Water lilies

[Atz]

They're listed in the stickied terrain thread as a needed embellishment, so I'm posting them here.

Currently it's just the one tile. I wanted to check that the style was appropriate before continuing. I realise they don't really cluster properly, and that they come a bit too close to the land transition on the left, I'll fix that up later. Ideally, in the finished version, there would be small variants for when they are next to land, like with forests and hills. However, I'm not quite sure how to set up the WML so this occurs...

Anyway, comments? Is this looking suitable?

[Zerovirus]

Not sure if the vertical angle is correct. Just based on visual comparison between the waterline and the lilies the lilies seem a bit more side-view than the tiles.

[Sapient]

Pretty interesting. It looks promising, but does need some work. One thing I see is that your outline is too black in places.

[Zerovirus]

Maybe some more variance in the leaf size- I'd expect at least one that's half a hex in its entirety as an extreme.

[artisticdude]

Also, they seem to be predominantly pixel art, whereas terrain art in general is usually brush art. Brush art allows for more 'realistic' shading and a higher detail level. But this looks promising either way.

[zookeeper]

They're listed in the stickied terrain thread as a needed embellishment, so I'm posting them here.

Currently it's just the one tile. I wanted to check that the style was appropriate before continuing. I realise they don't really cluster properly, and that they come a bit too close to the land transition on the left, I'll fix that up later. Ideally, in the finished version, there would be small variants for when they are next to land, like with forests and hills. However, I'm not quite sure how to set up the WML so this occurs...

I suggest you use OVERLAY_COMPLETE. When you do so, you can just drop in -small variant images and they'll automatically be used next to the terrains you specify.

For example, the mushroom farm uses this, which makes embellishments/mushroom-farm-small*.png (numbered as mushroom-farm-small.png, mushroom-farm-small2.png, mushroom-farm-small3.png, etc) automatically used next to castles, walls, mountains and so on:

Code: Select all

{OVERLAY_COMPLETE        *^Emf         (C*,K*,X*,Ql*,Qx*,Gv*,W*,M*,*^V*)           embellishments/mushroom-farm}

[Atz]

Not sure if the vertical angle is correct. Just based on visual comparison between the waterline and the lilies the lilies seem a bit more side-view than the tiles.

Maybe some more variance in the leaf size- I'd expect at least one that's half a hex in its entirety as an extreme.

Yeah, I think you're right about the angle. I'll go a bit more top-down.

I don't want to make the pads too much bigger for a number of reasons, the main one being that I think it meshes badly with other terrain, especially things which are noticeably scaled down like villages, forests, castles, etc. A rather large lily pad might be about a metre and half across, and there are plenty smaller than that; if they get too big, they start to look like they're at unit scale rather than terrain scale. Or, alternately, like they are the size of houses.

Also, they seem to be predominantly pixel art, whereas terrain art in general is usually brush art. Brush art allows for more 'realistic' shading and a higher detail level.

It was actually drawn entirely with soft-edged brushes, though admittedly rather small and delicate ones. I guess I'll mess around with the brush settings a bit...

I suggest you use OVERLAY_COMPLETE...

Thanks! I knew you could do that somehow but I wasn't sure what macro I was supposed to use for it.

[thespaceinvader]

The angle's not quite right, we should see them from a little higher up - but also, they need some interaction with the water surface, ripples and the like or they look like just what they are - overlays.

[StDrake]

looking a tiny bit oversaturated comparing to the surroundings, at least the leaves,maybe they don't need to be so big either, otherwise they look like changing the terrain type
but I like the flower :>

[homunculus]

Not sure if the vertical angle is correct. Just based on visual comparison between the waterline and the lilies the lilies seem a bit more side-view than the tiles.

Yeah, I think you're right about the angle. I'll go a bit more top-down.

huh? and i thought there was the exact ratio of x/y=3/2 for horizontal things as far as terrain is concerned, not some kind of 'maybe a little bit higher or maybe a little bit lower'.
while we are at it, maybe someone could clarify that.

[Atz]

I believe the width is supposed to be half again the height, yes. I wasn't sure what the standard was initially, so I just eyeballed it for the first image, before I found the ratio on one of the wiki pages about changing a square texture into a terrain hex.

...but also, they need some interaction with the water surface, ripples and the like or they look like just what they are - overlays.

Yes. I had hoped that the stems and shadows would make it look more like they were sitting in the water, but unfortunately I don't think they work so well.

I'm not sure I like the idea of them creating ripples - I think it might look weird with the animated water. I'm also not clear on how or why the pads would actually disturb the water, since they mostly sit on the surface... there are stems beneath, but I think they would just slow the current a little rather than making noticeable ripples.

I also thought about making the pads bob around a little, but the water animation is pretty subtle so I'm not certain it would work... I'm worried the pads would look like they were bobbing far more than they should given the size of the ripples. Another option is overlaying the water ripples on the lilies so it looks like they're rippling, too...

Anyway, I'll mess around with it a bit and see what I can do.

[LordBob]

My two cents :
- Waterlilies usualy sit in very still waters, so I'd avoid ripples or disturbance of any kind
- They'll usually grow rather densely instead of small patches, though you might have this covered already in your future plans.
The stems, I think, are a bit too much visible, which reinforces the "overlay" feeling. I think we should barely be able to make them out.

[Atz]

My two cents :
- Waterlilies usualy sit in very still waters, so I'd avoid ripples or disturbance of any kind
...
The stems, I think, are a bit too much visible, which reinforces the "overlay" feeling. I think we should barely be able to make them out.

I know, but there is no still water as of 1.9, unless you count swamps, so I thought I might have to forsake realism to make it fit. Though, honestly, it looked pretty ugly when I made a quick mock up, so I've decided not to go with that.

Fortuitously - and in relation to your last point - I have decided that wanton abuse of the smudge tool followed by setting the layer to low opacity actually looks reasonable, though it's not perfect. Latest version with some buildings and sand for comparison:

(Large picture, sorry, JPEG compression distorts it a bit more than I'd like so I had to use PNG)

Needs more variations, obviously, but that should be reasonably easy once I've sorted out the style. I was thinking at least one big one which is pretty much pads everywhere with no large gaps, and another three or so small ones. I'll probably slap a flower on one or two each of the small and large variations, too.

Unfortunately, when the small variations are next to each other there are noticeable gaps between them, but I don't think there's a lot I can do about that since they overlap the land otherwise (speaking of which, I just noticed I have overlap on the castle transition, apparently it's much larger than the others). Unless I implement transitions for every direction, but I'm not sure if I can do that with an overlay.

[Alarantalara]

Thinking of real lilies, I notice two things: most have a split or dimple on one part of the pad that extends to the stalk, and second, for more dense lilies, at least some need to overlap each other. Otherwise, I like your second set a lot.

[thespaceinvader]

Much better. The occasional flower would be nice, too =)