Making Canyons using the Castle methodology

[charlieg]

That canyon is amazing. That is up there on a par with the art in the best commercial games. It reminded me of Balder's Gate.

[guest]

Wow.

Just popped by in the art department, and what do I see? Great new art for this (and the castles too).

It would be great to have both the newest version of the canyon, and the one with stars, in the game.

Turin (or really, anyone, but Turin already hinted towards "having use for these graphics") - please make a campaign out of this (the starry one), this is really great campaign material!


Now, if we'd have the waterfall transition suggested by khamul (page 2), that could be great even for some "regular" campaigns - I'm thinking here of mountain rivers / underground streams flowing downwards deeper and deeper underground, in the dwarven caverns of Knalga, to resurface again several wesnothian leagues southward, and a great deal closer to sea level. I can see our heroes having to escape from a flooding cave through an uncertain underground river route - "Half-drowned, our heroes find themselves in a new land, inhabited by creatures unknown to them. It is a time for new explorations..."

Nice art, indeed.

[hands]

Yeah I think the 'bottomless' canyon looks better because the bottomed one looks like some units (Dwarves, Saurians, maybe Orcs) should be able to go through it.

Why not allow a wide shallow canyon that certain units could move through. Why not have an impassable canyon (without a bottom) option when appropriate. Why not also have abyss and edge of world type canyons. Why not create a whole set of tiles based off of this forum. I have to say that I really agree that the current canyon tile has some obvious graphical limitations. Now that Eleazar has done such incredible work showing examples of possible graphical variations on the canyon theme, things shouldn't be limited to only adding one or two of the variations. And, as others have already commented (about the forest) when this/these get into the game other aspects of the game can be modified to take the addition(s) into account. Multiple canyon options would allow for multiple tactical options as well as graphical options.

As long as Eleazar has kept all of the iterations that he has posted, it looks like practically all of the hard work has been done to expand (very beautifully) the world of Wesnoth in an area where it is currently quite limited.

[Eleazar]

Yeah I think the 'bottomless' canyon looks better because the bottomed one looks like some units (Dwarves, Saurians, maybe Orcs) should be able to go through it.

Why not allow a wide shallow canyon that certain units could move through. Why not have an impassable canyon (without a bottom) option when appropriate. Why not also have abyss and edge of world type canyons. Why not create a whole set of tiles based off of this forum. I have to say that I really agree that the current canyon tile has some obvious graphical limitations. Now that Eleazar has done such incredible work showing examples of possible graphical variations on the canyon theme, things shouldn't be limited to only adding one or two of the variations. And, as others have already commented (about the forest) when this/these get into the game other aspects of the game can be modified to take the addition(s) into account. Multiple canyon options would allow for multiple tactical options as well as graphical options.

As long as Eleazar has kept all of the iterations that he has posted, it looks like practically all of the hard work has been done to expand (very beautifully) the world of Wesnoth in an area where it is currently quite limited.

Hands, i'm glad you like the canyon i'm working on, but i think your enthusiasm is a little uninformed. I'm not making different variations of canyon, i'm narrowing in on a better canyon. I'll eventually add water-flowing over support, (which will be part of the same terrain definition), and it will be easy for a scenario developer to modify my canyon with stars showing if they want. But it's not practicable to keep every version that's kind-of good. Maybe there's room for a few kinds of canyon in Wesnoth-- but only a few. Though the screenshot, may look nearly finished, i'm really only about half way to a finished terrain.

The canyon exists not to be pretty ("pretty" is an added bonus, if possible) but primarily to say to the player, "You can't walk here!" That message would be muted if there were too many kinds of canyons, especially certain kinds which you could walk in.

P.S. Everybody else: thanks for the good comments.

[hands]

Hands, i'm glad you like the canyon i'm working on, but i think your enthusiasm is a little uninformed. I'm not making different variations of canyon, i'm narrowing in on a better canyon. I'll eventually add water-flowing over support, (which will be part of the same terrain definition), and it will be easy for a scenario developer to modify my canyon with stars showing if they want. But it's not practicable to keep every version that's kind-of good. Maybe there's room for a few kinds of canyon in Wesnoth-- but only a few. Though the screenshot, may look nearly finished, i'm really only about half way to a finished terrain.

I actually did get the fact that your intention was to improve on the existing canyon rather than create various versions of canyons that could add to the variety of available terrains. And, I think what you're doing is great, but I also think that by having a few (maybe only a couple) options instead of just one could add to the realism of the world. Not all canyons are impossible to cross even if you can't fly.

The canyon exists not to be pretty ("pretty" is an added bonus, if possible) but primarily to say to the player, "You can't walk here!" That message would be muted if there were too many kinds of canyons, especially certain kinds which you could walk in.

If you compare the existing canyon or even the first example you showed (with a dirt bottom) to the later examples, it should be fairly obvious to anyone that one is more imposing than the other. I guess that the best way for me to explain my thoughts is to say that I think that the addition of a shallow canyon terrain would be beneficial for certain scenarios. Your later examples of canyons are much better visually to use the way that canyons are used now, and the canyon that is currently being used (or your first example) could represent a shallow canyon (that a horseman might not be able to cross, but a dwarf could). And, you're very right, the visual cues are only as useful as they help players understand what is going on in the game. My suggestion is to add to some of the strategic possibilities.

I really can't wait for your work to be added to the game even if it just replaces one canyon with the other, but I do think there is a bit more potential here than you may have initially envisioned.

[Eleazar]

I've added these graphics to the trunk, but for whatever reason i couldn't get them to replace X (i.e. canyon) and still work. So i didn't commit my now mangled terrain-graphics.cfg.

I'm going to leave this alone for a while and work on something else. (probably the crumbly cavern wall) Meanwhile, i hope somebody smooths out the WML.

Edit: these work nearly right now.

[Noy]

I'm assuming that this is just a new chasm variation... which is really nice.

Do you think though that you could incorporate yobbos idea of "the void" so we can get a good shroud replacement? I know that people want to make impassable mountains, but I really like the "void" idea, and I think it would make an excellent replacement where we use shroud, but where mountains might not be appropriate or "pretty." I think if this is used on Hexcake or the new charge, that it would look absolutely spectacular. The terrain can be completely impassable to all units.

[Jetrel]

I'm assuming that this is just a new chasm variation... which is really nice.

Not quite - It's a replacement for chasm. The old one is going away.

Do you think though that you could incorporate yobbos idea of "the void" so we can get a good shroud replacement? I know that people want to make impassable mountains, but I really like the "void" idea, and I think it would make an excellent replacement where we use shroud, but where mountains might not be appropriate or "pretty." I think if this is used on Hexcake or the new charge, that it would look absolutely spectacular. The terrain can be completely impassable to all units.

Sure, though we'd need a better image for the "aether", rather than those rather primitive "drawn-with-a-pencil-tool" stars (No offense, yobbo).

What do I mean?

I mean something like this, albeit with severe modifications:
http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts ... field.html

[Boucman]

Jetryl, they might be interested by your link here http://arcune.org/forum/index.php

[yobbo]

Sure, though we'd need a better image for the "aether", rather than those rather primitive "drawn-with-a-pencil-tool" stars (No offense, yobbo).

For the record, they looked a lot better on my old CRT monitor .

Getting a new LCD screen was kinda like when I first started wearing contacts. (...Omygawd, pixels have boundaries!?)

[Jetrel]

For the record, they looked a lot better on my old CRT monitor .

Getting a new LCD screen was kinda like when I first started wearing contacts. (...Omygawd, pixels have boundaries!?)

I had the exact same experience, and it hit me like a sack of bricks. I think I've figured out ways to work around it; eg. techniques that look good on both, although explaining them would be difficult.

It's something we all struggle with. I was glad to get rid of that thing, too - my old CRT was starting to give me a tan...