific bg for each forest tile, I only draw the trees with alpha shadows and overlay it on any suitable tile. This could probably be done for other things also.

This will make the tiles more versatile as they can be overlayed different types of terrain. Forest don't really need it's own bg transition either IMO, and this means it don't have to be changed if other terrain are replaced.

The other thing that I tried was the much ask for alpha shadow for the trees. I think this looks good. Only made one tile yet, which is overlayed a snow tile. The tile use no transitions as it is only meant to be a "1-tile forest".

The tile are rendered the same way villages are drawn as of now, so this need some changes to the scripting.

I would like to see the terrain more meshed together and not look so "tiled", but that goes against having easily distinguisable tiles which obviously are important because of the combat modifiers of the terrain. However I still think moving some of the tiles into the overlay could present oportunities to make the game look much better.

Example terrain (the tile has a transparent bg, although that might not show up here):


Ingame:


So what do people think?

[freim]

This will also mean that transition rendering like this can be avoided:



Instead of having the hill transition drawn on top of both forest bg and the trees, the hill transition will be drawn on top of whatever the forest overlays, then the trees will be drawn on top of both. This will look much better than having the trees "cut off" as now.

[Sangel]

Hmmmm. I like this idea. It also opens up possibilities for more types of forest other than our current conifers. We could have a temperate forest, a jungle - even palm trees*!



*Though this would force us to include a desert island, which would further force us to include peg-legged pirates who go "Aargh!"

[cobretti]

The problem with this is: What terrain do you put behind? How do you tell it with the current map format?

[freim]

The problem with this is: What terrain do you put behind? How do you tell it with the current map format?

It will most likely need changes to either scripting or the map format. However I'm no coder so I don't know how much trouble this will be, I just made a proposal for something I would like to see in the game.

[cobretti]

The problem with this is: What terrain do you put behind? How do you tell it with the current map format?

It will most likely need changes to either scripting or the map format. However I'm no coder so I don't know how much trouble this will be, I just made a proposal for something I would like to see in the game.

I would like, too, but this involves a lot of work: Changing the editor, changing the map format (at least partially), changing most of the maps already in game to adapt them...

It probably would be better just to have several different forest tiles, with different letters in the map, and make them different (that is, one for snow, one for grass, maybe a tropical one...). The transitions need to be fixed, but it is probably less work than just remaking a major part of the game.

[freim]

I would like, too, but this involves a lot of work: Changing the editor, changing the map format (at least partially), changing most of the maps already in game to adapt them...

It probably would be better just to have several different forest tiles, with different letters in the map, and make them different (that is, one for snow, one for grass, maybe a tropical one...). The transitions need to be fixed, but it is probably less work than just remaking a major part of the game.

I not so sure there will be so much that need to be changed, since some of the gfx already are drawn as an overlay. I'll have a chat with Ayin about it.

See the possibilites, not the potential problems

[cobretti]

See the possibilites, not the potential problems

Nothing is impossible for the man who is not going to do it himself

[Dave]

There is another problem to be considered here: efficiency. Many people already complain that Wesnoth is running slowly on their older machines.

This would surely have some efficiency hit, though hard to say how much. Probably quite significant in a screen full of forest.

David

[Sangel]

I had put brief thought to allowing (brackets) in the map format; then multiple letters could describe the same hex, allowing overlays etc. This would have the added bonus of retaining back-compatibility.

[freim]

There is another problem to be considered here: efficiency. Many people already complain that Wesnoth is running slowly on their older machines.

This would surely have some efficiency hit, though hard to say how much. Probably quite significant in a screen full of forest.

David

Would this be slower than drawing transitions on top of other terrain? I was also pondering drawing the forest so that it didn't need seperate transition tiles.

[quartex]

I agree with Dave, when drawing the castles and encampments are slowing people down, I think it would be best if we stick with normal tiles. Frankly we don't have that many kinds of forest to make this that useful.

[freim]

I agree with Dave, when drawing the castles and encampments are slowing people down, I think it would be best if we stick with normal tiles. Frankly we don't have that many kinds of forest to make this that useful.

I see a lot more than just the possibility to draw different types of forests:
* It allows for drawing forest on top of any terrain
* The forest transitions will look much better since terrain will overlap the bg and not the trees
* (Each type of) Forest need only one transition
* Possible to draw other things the same way

Making the game far slower would of course not be good at all. I can't image how drawing a few castle tiles can slow down the game that much...?

[Shade]

Making the game far slower would of course not be good at all. I can't image how drawing a few castle tiles can slow down the game that much...?

The same thing happans when setting 'Time Areas'. I have a nagging suspicion that they are getting drawn on the fly, as opposed to drawn and cached. . .

edit: not that there's much I could do about it

edit #2: In .8.1CVS there have been drawing speedups

[Elvish_Pillager]

Making the game far slower would of course not be good at all. I can't image how drawing a few castle tiles can slow down the game that much...?

The same thing happans when setting 'Time Areas'. I have a nagging suspicion that they are getting drawn on the fly, as opposed to drawn and cached. . .

edit: not that there's much I could do about it

I have the same suspicions of the innocent-looking [terrain] tag....