Creeping biggerism revisited

[zookeeper]

I found only one thread directly dealing with creeping biggerism. Any new one might be in order to get some attention to the issue (especially since I noticed that Jetryl hadn't replied to that thread) ...

What's the official stand of the art people on biggerism? What is the size of a unit used to indicate and what it should be used to indicate? Should it matter at all that a high-level human is bigger than a lvl3 troll or orc (not necessarily taller, but bigger), for example? Some units (orcish sovereign, grand marshal) are already so big that they can't even stand with their feet in the proper spot on the team ellipse, but must be sunk almost to the bottom of the hex to fit in, not to mention the difficulties in animating them.

Also, I think some elves are getting way too big (not so much the fighter, but the archer), see attached screenshot.

EDIT: There seems to be another, suprisingly new (I don't know how I've missed that almost completely) thread with some discussion on biggerism. Now, assuming that the plan is to update all other units as well to be bigger, how much time would that approximately take? About months or years (bearing in mind that during all that time the size differences will be there)?

[Sapient]

Have some faith... seriously. The larger sprites allow for greater pixel detail and thus, better art. It's not helpful to compare replaced sprites with those that haven't been replaced yet. I believe repetitive explanation of work in progress is one of the main reasons the art forums got split.

[Zhukov]

It's not helpful to compare replaced sprites with those that haven't been replaced yet.

He isn't. The only mainline units in that screenshot that haven't been replaced are the whelp and the merman (which is staying like that I believe).

[Ranger M]

It's not helpful to compare replaced sprites with those that haven't been replaced yet.

He isn't. The only mainline units in that screenshot that haven't been replaced are the whelp and the merman (which is staying like that I believe).

And the bandit, which will need updating at some point. and I see no reason to make the mermen bigger, unless somebody plans on adding to their costume, because they have very little detail that needs showing (defeating the art reason for making them bigger) and they are a completely seperate race, so it doesn't matter if they are smaller.

[Jetrel]

They are 3 pixels taller, thats hardly making them giants. I think they look magnitudes better now compared to the old ones, I don't mind them being somewhat bigger when that allows for such an increase in sprite quality.

That's why it is creeping biggerism, not just biggerism

It is okay for elves to be about as tall as orcish grunts. They're the same level, and similar orders of creature; elves are known for being tall, and so long as the orcs look a bit wider and burlier, that's fine. For reference:


It is not okay for the elves to be as tall as the L2 trolls, ogres, and/or drakes. However, with the exception of the drakes, there are remarkably few of these units, and neo has begun edits to fix the size of the trolls:


Neo also started work on the woses, and similar edits *should* be made for the ogres as well.

What I've done hasn't been flawless, but I've tried quite hard and done a fairly consistent job of making the units the 'correct' size; keeping in mind as I state this that I fully intended to increase the size of most human-sized units, across the board. I have corrected a few of my mistakes along the way, and will continue to do so.

Current ones which are a little bit funny are the orcish bowman, and the human spearman/archer. The orcish bowman makes a lot more sense if you think of him as being more or less halfways between a goblin and an orc; that being the reason he took up the bow instead of the sword - perhaps we could call him a hobgoblin? This isn't retconning in his case, it's been the plan all along, and his graphics shouldn't change. However, the human archer/spearman are a tad on the small size; we can justify it for now by thinking of them as 16-17 year olds who've been conscripted, but it might be nice to make them a tiny bit taller, later.

In the image you attached, the thug, troll, and merman are also a bit small, but those haven't been attended to yet.

[freim]

They are 3 pixels taller, thats hardly making them giants. I think they look magnitudes better now compared to the old ones, I don't mind them being somewhat bigger when that allows for such an increase in sprite quality.

That's why it is creeping biggerism, not just biggerism

No. Creeping biggerism would be if Jetryl plan to redo all the units making them 3 pixels taller every 3 weeks. For some reason I don't see that happening...

Wesnoth is in constant change, we always have inconsistencies between new stuff and old stuff not updated yet. We have it in code, UI, art etc. If we are to avoid this we have to change the development process completely which is a totally different issue altogether. This "biggerism" is just a symptom of this bigger issue.

[freim]

The way I see it we have several issues here.

Our unit art as all other parts of Wesnoth is in constant incremental change. Jetryl are, as part of the TColoring project, adjusting the units which includes making them slightly larger all over the board. While this work is going on the new units will obviously be larger than the old ones. Comparing the new to the old is imo kind of pointless. We can of course agree that it's unfortunate to have this kind of inconsistency, but it's hard to avoid given the nature of open source development.

However, I know Jetryl has a plan and he is sticking to it. It's not like he's increasing the size every two weeks. He's doing a one time adjustment across the board. Some may call it biggerism in work, I have more confidence in Jetryl than that. Whats important here is what you consider the best baseline for units. For those who think the old units was the best thing since sliced bread I can understand they are concerned. Personally I think the old units was to small and the new ones are much better. There are still room for differentiation in size with the new units also and I wouldn't start to worry unless we actually couldn't for instance make a troll larger than an elf because of the elf already bumping into the tile size constraints. I don't think we have crossed that treshold yet. Making them larger has other benefits which I find more atractive: better looking and tcoloring works much better.

So what I suggest here is finding the absolute limits based on hex size, make a template* and stick to it. But, stick to it AFTER Jetryl has finished his adjustments which was triggered by the TColor change. This is a planned and systematic change, not some random increase here and there in size.

*irrevenants idea, I support it.

So to sum it up I'm of the opinion that what most people call biggerism is a temporary inconsistency between old and new units which we can hardly avoid. I also can't imagine that jetryl plans to keep increasing the unit size ad infinitum so I really don't see whats all the fuzz is about.

* If some devs think inconsistency like this between old and new gfx is unacceptable then we have a major problem since that would more or less block all major art upgrades
* If some devs think the old unit size was perfect then we have a disagrement over what is the best 'baseline" for unit size
* If some devs think unit size is more important than gfx quality to the point where they think the new units are worse than the old then we also have a disagrement
* If devs think Jetryl will keep increasing the unit size they are just being silly

Atm I'm not quite sure what of the above people have problems with?

[zookeeper]

The way I see it we have several issues here.

Our unit art as all other parts of Wesnoth is in constant incremental change. Jetryl are, as part of the TColoring project, adjusting the units which includes making them slightly larger all over the board. While this work is going on the new units will obviously be larger than the old ones. Comparing the new to the old is imo kind of pointless. We can of course agree that it's unfortunate to have this kind of inconsistency, but it's hard to avoid given the nature of open source development.

However, I know Jetryl has a plan and he is sticking to it. It's not like he's increasing the size every two weeks. He's doing a one time adjustment across the board. Some may call it biggerism in work, I have more confidence in Jetryl than that. Whats important here is what you consider the best baseline for units. For those who think the old units was the best thing since sliced bread I can understand they are concerned. Personally I think the old units was to small and the new ones are much better. There are still room for differentiation in size with the new units also and I wouldn't start to worry unless we actually couldn't for instance make a troll larger than an elf because of the elf already bumping into the tile size constraints. I don't think we have crossed that treshold yet. Making them larger has other benefits which I find more atractive: better looking and tcoloring works much better.

So what I suggest here is finding the absolute limits based on hex size, make a template* and stick to it. But, stick to it AFTER Jetryl has finished his adjustments which was triggered by the TColor change. This is a planned and systematic change, not some random increase here and there in size.

*irrevenants idea, I support it.

So to sum it up I'm of the opinion that what most people call biggerism is a temporary inconsistency between old and new units which we can hardly avoid. I also can't imagine that jetryl plans to keep increasing the unit size ad infinitum so I really don't see whats all the fuzz is about.

* If some devs think inconsistency like this between old and new gfx is unacceptable then we have a major problem since that would more or less block all major art upgrades
* If some devs think the old unit size was perfect then we have a disagrement over what is the best 'baseline" for unit size
* If some devs think unit size is more important than gfx quality to the point where they think the new units are worse than the old then we also have a disagrement
* If devs think Jetryl will keep increasing the unit size they are just being silly

Atm I'm not quite sure what of the above people have problems with?

I have most of my problems with the first. A little bit with the second and third, none with the last one.

First: if this really is a one-time big undertaking, then fine. I still don't like having an inconsistent set of new and old style graphics especially in any stable release, but if it'll be just for this once, then...well, ok.

Second: I think the old unit size was perfectly fine. I don't think Wesnoth units benefit from a size increase really - you get prettier stills, but the simplicity of animations is then more visible. Increasing resolution doesn't make the art be of higher quality, if the old resolution wasn't even utilized completely - who can say that the old size unit graphics had even come close to their limits? Animations were and still are very simple in most cases, and increasing resolution doesn't make them any prettier. And I always prefer smoother animations to prettier stills. Also, it makes more difficult for people to contribute unit art - bigger sprites take more skill to make well. The latter argument especially isn't very strong however, but still worth noticing.

Third: I'd prefer consistent relative sizes between units and races over more detailed high-level units, absolutely (of course there are limits, for example the red dragon would never be able to be as big relative to a human as it "really" should). Overall look and feel is what matters to me, and to me wacky unit sizes make the whole appear worse - as if big units were just being big for the sake of showing off more bling. It just looks wrong to me...someone might argue that units are just symbolic so sizes don't matter, but I can't see them as purely symbolic. They're a sort of a weird mix between playing pieces and "real" units to me.

Then, the more technical stuff: It's really rather difficult to animate a really big unit. There just isn't space for the unit to raise his sword above his head before a strike, for example, when the unit also should stand with his feet on the proper spot instead of sinking to the bottom of the hex. Orcish sovereign with his banner is already too large to fit in the hex without sinking too low. I'd really like a graphics engine fix to enable units to be bigger than the current 72x72, which would fix all these problems. Unfortunately, that might not happen anytime soon.

[Jetrel]

So to sum it up I'm of the opinion that what most people call biggerism is a temporary inconsistency between old and new units which we can hardly avoid.

This, and basically everything else you've said here, I agree with entirely.

I also can't imagine that jetryl plans to keep increasing the unit size ad infinitum so I really don't see whats all the fuzz is about.

That would be absurd.

I should stress that this is a one-time thing; this is intended as the final state of wesnoth base images. People can still fix little niggling issues, but these are what I would have liked to have had for a 1.0 release. I do not plan, and will not undertake/support any other, further, major overhauls. Wesnoth would benefit more from more animations, and I have better things to do with my time.

By doing a soft "freeze" of the unit images, we can allow people to make much richer animations for them, especially animations for when they're just standing there. The "static" appearance of the wesnoth game screen, when no actions are underway, is one of the big problems with our current game. In my opinion, it's one of the very amateur things about it, and one which embarrasses me quite a bit when I show it off (the sound fx and music used to be that way, but some kind fellows have been fixing them). These kinds of animations would be a great addition on the road to 2.0.

I think the old unit size was perfectly fine. I don't think Wesnoth units benefit from a size increase really - you get prettier stills, but the simplicity of animations is then more visible.

Remember that 99% of the time, wesnoth units are in their standing frames. It is most important that wesnoth's standing images look good. Those get most of the screen time, and fill all the screenshots.

Also, I can say from experience that it is much more difficult to make things look good below a certain threshold of size. Even at the current size of sprites, it is very, very difficult to suggest certain parts of costuming. In the past, many of neo's unused sprites were basically the size of the new batch of team-colored images; I suspect this was because he ran into the same difficulty.

Third: I'd prefer consistent relative sizes between units and races over more detailed high-level units, absolutely. Overall look and feel is what matters to me, and to me wacky unit sizes make the whole appear worse - as if big units were just being big for the sake of showing off more bling.

• First, one of the things which spurred me to do this project was ... "wacky unit sizes". There were some major problems with the old scheme; it had dwarves and goblins who were as big as men. This was fixed by making the men bigger, and shortening one or two of the dwarves. One of the most significant improvements of the new sizes is that all of the small races (goblins, saurians, dwarves) are dramatically smaller than other races, as they really should be.

• Second, we've always had some serious problems with inter-level unit differentiation. This was rather bad with the elves (especially the old elves from 0.6 or so), where the units were all obvious edits of the fighter. Poses alone will not cut it, because although they will make the units look distinct from each other, they offer no clear hierarchy of rank. They can help with rank - a higher-level unit can have a more relaxed, self-assured pose, but it's weak, and rather subjective in interpretation. Also, by and large, color is not longer an option, as it once was, since outside of giving more metal and gold to high-level units, we don't want spurious colors to confuse the team-identity of the unit.

The most obvious and intuitive, and powerful means of inter-level differentiation, is size differences. These can only be "marginal" increases, except in rare cases, and you're absolutely right that it does play a bit fast and loose with reality. But it works, and it works very, very well. For the first time, units such as the orcish grunt are relatively easy to differentiate from the orcish warrior, a unit that previously looked extremely similar. Size differences, unlike practically everything else, are intuitive; the big hulking guy looks tougher, and the game's stats reflect that.



Addendum - in terms of an appearance freeze, the sole exception is that, when we have code support, I would like to make an extreme few units - woses and dragons for example, much bigger than they are now - outside the boundaries of the hex. Especially dragons, sea serpents, and such.

[Jetrel]

First: if this really is a one-time big undertaking, then fine. I still don't like having an inconsistent set of new and old style graphics especially in any stable release, but if it'll be just for this once, then...well, ok.

It is.

I would rather not have the inconsistency either; fortunately the 1.2 branch can be updated with more images as they get done; it doesn't break any code/strings to add them in.

Allowing for things to complete asyncronously like this is what has allowed wesnoth to succeed as an OSS project. It incurs some overhead, but heavily streamlines everything else. Any projects I lead in the future will extend this practice to other things.

[torangan]

Reading this thread it looks to me like Jetryl has a nice long time plan. If the units reach their final state by now and TC color is done we'll hopefully see much more animations soon. This will make Wesnoth look quite a bit better!
From a coding point of view it could be nice to gain support for images to go out of the hex boundaries in 1.3.x but usage of this should be heavily discouraged. The limit is required not only for performance problems but also to prevent units from hiding units behind them and to stop the "arms race" which is the topic of this thread. Restricted to a few special monster units it's another topic.

[zookeeper]

From a coding point of view it could be nice to gain support for images to go out of the hex boundaries in 1.3.x but usage of this should be heavily discouraged. The limit is required not only for performance problems but also to prevent units from hiding units behind them and to stop the "arms race" which is the topic of this thread. Restricted to a few special monster units it's another topic.

As I stated earlier, it would also be almost essential in order to be able to animate the big units well. Not just something like a yeti or red dragon, but also units like the orcish sovereign, warlord, lich, gryphon, elvish marshal etc.

[torangan]

That's what I meant with strongly discouraged. Once you allow it, people will want to use it for all kind of animations since they can do much more then. It should be restricted to those cases where there's really no other choice. Otherwise it'll expand from unit to unit with the limit getting broader and broader.

[scott]

From a coding point of view it could be nice to gain support for images to go out of the hex boundaries in 1.3.x but usage of this should be heavily discouraged. The limit is required not only for performance problems but also to prevent units from hiding units behind them and to stop the "arms race" which is the topic of this thread. Restricted to a few special monster units it's another topic.

As I stated earlier, it would also be almost essential in order to be able to animate the big units well. Not just something like a yeti or red dragon, but also units like the orcish sovereign, warlord, lich, gryphon, elvish marshal etc.

I thought animation frames with the new engine could already leave the hex boundary. Is it that they can just go into the 72x72 square?

[zookeeper]

That's what I meant with strongly discouraged. Once you allow it, people will want to use it for all kind of animations since they can do much more then. It should be restricted to those cases where there's really no other choice. Otherwise it'll expand from unit to unit with the limit getting broader and broader.

I don't see what problems that could possibly cause. If someone can do a better animation by using more than the 72x72, then great, the animation looks better. Why would it be a problem? There's no reason to make a spearman jump around the screen, even if a gryphon was made to be able to stretch it's wings a bit.

I thought animation frames with the new engine could already leave the hex boundary. Is it that they can just go into the 72x72 square?

Yep, animations can use the whole 72x72 area but can't go beyond that.