Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

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josteph
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Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by josteph »

When you plan a move to a village, there's a small icon that shows you the hex you're looking at is a village:
2019-10-04-180825_1920x1080_scrot.png
2019-10-04-180825_1920x1080_scrot.png (88.32 KiB) Viewed 5692 times
(See the "house with a plus sign" under the terrain defense indication)

How about having similar icons for hexes that aren't villages but heal (oases), or illuminate (volcanoes / illuminated caves), etc? Illumination is indicated in the sidebar nowadays, but not on the main map, and oases aren't indicated at all.

Related: #4417.
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by Iris »

Yes
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Spixi
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by Spixi »

I tried to implement this. (Untested and not compiled yet).

What do you think?

https://github.com/spixi/wesnoth/commit ... d4c3b33e52
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by Pentarctagon »

How does that display the icons for tiles that do multiple things? Given all three use the same loc, xpos, ypos, they'd be drawn on top of each other, right?
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by Spixi »

Pentarctagon wrote: October 6th, 2019, 7:10 pm How does that display the icons for tiles that do multiple things? Given all three use the same loc, xpos, ypos, they'd be drawn on top of each other, right?
If you have a closer look, you will see that the icons are located in different positions of the overlay. The hidden icon is at 12 o’ clock, the heals icon at 3 o’ clock, the village / capture icon at 6 o’ clock and the illuminates icon at 9 o’ clock. I haven’t tested it yet, however.
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josteph
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by josteph »

There's a compile error, so I couldn't see how the healing/illuminates icons look in-game, but I look forward to seeing a PR of this!
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by Spixi »

josteph wrote: October 8th, 2019, 3:06 am There's a compile error, so I couldn't see how the healing/illuminates icons look in-game, but I look forward to seeing a PR of this!
Thank you, I fixed this in my fork. That is how it currently looks like:
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illuminates
illuminates
hidden (submerge) + capture + heals
hidden (submerge) + capture + heals
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josteph
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by josteph »

Nice! :D :D I've taken the liberty of moving this thread to the art forums for comments about the new art (the lightbulb and the red cross), as I'm not qualified to comment on such matters myself. Thanks for making this happen :)
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by beetlenaut »

The idea of the red cross is good, but I have two problems with it in this implementation. First, it looks like it's part of the text in this case. I honestly didn't know what it indicated since I looked at the picture first instead reading back in the thread. It also covers the text a bit and makes it look crowded. To solve both of these problems, I propose putting it on a white background (which makes its purpose clearer) and moving it down to replace the village icon (which makes it less crowded). You don't ever need the healing and village icons together since villages heal. (Okay, there may be some UMC scenarios without this mechanic, it's not a common enough problem to worry about IMO.)

The light bulb has the same crowding problem, but it could easily fit next to the hidden icon. That may require a separate icon for when both were active, but that's not too bad. I'm actually not sold on the light bulb however. It doesn't fit the BfW theme very well. A glowing halo would be better, and in that case, the village or hidden icon could be placed right on top of as long as it stuck out from behind a little. That would look natural enough.
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MoonyDragon
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by MoonyDragon »

I personally would add more icons to the place where the preexisting "village" one lies, depending on what properties the hex has.
Oh, and perhaps a sun makes more sense thematically ^^

This hex only gives income:
capture.png
capture.png (7.5 KiB) Viewed 5351 times
This hex gives income and heals:
income+heals.png
income+heals.png (1.49 KiB) Viewed 5351 times
This hex gives income, heals and is illuminated:
income+heals+illuminated.png
income+heals+illuminated.png (1.87 KiB) Viewed 5351 times
...etc...
If need be, the + sign can also be removed and the icons can be spaced in between.
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by Spixi »

Hello together.

I stole the light bulb from the existing picture from /images/icons/profiles/illuminates.png. Maybe that picture is also a bit off, because I guess, light bulbs don’t exist in the world of Wesnoth.

The "capture" icon is currently only used if you capture that village, not a multi-purpose income image. However, the current implementation has a house icon without the plus sign for a village which is already owned by you. This is useful for Dwarvish Guardsmen or Spearmen, which are often used to protect villages.

@MoonyDragon: I like your heart icon more than the red cross, because it is more neutral, because the red cross is often associated with Christian religion.

It is technically possible to have all those options. However, this also needs to have a lot of different images. I am aware about the crowding problem. This can be easily fixed by shifting the icon more to the border (does not need changes in the source code, only in the image files).

Illuminates also has the problem that it is not a binary value, that means, you can have a minimum and a maximum light value for the tile and depending on ToD, an illuminated tile can be even darker than the surrounding non-illuminated tiles. Heals has a similar problem. You can have different amounts of healing there, for example 4, 2 or even negative values like -2 (hot sand, poisonous swamp, etc.). In both cases the current implementation only respects positive light and heals values.

What do you think? How many icons do we really need?
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by beetlenaut »

Spixi wrote: October 20th, 2019, 8:57 pm What do you think? How many icons do we really need?
  • Village: Yes. Windmills, temples, and barrels could go either way; there are some combinations of terrain that make a village hard to see; and a new player might not recognize one they haven't seen before (like a merman village).
  • Hides: Yes. Some varieties of the ability are rarely used, so a reminder is a good idea.
  • Heals: Big yes. There is currently no way to find out that oases heal except by accident.
  • Illuminates: No. It shows up in a large, clear way on the sidebar.
  • Negative Values: Maybe. For heals, this could be implemented by allowing UMC authors to change the graphic for specific terrains. Or, there could be a separate, blank icon for authors to use as they like.
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josteph
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by josteph »

beetlenaut wrote: October 20th, 2019, 9:43 pm
Spixi wrote: October 20th, 2019, 8:57 pm What do you think? How many icons do we really need?
  • Illuminates: No. It shows up in a large, clear way on the sidebar.
Yes, but how many people look at the sidebar while moving the mouse around?

But if we do this, we should also think about a darkens indication for scenarios are in caves or that feature both caves and non-caves.
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by lhybrideur »

Concerning the icons themselves, I vote in favor of the heart and sun for heal and illumination.
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Re: Indicating hexes that heal / illuminate / etc?

Post by Spixi »

Hi guys, I think we should find a decision of which icons we want to have. Technically possible is everything, but I feel that too much will bloat the UI, so we have find a compromise. Shall I open a poll?

We also should replace the current illumination icon (illuminates.png) to be consistent. I know WINR, but I doubt, that light bulbs do exist there.
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