water animation

[rhyging5]

Hey guys, sorry for desapear for some time. Really I have been absorved on other jobs. Seem some things are changed since I got away. Eleazar, Jetrel, Boucman......How I can help now?

[Eleazar]

Hey guys, sorry for desapear for some time. Really I have been absorved on other jobs. Seem some things are changed since I got away. Eleazar, Jetrel, Boucman......How I can help now?

Excellent.
Here's a few things. The most important items are at the top of the list.

1)
Did you see this post? Do you understand what i'm getting at?

The waves washing up on the beach would be much more useful if it was semi-transparent so it could be put on top of dark ocean water or bright tropical water. Also the beach should not be included in the same file. That can be added in as another layer underneath the waves by the game, so we can swap it out with different beach types. I've increased the number of different flat terrains since you were last active, so it's even more important to make transitions that we can mix and match.


2)
When you made a semi-transparent edge for the water tiles, so they can animate randomly without any visible edges, that was a great idea, and one i wish i'd thought of.

However, when we use them to transition between different colored waters, like the light-colored shallow water with the darker ocean water, we get something that's too mechanical looking. like the example at the top:



What we need is a second set of transitions for the water, one that's wider and more gradual, more like the bottom example. This set of transitions would only be used between different colored water. The transitions you already made would be used between water tiles of the same color.
Here's the approximate size needed:

mask.png (8.87 KiB) Viewed 9290 times

[Dharokan]

Just to push your motivation:
The steps in this thread look amazing! Imho it's a must-have for the next release of Wesnoth.
Keep up the good work!

Cheers,
Dharokan

[Boucman]

yay


glad to see you back rhyging5...

I'll keep answering technical questions, but we now have a real art dev to help you on the artistic aspects of the tiles, I hope this helps

[rhyging5]

thanks guys,
Think is moment to draw nice waves (on a independent layer)

[rhyging5]

Hey, Eleazar, rest of guys:

I'm working on waves....The problem is that every time I try, I feel overloaded with the numerous pngs to produce....Then, I think in two options:

1- Someone wants to help me to produce this pngs? I can explain how I'm drawing the waves....

2- If not, I'm think on the possibility of draw a two nice isometric waves , than can be repeated on all the N-NE-E and the other on all the S-SW-W coast, like in the sketch. Maybe seems a bit incongruence, but I think this can works fine....only needs to be checked

[Sgt. Groovy]

Never mind the wind, waves should always move towards the shore, not perpendicular to it.

[furioso]

Disclaimer: I'm not a pixel artist, or an artist at all, for that matter.

Have any of you played Advance Wars? That game had a simple animation for water where the waves went up and down the beach all at the same time, so they were always moving either towards or away from the beach and always matched up (forgive me if that's not a very good explanation). Could a similar mechanism be used here?

[Eleazar]

Hey, Eleazar, rest of guys:

I'm working on waves....The problem is that every time I try, I feel overloaded with the numerous pngs to produce....Then, I think in two options:

1- Someone wants to help me to produce this pngs? I can explain how I'm drawing the waves....

2- If not, I'm think on the possibility of draw a two nice isometric waves , than can be repeated on all the N-NE-E and the other on all the S-SW-W coast, like in the sketch. Maybe seems a bit incongruence, but I think this can works fine....only needs to be checked

I'm not entirely sure about the direction of the waves, but i tend to think having them all move towards shore is the best choice.

However, Rhyging, i hope you aren't using that image as a land template. The beach sticks out way too far. And we can do better than reuse my chasm edge for a water's edge. I'm working on a new water's edge transition now. Maybe it would be best to hold off on the waves, until we get that new shore for them. It would be a shame to make really nice wave animations for mediocre shore.

Can you work on the #2 in this post first?

[rhyging5]

Yeaah, we will do what you say.....But if you did "the chasm edge".....You are criticising your own work, isn't? In fact,I love the chasm transition....and my first attemps are based on it, how as the attached file. Then, you will do a new coast?mmmmm......this is really great and a motivation for me to continue working.

[A-Red]

Oh wow. That's pretty.

[Jetrel]

However, Rhyging, i hope you aren't using that image as a land template. The beach sticks out way too far.

Actually, that's meant to be a solid tile of sand, part of it decoratively covered with water, but treated as a sand tile. IMO, visually, it's fine for it to work like sand, because it looks so shallow, and the water only covers a small portion of the tile.

I really, really hope we can make this work, because this would be give us the best of both worlds (that is, sandy beaches, and also the crumbling bank transition), and also looks considerably better than our current sand<->water transitions.

[Eleazar]

Yeaah, we will do what you say.....But if you did "the chasm edge".....You are criticising your own work, isn't? In fact,I love the chasm transition....and my first attemps are based on it, how as the attached file. Then, you will do a new coast?mmmmm......this is really great and a motivation for me to continue working.

Thanks, yeah i did do the chasm edge. Though there's some things i don't like about it, my main concern is that it doesn't really look right for most situations. I want to use something that matches most outdoor terrain better.

And that example of animation is wonderful, that's they way i'd like to see it -- except matched to a better shore.

Actually, that's meant to be a solid tile of sand, part of it decoratively covered with water, but treated as a sand tile. IMO, visually, it's fine for it to work like sand, because it looks so shallow, and the water only covers a small portion of the tile.

I really, really hope we can make this work, because this would be give us the best of both worlds (that is, sandy beaches, and also the crumbling bank transition), and also looks considerably better than our current sand<->water transitions.

Well, if that's supposed to be a sand hex, i reverse my opinion: there's too much water on it. The general appearance is really good, but the position won't work. Most of the tiles are half land, half water. Besides the conceptual problems of half-and-half, if the water is to the south a submerge value for the unit would seem called for, but if to the north it would look really weird. A hex needs to me mostly one thing, transitions shouldn't eat half of it.

shore.jpg (66.22 KiB) Viewed 7869 times

But we can still get a nicely gradual fade-off of the sand disappearing under the water, we just need to set it up differently. I'd center the transition on the hex edge, so it blends with the hexes on both sides, but doesn't take up too much of either. There's a couple ways to chop up transition that occur to me that could do this, but i'm too sleepy to properly evaluate right now. Here's an ugly example to show how the transition can work without eating too much of any hexes.

beach.jpg (61.34 KiB) Viewed 7926 times

This would probably complicate the animation of the waves however...