Making Canyons using the Castle methodology

[Eleazar]

Here's another view of how the canyon doesn't quite work.
Notice how the North sides of the canyon cover up the hills and mountains.

Is there a way to deal with this without some of the revisions discussed for terrain?


I'd like to use the same canyon in cave and outdoors, but feel free to express your oppinion as to weather the canyon should or shouldn't have a black bottom.

[turin]

Well, I think the canyon would look better with a bottom. We could always have canyon and abyss, abyss being the cave version of canyon.

IMHO, the north side of the canyon looks good - I can't quite see what you're talking about. The problems come with the tree appearing in the middle of the canyon, and the canyon shading the mountain black in southeast corner. The first could probably be fixed by stating that no transitions from other hexes are allowed to enter the canyon hex (this isn't currently possible AFAIK, but it could be made possible). The second one, I dunno.

[Ayin]

Here's another view of how the canyon doesn't quite work.
Notice how the North sides of the canyon cover up the hills and mountains.

Is there a way to deal with this without some of the revisions discussed for terrain?

Yep. This can perfectly well be tweaked using WML (however, defining an alternate TERRAIN_ADJACENT_CORNER macro will be necessary).

I'll post more info when I have more time.

[Jetrel]

Well, I think the canyon would look better with a bottom. We could always have canyon and abyss, abyss being the cave version of canyon.

For game intuition puposes, all canyons should be the "abyss" variety. The "looks better" argument is somewhat debatable, in fact I agree it might slightly look better by rote of looking more real.

However, if it has a bottom, some idiot out there is going to say "why can't my units climb into the canyon?", and we'll keep hearing that same spiel again, and again. Let's avoid this if possible. Also, even on just the looks argument, the black abyss looks mighty cool, realism be damned.



Other cool ideas: For "Symbolic" maps, something like this could be used as a map "world edge" instead of cave wall, which should be excised from as many maps as is possible.

[yobbo]

I couldn't help myself.

I really like these canyons.

[appleide]

[Tomsik]

It looks cool(at least IMO), but i would not be happy to live on so thin world.

[khamul]

I know it's extra work, but any chance of a water/canyon tansition with the water spilling endlessly into the abyss? That would look amazing!

The new canyon is superb.

[turin]

Well, I think the canyon would look better with a bottom. We could always have canyon and abyss, abyss being the cave version of canyon.

For game intuition puposes, all canyons should be the "abyss" variety. The "looks better" argument is somewhat debatable, in fact I agree it might slightly look better by rote of looking more real.

However, if it has a bottom, some idiot out there is going to say "why can't my units climb into the canyon?", and we'll keep hearing that same spiel again, and again. Let's avoid this if possible. Also, even on just the looks argument, the black abyss looks mighty cool, realism be damned.

Hm... you have a point there. It's sad how idiots can ruin everything.

Other cool ideas: For "Symbolic" maps, something like this could be used as a map "world edge" instead of cave wall, which should be excised from as many maps as is possible.

This could cause problems, though, since flying units can move onto canyon, while no units can move onto cave wall.

[Ayin]

I couldn't help myself.

I really like these canyons.

Yobbo: I especially love your version of the canyons.

Those remind me of Ultima 6. :-)

[turin]

Hm. I actually have a use for the opens-up-to-outer-space canyon variation. Let's include it!

[Eleazar]

For game intuition puposes, all canyons should be the "abyss" variety. The "looks better" argument is somewhat debatable, in fact I agree it might slightly look better by rote of looking more real.....

If the shroud is turned on the canyon bottom will be black anyway.

In some ways i don't like them as well as the old canyon, but they do work in any configuration.

It may be that having the mountains and such on the north side overlap it wouldn't look right.
It's tricky working in such a small space.

[turin]

For game intuition puposes, all canyons should be the "abyss" variety. The "looks better" argument is somewhat debatable, in fact I agree it might slightly look better by rote of looking more real.....

If the shroud is turned on the canyon bottom will be black anyway.

Not true - remember, you can see one hex past where you can normally move, so even though they can't move to the hex they can see it. Also (and I mentioned this before, but no one payed attention), flying units can move onto canyon.

In some ways i don't like them as well as the old canyon, but they do work in any configuration.

IMHO, they are better for a kind of "abyss" terrain, which would replace cave wall on all the multiplayer maps where it is used. IMHO, it wouldn't look right above ground in a realistic environment.

[Dave]

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.

Of course, the bottomless one looks like something more dramatic than a canyon on earth -- more like e.g. the Granacliffs in Grandia 2.

David

[Oreb]

I've played that game and i gotta tell you that canyon is sweet as, anyway i need a canyon in my campaign that i am making that actually can be wide not thin like the ones already made