water animation

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rhyging5
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water animation

Post by rhyging5 »

may already have discussed this before, but I am only asking because the water does not move in the game. If you have already talked about earlier, sorry for the reiteration. In all games of a certain water level has an animation. I have personally advance the discussion and I did some tests that can serve as a first attempt. It's just an experiment, so take no account of the obvious errors of the experiment......
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Blarumyrran
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Re: water animation

Post by Blarumyrran »

That would be great, but it would be an enormous project to do it well - it would've been easier if done earlier, when we had less terrains - and of course all terrain stuff is difficult to do on hexes.

Before doing it, the current water's still images should be remade - especially the transitions; in the transitions with ground tiles, it should look more like actual transparentish water instead of current blue jelly - the transitions are really the most visible/challenging areas. Perhaps at shallow water, the ground under the water should be visible

After that, the transitions between water/ground should be animated so that water floats back and forth onwards to the ground; alternatively, the transitions with ground could all be cliffs, but it would be weird in such abundance.

If that would really be done with some good graphics - and I'm skeptical about something like this ever being done - the water would be really convincing already. And THEN, maybe, you should consider waves on the non-transition water hexes as you intuitively want to do first - but that is tricky, as the direction of waters cannot be the same on all hexes, eg imagine a NE/SW running river and a N/S running river (let's say 1-hex wide) - it is bizarre if they both run the same direction; the water in the river running towards one coast instead of along the river is absurd. Of course, it could be done well - you could construct a physics engine that gives realistic or at least not screamingly weird water directions, and that would be a whole gigantic AI on its own, and you could make all the animations with all the possible wave directions - but seriously. This is huge.
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Gambit
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Re: water animation

Post by Gambit »

I agree with Blarumyrran, and let me expound a bit on the work involved.
Blarumyrran wrote:eg imagine a NE/SW running river and a N/S running river (let's say 1-hex wide) - it is bizarre if they both run the same direction; the water in the river running towards one coast instead of along the river is absurd.
This effect is in every TBS and RTS with animated water I have ever played (be it 2 or 3 dimensional). It detracts from the visual experience immensely. Good looking still water is better than crapily animated water.

It's more than just directionalness. Coastlines and beaches would look crappy even with a good "physics" system. As would estuaries (of which we have many in wesnoth). And you wouldn't want waves on rivers. You'd want a flowing sort of animation. So there's more work to your "AI". How do you define ocean from river?
Blarumyrran
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Re: water animation

Post by Blarumyrran »

Still if the bridges could be made with their excellent behaviour I'm sure water could [with a ton of work].

The system with bridges is not that deep - it just has many images for its connections with itself. Bridges don't need much transitions with other terrains either
Coastlines and beaches would look crappy even with a good "physics" system.
The back-forth flowing on transitions that I mentioned with ground is of course flawed but really looks quite okayish. With a real "physics" system, that back-forth could be lesser on the coasts of narrower rivers.
And you wouldn't want waves on rivers. You'd want a flowing sort of animation. So there's more work to your AI. How do you define ocean from river?
Yeah, that's why I said AI in the first place. Ideally the distinctions wouldn't be absolute - eg the longer the distance between opposite coasts in an area, the slower the movement in the hex in the center of that area; but of course interpreting coasts is difficult, etc etc; a real mess anyway, and all of it can be done in lots of ways, and it's hard to tell which ones will work better, but I'll stop speculating as it isn't productive because even the simpler steps before messing with the flow/waves are big.
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rhyging5
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Re: water animation

Post by rhyging5 »

let me be a little optimistic. It's good to speculate, if also accompanied by some testsings, I think. Before 3D engines, there were already games with animated water. It is not make a physically perfect water. just give it some life. Certainly the most difficult may be the rivers, and transitions. But still, i do not see it as complicated as you. In addition, we may get referrals from other similar games ......
Blarumyrran
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Re: water animation

Post by Blarumyrran »

Yeah, that was for the waves in the middle of water - & as I said more visible than that is the flow of water on the transitions with ground hexes. The transitions should probably be wholly redone before animating.
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Jetrel
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Re: water animation

Post by Jetrel »

Yeah, I tend to agree with rhyging; doing something where the water ripples, but doesn't flow in a specific direction, would give the best of both worlds. All of wesnoth's terrain is visually symbolic, rather than literal, so getting our pants in a knot over having the water 'flow' in the right direction is a little crazy.

That said, it'll need to be a lot less flat than the original test image posted in the thread, but I encourage attempts.
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doofus-01
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Re: water animation

Post by doofus-01 »

If you used some sort of system that was similar to the multi-hex mountains, so that only big chunks of water get the animation, could you avoid the problems with transitions and flowing rivers? Seems like the easiest way (not that it is so easy).
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rhyging5
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Re: water animation

Post by rhyging5 »

I'm still working on it....and not forget that it's just and experiment to test the posibles ways!! then describe the steps of the experiment:

1- i make an animated hexagon with 16 frames of "non directional water".
2- multiplied, I checked their effect as if the ocean. I do not like at all ....
3- with the map editor, I created an abyss .....
4- ... and I have used it as if the coast.
5- then I added some little waves on the left..... just enough for a test .....
6- for a river...I used the abyss again, and I returned to play with the opacity of the water
7- Finally, I tried to add a bridge and under a small animation

as Blarumyrran says....it would be an enormous project to do it well.....and involves many difficulties...but can contribute much in the game! expect your suggestions!!!
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ocean-test.gif
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coast.png
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coast-test1.gif
coast-test1.gif (223.13 KiB) Viewed 10091 times
waves.gif
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river2.gif
river2.gif (98.55 KiB) Viewed 10091 times
tsr
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Re: water animation

Post by tsr »

Wow!

PGD

I think this looks great...
- overall: the color is to bright, but can 'easily' be changed later - atm I think it is right to concentrate on how the animation should work)
- ocean: looks ok to me, any more movement and I would get seasick, maybe even try to do less?
- coastal waves: maybe it is possible to also have smaller waves? Otherwise: :D
- bridge waves: really. really nice. I like how you caught the disruptive element of an unexpected (for the water that is) element in the water.

/tsr
Blarumyrran
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Re: water animation

Post by Blarumyrran »

Wow, yeah, I was wrong.
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zookeeper
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Re: water animation

Post by zookeeper »

Looks like a pretty good proof of concept to me.
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Daxion
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Re: water animation

Post by Daxion »

This looks really good, much better than I would have imagined.

Maybe a solution to the river problem would be to "introduce different terrain types" of water, for each flowing direction. That way a campaign developer can decide what is river, and what is a sea/ocean. They have a rather clear picture of what they want to "portrait" anyhow.
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Redeth
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Re: water animation

Post by Redeth »

Man am I glad to see this... I've been -secretly- trying to do some water animatons and failed miserably with several different approaches, but this seems to be flowing in the right direction :) Thumbs up!

(now back to the lab Red, the dwarf-humans need to be awakened..!)
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TheJM
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Re: water animation

Post by TheJM »

Wow, very nice, much better than I would have imagined. I think subtlety is the key here, the less obvious it is, the better. I love where this is going. :)
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