Lightning strike

[zookeeper]

Because of this, we should not "use both" - rather, if we want a different color of lightning, we should either recreate something at this same level (except in a different color), or recolor this - but I think we should replace the old with this.

I'll do so, unless I hear any objection from zookeeper.

Feel free to do so.

I propose making the fade out at the top of the bolt longer (now it appears rather abruptly from nowhere), or alternatively making some bright spot where the bolts originate from (and which would stay there for the whole fight, since that's doable). This could be a "sphere of lightning" hovering up there, or a stormcloudish mass. These require quite a lot of animation WML changes for the attack of course, and ones the kind of which at least I haven't really done before, so these would be post-1.2.

[Boucman]

the whole point of the new animation engine is to have any request of type

"it would be cool if unit had <specific animation> in <specific case>" all be answered by "it can be done, please provide the art"

[Noyga]

Btw we also have some recolor functions (RC()), perhaps it could work here ?

[zookeeper]

Btw we also have some recolor functions (RC()), perhaps it could work here ?

Much easier and better to edit the images directly than fiddle with the recolour functions, IMO.

[Boucman]

I'm not sure what RC() can do, it might enable to have different colour hair with only one frame...

worth asking DF for details... but only once 1.2 is out

[Darth Fool]

The RC function is pretty generic when used in image file names in wml, although it is probably practical (in terms of WML, not the wesnoth engine) only for images where the colors you want to recolor are only a small number of colors. Otherwise, you will need to make a very long list of colors in WML. I have thought of whipping up a script to produce the wml palette from an image. It wouldn't be too hard and would be useful for graphics not originally designed to be used with the RC function. That said, it is probably best to have the original art tweaked to look the way that you want it to look to begin with, and use RC as a handy tool to avoid duplicating effort. So, for example, if you needed red, green, or white lightning for some reason, you could recolor the blue lightning in WML. Of course, if you suspect that you might want to recolor something, using a limited palette will make writing the WML easier. I mean, 23,21,85 is not so different from 23,21,84 that
anyone is likely to notice, so if you use only one for your graphic, it will make the WML much clearer. Now, multiply this by all the pixels in your graphic that are close to the same color.

The image path functionality that underlies the RC function is set up to accept to make adding other functions (in the C++) easy and efficient, so if there are other functions that would be really cool to be able to do for specific frames within animations (inverting an image, or making it into an all black silohuette, etc) this could be done very easily. What is not easy(I think, boucman is the expert), is having an attack animation externally add image path modifications to an existing defend animation. For example, it would be cool to make it so a lightning strike could add an image modifier to the defending unit animation which would invert the defense image if lightning strikes, without having to have it coded into each and every unit, only in the attackers. This might be a cool little project to work on, but it would need to delve into the heart of the animation engine. It would be fun to collaborate with boucman on doing something like that.

Edit: so in summary I agree with zookeeper.

[Jetrel]

I've committed these images as a replacement for delfador's lightning.