Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

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Cackfiend
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Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by Cackfiend »

Is there any plan to fix the water graphics? As of right now it looks terrible compared to 1.8's smooth looking edges. In 1.8 all the the water hexes have beaches depending on whats touching it and it looks really nice. I really cant stand playing 1.9 due to the water graphics... can we maybe at least have an option in preferences to use the old 1.8 graphics? Maybe when you select to turn off water animation?

BTW I play with Show Grid on and is probably the main reason why it looks so terrible because when I turn off Show Grid its not nearly as bad. But I just dont understand why in 1.8 there was so much effort put into making water hexes mesh so well with other terrain hexes and in 1.9 its all the same generic jagged edge.

Shallow Water Fords are also very hard to distinguish compared to 1.8


Swamp hexes look terrible compared to 1.8 due to the thick border as well.



Jungle forest does look 10x better at least though =D
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by Iris »

The first version with the new graphics was Wesnoth 1.9.0, tagged on August 18th 2010 and announced shortly afterwards. There was an active working topic in Art Development for this and other terrains, and later a comments topic in Art Contributions. Tweaks were made later in the series to try to address some readability complaints due to the low contrast between Shallow and Deep water hexes.

Today is January 10th 2012, and Wesnoth 1.9.14 (1.10 RC 1) was just released after two months of feature freeze, and trunk will only accept changes fixing bugs reported in the tracker until the next stable release; Wesnoth 1.10.0 will come in approximately two weeks, ending the feature freeze in trunk, and then it’ll be a few months before 1.11.0.

There’s something amiss here.

Also, 1.9.14 uses the same tropical forest graphics as 1.9.12.
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by Dixie »

I'm not a big fan of the ford either. (had to get that out)

That being said, just leave it time. The main terrain artist wanted the water to a) be animated and b) be more realistic. Transitions are apparently very hard to draw for this animated water, so it'll all come in due time. I personnally don't realy hate it, it does look less cartoony, imho.
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by Dunno »

Maybe just add the option to use 1.10 as if it was 1.8 and we'll all be happy!

</sarcasm> :augh:
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by Cackfiend »

shadowmaster wrote:The first version with the new graphics was Wesnoth 1.9.0, tagged on August 18th 2010 and announced shortly afterwards. There was an active working topic in Art Development for this and other terrains, and later a comments topic in Art Contributions. Tweaks were made later in the series to try to address some readability complaints due to the low contrast between Shallow and Deep water hexes.

Today is January 10th 2012, and Wesnoth 1.9.14 (1.10 RC 1) was just released after two months of feature freeze, and trunk will only accept changes fixing bugs reported in the tracker until the next stable release; Wesnoth 1.10.0 will come in approximately two weeks, ending the feature freeze in trunk, and then it’ll be a few months before 1.11.0.

There’s something amiss here.

Also, 1.9.14 uses the same tropical forest graphics as 1.9.12.
LOL, you say this as if I should have pointed this out sooner? How has no one else pointed this out? I have only just recently played on 1.9 with the WTT tournament and was awaiting this obvious fix for each new version since but it hasnt happened. The artists should be ashamed of how bad the new water hexes edges look with grass terrain next to it. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BEACHES? Its a step in the wrong direction for wesnoth graphics.

Just add an option in preferences to use the old graphics for water... problem solved.
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by Iris »

Cackfiend wrote:The artists should be ashamed of how bad the new water hexes edges look with grass terrain next to it. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BEACHES? Its a step in the wrong direction for wesnoth graphics.
Hahaha. Wow.

I can recognize problems with the 1.10 terrains (muddy quagmire transitions, stone walls creating Escheresque effects when placed adjacent to certain building terrains because of z-order issues, etc.), but water-to-grass transitions aren’t one of them (water-to-sand, though...). It just goes to show the big role of subjectivity when evaluating the artists’ work and the omnipresent impossibility of pleasing everyone.

The implementation and deployment of the new animated water, while based on work from a previous artist, was mainly spearheaded by Eleazar, by the way.
Cackfiend wrote:Just add an option in preferences to use the old graphics for water... problem solved.
Not going to happen.
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by AlaskanAvenger »

I know this isn't the right thread, and I haven't been able to find the correct one, but I have gotten tired of hearing many peoples negative remarks about the new jungles, and just wanted to say that I really like it and think it is a huge improvement... just hope sometime the rest of the forest can be made more to match it.
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by PeterPorty »

I still dislike the forests; said that as soon as I played 1.9.12... In any case, the water looks just fine, IMHO. If it really, REALLY bothers you, I guess you can as well change the image files and use the 1.8 ones? that shouldn't cause any problem, since it's only graphics... And it isn't that hard either. I remember this one guy changing the currently-selected-hex image for something else, since his sister didn't like the color yellow or something like that. But yeah; the water graphics simply won't be changed at this point after the huge work they've put on it, and you don't really get a say after all this time.

Now, just to conclude... Be polite towards our artists; you can tell them to be ashamed of themselves once you're paying them at least the minimum wage, as for now, you're being disrespectful to the volunteers willing to spend their limited free time to make your gaming experience more enjoyable.
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by ancestral »

Cackfiend wrote:Just add an option in preferences to use the old graphics for water... problem solved.
You could easily make an add-on instead, with short instructions to install.
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by SlowThinker »

I don't care about the art, but about a similarity of different terrains:
https://gna.org/bugs/?19238
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by Gambit »

Cackfiend wrote:The artists should be ashamed of how bad the new water hexes edges look with grass terrain next to it.
Excuse me? How dare you sir?

How about you go become an artist on the same level as they are, and then put countless of hours of work into a project for which you will never be adequately compensated when you could easily go do commissioned work for other projects.

How dare you have the balls to sit there — contributing NOTHING to this project — and tell those amazing people that they should be "ashamed" of their work?
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by Crendgrim »

I'd like to use this topic for even another wrong purpose: To thank our artists for their work!
I seriously love the new animated water, and I also like the new transitions way more, as well as all other new terrain which make Wesnoth 1.9/1.10 look so much better than 1.8. I think you did an awesome job on the gameplay experience (as terrain graphics are the thing you see most in Wesnoth). Thank you for spending your time on this, and for sharing your result with all of us, without any cost for us! (The same applies to every other piece of art, music, and code, of course, but I concentrated on terrain here as it has been criticized.)
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by Madlok »

I hate 1.9 water/ford too. And FoW is hard to visible on this new water. That's why I don't play 1.9.
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by Alarantalara »

I can answer some of the questions you have.
Cackfiend wrote:Is there any plan to fix the water graphics? As of right now it looks terrible compared to 1.8's smooth looking edges. In 1.8 all the the water hexes have beaches depending on whats touching it and it looks really nice. I really cant stand playing 1.9 due to the water graphics... can we maybe at least have an option in preferences to use the old 1.8 graphics? Maybe when you select to turn off water animation?

BTW I play with Show Grid on and is probably the main reason why it looks so terrible because when I turn off Show Grid its not nearly as bad. But I just dont understand why in 1.8 there was so much effort put into making water hexes mesh so well with other terrain hexes and in 1.9 its all the same generic jagged edge.
There are now three kinds of grass instead of one. This makes it more costly to have unique edges for all the grass (one of the few terrains that had a water specific transition).
For all the dirt/sand/cave terrains in 1.8, there was no special transition for water - you just got the blurred edge that was used for everything else.

1.9 adds a transition specific for ground to water that matches the shape of the ice edges. This allows the drawing of a single animated set of waves to cover almost every terrain.
Unfortunately, apart from the sand beach, the second set of waves was never completed. But everything is now ready so that any artist who does decide to complete it now can without having to try and make things work for an unknown number of terrains, including ones that don't exist yet.
Swamp hexes look terrible compared to 1.8 due to the thick border as well.
There's already a bug report associated with this one that provides a specific example of why (http://gna.org/bugs/index.php?18601). You can it expect it to look better in the next release.

I would complain about how late this is, but other people have done it for me.

Also, this is generally true for any issue with the game: just because it is obvious to you does not mean that the developers or artists know about it. I find it amusing reading all the posts about people who are waiting for 1.10 to come out before trying anything out. It's as though they assume that the developers will magically find and fix every problem on their own when their own experiences with the current stable version show that this cannot happen (remember the new multiplayer lobby?).
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Re: Water Graphics in 1.9/1.10

Post by Pewskeepski »

If you ask me, the only thing 'ugly' about the new water is the very hex-looking transition between muddy water and forded water.
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