Terrain Overview and Evaluation

[freim]

The sand looks awesome, but the mountains still look very much like flat sketches rather than 3D objects like the regular mountains.

Jetryl explicitly said that he hadn't done anything to the mountains other than a color shift.

These mountains where drawn in a different style than the new ones, it's not like we don't know they are overdue for replacement...

[Jetrel]

As per Eleazar's permission, I've committed these to trunk. I might do 1.2 as well, if I get around to it.

Looks good jetryl. I especially like the colors, quite funny to think of that I actually desaturated the current desert quite a lot already.

My only concern is that it's too rough for a "flat" terrain, but I will have to see the new desert hills to see if this will be a problem.

I'll do what I can - they'll have only 2 peaks, if that, per tile, so it should be fairly different from, and should look bigger than, the base sand. I've gotten some insinuation at some point - perhaps in a previous version, that the current sand-hills images are supposed to represent dunes; I'll be gunning for a more proper representation of such in the new hills.

Thanks, BTW.

The sand looks awesome, but the mountains still look very much like flat sketches rather than 3D objects like the regular mountains.

That's because I only shifted their color for now, rather than doing any redrawing. Basically, I'm doing this in steps, any one of which could be done by someone other than me, if they were feeling up to it. If I didn't do this in steps, it would be months before people would see any of this, and that's just not cool.

In the future, I intend to see the creation of new desert hills (made from scratch), new desert mountains (either made from scratch, or edited from freim's current ones), and new transitions between desert sand and water, looking more like a proper beach (e.g. with wet sand), and also not spilling so heavily into the water tiles (at least in terms of making the water tile look like land).

But I'll probably do some other stuff in the meantime, which is part and parcel of why I'm doing this in steps.

[torangan]

As per Eleazar's permission, I've committed these to trunk. I might do 1.2 as well, if I get around to it.

If you want to do this you should try to be fast since 1.2.6 will come out very soon due to fixes for some OOS bugs.

[zookeeper]

So, should we now move to only have one sand/desert terrain, instead of two? I don't really want to use the old sand terrain at all when I have this available, but having "desert" looks a bit odd on many maps (if you'd happen to look at the terrain names). I'd suggest just having a single "sand" terrain with these new graphics instead of having both sand and desert. This looks like it works well as both.

[Jetrel]

So, should we now move to only have one sand/desert terrain, instead of two? I don't really want to use the old sand terrain at all when I have this available, but having "desert" looks a bit odd on many maps (if you'd happen to look at the terrain names). I'd suggest just having a single "sand" terrain with these new graphics instead of having both sand and desert. This looks like it works well as both.

YES! I am very strongly in agreement with this.

One terrain, named "Sand", using the new graphics.

Please do make this change!

[freim]

snow transitions with grass/land (freim seems to be working on a promising snow-water transition)

I can't seem to find the stuff I started on here, but it's not that much work to redo. I'm just putting snow on top of the existing ice trans. The same change will be done for snow hills<->water.

I can make them next week if people think they look good. Imo they are better than the current trans.

[Jetrel]

I'd give a thumbs-up to it.

[zookeeper]

So, should we now move to only have one sand/desert terrain, instead of two? I don't really want to use the old sand terrain at all when I have this available, but having "desert" looks a bit odd on many maps (if you'd happen to look at the terrain names). I'd suggest just having a single "sand" terrain with these new graphics instead of having both sand and desert. This looks like it works well as both.

YES! I am very strongly in agreement with this.

One terrain, named "Sand", using the new graphics.

Please do make this change!

On second thought; don't we want cactuses and such on desert? They wouldn't fit on non-desert sand, so we might actually want to keep the two terrains separate (of course they'd both use the same base we have here).

[Eleazar]

On second thought; don't we want cactuses and such on desert? They wouldn't fit on non-desert sand, so we might actually want to keep the two terrains separate (of course they'd both use the same base we have here).

Removing a long used terrain needs a very strong reason. I don't see one here. Using the same base with the desert version having cacti is a better solution, if the sand looks good as a sea-shore.

[freim]

New snow and snow-hills to water commited.

[Neoriceisgood]

woo that looks good <3

[freim]

Removing a long used terrain needs a very strong reason. I don't see one here. Using the same base with the desert version having cacti is a better solution, if the sand looks good as a sea-shore.

I would also like to keep it around as an alternative since jetryls desert is so heavily textured.

In fact I just updated the sand by adding variants and texture based on jetryls new desert.

Edit: added old sand to image for ref.

[Jetrel]

Removing a long used terrain needs a very strong reason. I don't see one here. Using the same base with the desert version having cacti is a better solution, if the sand looks good as a sea-shore.

I would also like to keep it around as an alternative since jetryls desert is so heavily textured.

In fact I just updated the sand by adding variants and texture based on jetryls new desert.

Edit: added old sand to image for ref.

That's fine for now, but said sand images (IMO) really leave a lot to be desired; e.g, we'll want to do something better eventually (it looks too unnaturally clean for practically any real-world sand). What would be worth making eventually is a rubble-free sand with smoother dunes - one which share's its color with the sand I made. This would get used on -deep- desert, for sand that's been powderizing itself for far too long, and it would replace the current sand images as a drop-in.

Likewise, I'm working on a sand-water transition which should hopefully come out looking nice. My first attempt was complete crap, sad to say, but I know the concept is solid. If I'm feeling -really- crazy, I might dare to try animating it. (Har, har.)


On a related note; freim, could you start a new thread and post all the work you've done so far on the snow-mountains? I'm not suggesting that I'm going to suddenly finish the whole set or anything (I already have a gargantuan pile of work on my plate), but I think I could knock off a few of the more intimidating ones, making the going easier for you. Plus, a few other folks (like eleazar if he found interest) could also do some work).

[freim]

That's fine for now, but said sand images (IMO) really leave a lot to be desired; e.g, we'll want to do something better eventually (it looks too unnaturally clean for practically any real-world sand). What would be worth making eventually is a rubble-free sand with smoother dunes - one which share's its color with the sand I made. This would get used on -deep- desert, for sand that's been powderizing itself for far too long, and it would replace the current sand images as a drop-in.

I have to disagree with that. It's supposed to look clean because it's tiles for beaches like these:


[white sand beach at Matei Pointe]

And for that purpose I think they look quite nice now, much more appropriate than your desert which is imo way to textured and noisy for that purpose.

On a related note; freim, could you start a new thread and post all the work you've done so far on the snow-mountains?

sure