Sun moves backwards?

futabachan · Post by **futabachan** » February 11th, 2005, 7:55 pm

Is Wesnoth supposed to be in the southern hemisphere? The "time of day" indicator appears to show the sun rising in the west and setting in the east, unless the observer is supposed to be looking north. In the northern hemisphere north of the tropics, the observer would have to be looking south to see the sun rise, move across the sky, and set in a single view....

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » February 11th, 2005, 7:59 pm

No. The sun rises in the right and sets in the left. Not east and west or east and west or whatever.

futabachan · Post by **futabachan** » February 11th, 2005, 8:26 pm

But if you're in the northern hemisphere, looking at the sun, it should rise in the left and set in the right. The current behaviour is confusing -- when the sun looks like it's "rising," night is actually about to fall.

Post by **quartex** » February 11th, 2005, 8:37 pm

The images for dawn and dusk look very different, so I don't think confusing them is an issue. Wesnoth is not earth, I don't think we should worry about the direction the sun moves in the sky.

Post by **Quensul** » February 11th, 2005, 9:18 pm

I have to agree with futabachan that it does look a little odd, and since the fix is trivial (swap the afternoon/morning images), we might as well make it look "natural"...

scott · Post by **scott** » February 11th, 2005, 9:22 pm

Besides, this is simply NOT true. When you are in the northern hemisphere in the summer, the solar azimuth is northeast in the morning and northwest in the evening. See for yourself. I admit for 6 months of the year you can't look north and see the sun. On the other hand the great continent of Wesnoth can span both hemispheres and neither convention would be fully correct.

Post by **Quensul** » February 11th, 2005, 9:25 pm

:shrug: Okay, so the sun moving from left-to-right may not be physically accurate, but I at least usually think of "west" as "left", courtesy the standard orientation of maps.

Post by **quartex** » February 11th, 2005, 9:27 pm

Quensul wrote:I have to agree with futabachan that it does look a little odd, and since the fix is trivial (swap the afternoon/morning images), we might as well make it look "natural"...

You'd also have to edit the dawn and dusk images. For instance at dusk you can see the sun set at the left of the image and the moon rising at the right. I think the entire day cycle turns from right to left, doesn't the moon rise at the right and set in the left? If any artist wanted to edit these images and make "appropriate" ones, then we could discuss implementing them.

mpolo · Post by **mpolo** » February 11th, 2005, 9:53 pm

For what it's worth, I thought it odd as well. I'd say to do the mirror image to avoid confusion. Since North is cold, and there are no tropics at about the middle of the map (other than Isle of the Damned), it would seem Wesnoth lies fully in the Northern hemisphere...

Post by **turin** » February 11th, 2005, 9:55 pm

It should be changed... we got into a discussion about this earlier, remember? It wasn't resolved. But I think the best solution is to change it. There is no reason not to change it other than apathy, and the fix is trivial.

As for what scott is saying, it is true that it is correct, sort of... when looking north, you can always see the sun rise and set, but you can NOT always see it when it is in the sky, i.e. morning/afternoon not dawn/dusk. And we can't fix one without also changing the other...

EDIT: And Dave has said that Wesnoth is based on northern hemisphere climate. It is basically northern/central Europe.

Post by **Dave** » February 11th, 2005, 10:13 pm

To me sun going from right-to-left makes sense, because the sun rises in the east, and sets in the west, and the right side of the map is what one would call the 'east'.

I understand the arguments from the other point of view though, and I think this is an issue that is always going to be 'intuitive' to some people in one way, and 'intuitive' to others in another. Unless an overwhelming number of people are shown to find left-to-right intuitive, I think we'll keep it the way it is.

David

Post by **turin** » February 11th, 2005, 10:16 pm

I'm going to start a poll.

EDIT: Also, perhaps it could be made an option? it would only affect the GUI... and some people, like me, really find the current system counterintuitive.

Gafgarion · Post by **Gafgarion** » February 11th, 2005, 10:44 pm

The right-to-left sun movement that is currently in-game makes perfect sense to me, but if there are other people out there (southern hemisphere people and such) that find it confusing, they have the ability to fix it.

Theme support is a documented part of Wesnoth and if this is something that bothers you a lot then by all means make a theme that uses time of day images to your liking.

Post by **turin** » February 11th, 2005, 10:52 pm

Gafgarion wrote:The right-to-left sun movement that is currently in-game makes perfect sense to me, but if there are other people out there (southern hemisphere people and such) that find it confusing, they have the ability to fix it.

the ability but not the knowedge. (I could make a quick hack by flipping all time-of-day images, but not everyone knows enough to do that.)

I just think this is something that should be easier to fix, since probably at least 10% of people find this annoying. We have made other changes for those who constitute a smaller % of population (made images recognizable by those partially colorblind, for example).

P.S.: Texas is not southern hemisphere, but its still counterintuitive for me.

Gafgarion · Post by **Gafgarion** » February 11th, 2005, 11:00 pm

turin wrote:
Gafgarion wrote:The right-to-left sun movement that is currently in-game makes perfect sense to me, but if there are other people out there (southern hemisphere people and such) that find it confusing, they have the ability to fix it.
the ability but not the knowedge. (I could make a quick hack by flipping all time-of-day images, but not everyone knows enough to do that.)

I just think this is something that should be easier to fix, since probably at least 10% of people find this annoying. We have made other changes for those who constitute a smaller % of population (made images recognizable by those partially colorblind, for example).

P.S.: Texas is not southern hemisphere, but its still counterintuitive for me.

I think that this is the perfect opportunity for people to become familiar with the theme system (currently the most unsued major part of the Wesnoth engine, imo).
The difference between this and things like colorblindness is that colorblindness is a disability that will prevent the game from being played easily without taking things into consideration, this is just an inconvenience that can be gotten used to... Thusly I think it's totally appropriate for something like this to be fixed by concerned users taking advantage of modularity that we've already put in place.