Solidifying the void - nondev version

Post by **irrevenant** » July 4th, 2007, 10:07 pm

I agree with Woodwizzle and Shadow Master, I think the idea is intrinsically ugly. For years Wesnoth's graphics have become increasingly detailed and realistic over the years. Having the map look like a map made sense back when the units looked like little miniatures but now it just looks incongruous, no matter how much you improve the background IMO. A real world just doesn't float in space no matter what the backdrop.

Wouldn't a simpler solution to the 'look' problem be to automatically assign 'plain' terrains (eg. grass, snow, maybe even forests, hills and mountains) to inaccessible hexes? IIRC, the main concern was the mangling of things like castles. If you just don't autofill castles then there's no problem.

Post by **Dave** » July 5th, 2007, 2:33 am

I tend to also concur with Woodwizze, Shadow Master, and Irrevenant.

Personally I think the best solution is to make maps specify the border. A map should give an extra row of hexes at the top and bottom and column to the right and left of the map. These hexes will be inaccessible 'half hexes'.

David

Post by **Alink** » July 5th, 2007, 3:27 am

people who won't like wood or want to try other texture can hack this file:
/data/core/images/terrain/off-map/wood.png
but the code is work in progress, so it's possible that the final version will use a different texturing system.

Post by **Jetrel** » July 5th, 2007, 4:14 am

Dave wrote:I tend to also concur with Woodwizze, Shadow Master, and Irrevenant.

Personally I think the best solution is to make maps specify the border. A map should give an extra row of hexes at the top and bottom and column to the right and left of the map. These hexes will be inaccessible 'half hexes'.

David

I'm not too keen on rocking the boat, but I'm gradually coming to think that I do agree with Dave & co. I'm not adamant about it, but I do slightly dislike the wood grain background. I'd like to have a default of "solid black void" as the background, and have either the map editor, or the engine itself manually place a 1-hex border of extra "void" tiles around each edge of the map, like dave said. It seems the simplest way to give space for tall transitions, and to cleanly handle non-rectangular maps.

It should also work nicely with the current system - simply by making the background black, rather than the current wood grain.

To have a special background (like the existing wood grain) the theme maker (by extension, likely the campaign designer) could optionally specify a different background; one that would mesh with the theme they'd designed to go along with it.

Post by **freim** » July 5th, 2007, 5:13 am

Jetryl wrote:
Dave wrote:I tend to also concur with Woodwizze, Shadow Master, and Irrevenant.

Personally I think the best solution is to make maps specify the border. A map should give an extra row of hexes at the top and bottom and column to the right and left of the map. These hexes will be inaccessible 'half hexes'.

David
I'm not too keen on rocking the boat, but I'm gradually coming to think that I do agree with Dave & co. I'm not adamant about it, but I do slightly dislike the wood grain background. I'd like to have a default of "solid black void" as the background, and have either the map editor, or the engine itself manually place a 1-hex border of extra "void" tiles around each edge of the map, like dave said. It seems the simplest way to give space for tall transitions, and to cleanly handle non-rectangular maps.

It should also work nicely with the current system - simply by making the background black, rather than the current wood grain.

To have a special background (like the existing wood grain) the theme maker (by extension, likely the campaign designer) could optionally specify a different background; one that would mesh with the theme they'd designed to go along with it.

After playing with the new background I have come to the same conclusion. It just doesn't look good and the way I see it is that it just brought along it's own bunch of transition problems which quite frankly just looks hideous compared to the problems the old one had. Padding the map seems like a much better solution.

theotherhiveking · Post by **theotherhiveking** » July 5th, 2007, 12:04 pm

And isn't possible to develop a little more and add an option to choose the background? because if the developer want one background, but the other want this certain one.... won't be easier to get a bunch and let the player choose it? instead of changing all to make the map choose the background or adding extra rows? why I have to see wood if I want to see a black void? I have to start hacking files?

Why not use clean borders with 4 - 5 pixels instead of useless graphical [censored]? it only makes harder the developer work.

Post by **Iris** » July 5th, 2007, 1:29 pm

Alink wrote:people who won't like wood or want to try other texture can hack this file:
/data/core/images/terrain/off-map/wood.png
but the code is work in progress, so it's possible that the final version will use a different texturing system.

I'd replace that file with the good old black void, and use the old void transition system (no, not the map border guessing mechanism, but the void transition you could see if you put a void hex in middle of the map).

If just could remember to do it when I get to home...

Post by **SkeletonCrew** » July 5th, 2007, 4:33 pm

As one of the devs working on this project I agree with boucman.

The project is going a bit slower than I hoped, due to various reasons. I'm also not content with the current state of the border and this won't be the final version.

Note that the 1.3.x versions are development versions and thus used for some experiments.

Post by **Jetrel** » July 5th, 2007, 6:41 pm

SkeletonCrew wrote:As one of the devs working on this project I agree with boucman.

The project is going a bit slower than I hoped, due to various reasons. I'm also not content with the current state of the border and this won't be the final version.

Note that the 1.3.x versions are development versions and thus used for some experiments.

Do what you will - I'm all in favor of using the dev version for what it was intended to be used for.

Post by **Iris** » July 5th, 2007, 6:57 pm

So, not all changes have to be kept then? Rollback sounds good.

Post by **Boucman** » July 5th, 2007, 9:56 pm

Shadow Master, you didn't understand

WiP means we're testing the engine side, it' not good with a wood background, so we will either try with another background (non proposed yet but you never know) or try to do something different with the engine for 1.3.5

a pure rollback seems unlikely at this point

Post by **Iris** » July 5th, 2007, 10:06 pm

*sigh* I did understand, that was just sarcasm.

Post by **Boucman** » July 6th, 2007, 5:34 pm

oh, nevermind, then...

Post by **Jetrel** » July 6th, 2007, 11:14 pm

If people in this thread would like to be helpful, they can do so by providing additional, potential textures for the background. Remember, as always, that they must be GPL.

littlebeast · Post by **littlebeast** » July 8th, 2007, 9:47 am

Dave wrote:I tend to also concur with Woodwizze, Shadow Master, and Irrevenant.

Personally I think the best solution is to make maps specify the border. A map should give an extra row of hexes at the top and bottom and column to the right and left of the map. These hexes will be inaccessible 'half hexes'.

David

This is my thought as well. Having this "wood" border 1: is just kinda weird, IMO and 2: completely kills my suspension of disbelief. The only real problem with the old borders, at least from my player's viewpoint, was that it assumed the next tile was the same as the last, and would sometimes look odd with certain terrains. So a perfect solution would be to just define one line off the edge of the map to be the border.

However, if that's not possible, I would prefer a "shroud" border to the current wood one. As shroud is used in-game to represent unexplored area, this would not "break" my suspension of disbelief the way this wood bit does.

Edit: Reading up on the devel version of this thread, so I'm adding things on.

So the REAL problem is when you have a map smaller than the screen, which none of us addressed. Well, that really doesn't happen very often, but I think that when it does, the best thing to do would be to use the half-hexes and fade them to shroud. (Fading halfway across the hex, so it doesn't have that odd jaggedy border.)

Hmm. Well, there is a point with that the tops of great trees, some villages, etc. are otherwise cut off at the top row... Personally, I don't think that's all that big a deal, but they do have a point.

What Eleazer is saying there about adding pointless, even arbitrarily impassible, bits of map around the edges doesn't answer the question, though. Even if there are extra bits of map, the map has to end somewhere, and I'd prefer if it didn't turn into wood whatsit at that end. IINM (Which I suppose I could be) there's no way to prevent someone from scrolling past a specific tile, so they could still SEE the edge of the map... which is what really matters.

Weeell.... that "inner frame" thing looks better than the wood dealio... but I'd still prefer the half-hexes. That's an acceptable bit for if a map is smaller than the screen, though.

... Okay, so they're saying keep the half-hexes, defined by the map creator, and add the filler only if it is needed? I can go with that. That sounds cool.

Hehe, sorry for wasting everyone's time.