Cave terrain

[boru]

I have some pictures of Lechuguilla from the March 1991 National Geographic and the water is very clear.

Found this online ... it's so clear it looks like there's nothing there.

http://photography.nationalgeographic.c ... image.html

[Alarantalara]

I discovered that I could have two more tiles using the bridge macro, so I'm posting the flats for them in case anyone wants to design their own rail texture based on them and the ones I posted earlier.

Edit: removed progress shot since complete one available below

[Alarantalara]

As I said, here are all the tiles that I can do within the limits of the bridge macro. If any of them have problems, please mention them.

[dipseydoodle]

Wow. Much better and very realistic.

[thespaceinvader]

One minor issue strikes me: with all of these junctions, where is the switching architecture?

[zookeeper]

Looking good; I'll try to get these committed in the next 12 hours or so. My current plan is to make their aliasing as follows: movement is best of base,flat and defense is just that of the base.

However, wouldn't these benefit from a little bit of shadow underneath them? Currently they look like they're floating a bit, and adding shadows and/or speckles of dirt would likely help with that.

[Alarantalara]

One minor issue strikes me: with all of these junctions, where is the switching architecture?

I wanted to add them, but couldn't figure out how to make them look nice when they got combined with each other. The most extreme example is attached, but I'm more concerned with combinations of only two at a time, which are reasonable. I can't put the architecture anywhere covered in this image and to avoid excessively dark shadows I need a different spot for all four tiles. For now, I've given up.

[Eleazar]

Looking good; I'll try to get these committed in the next 12 hours or so. My current plan is to make their aliasing as follows: movement is best of base,flat and defense is just that of the base.

Go for it!

However, for move/def, i'd just make them a visual embellishment, without an effect on move/def.
True, walking on railroads can be easier than going across country, but presumably these won't ever being on forested hexes, since visually it wouldn't work.

On the other hand, if you are just going to think of these as a kind of road, then they should be a straight "flat" terrain. It's not like a bridge where land and water creatures can logically go over or under it.

[AI]

If carts that can only (or faster) travel over rail are wanted though, a new terrain type will have to be defined. I think the best way would be to make the rail overlay use it for one of the best-of movement costs, that way, all old movetypes will be able to move over rail as normal, with only those wanting to use the rail feature having to define a movement cost for it.

As for rails over forests looking bad: they're not possible anyway, as both forests and rails are overlays and the current terrain system only allow one overlay.

[Eleazar]

If carts that can only (or faster) travel over rail are wanted though...

Sounds like a rather specialized need.
For such a case, i think it would be best for the scenario-maker to write some specialized WML that use these graphics, and does specifically what he wants, rather than trying to decide how an unspecified campaigns/eras should design vehicular rail travel.

[zookeeper]

Looks like I forgot to post about the fact that I did commit these to trunk already (apparently there's some bugs with how stuff works there, I haven't managed to test yet). The aliasing currently used is defense of base and movement of flat. I didn't end up using movement of base,flat since practically nothing has better movement on any of the potential bases than on flat.

[Sangel]

Looks like I forgot to post about the fact that I did commit these to trunk already (apparently there's some bugs with how stuff works there, I haven't managed to test yet). The aliasing currently used is defense of base and movement of flat. I didn't end up using movement of base,flat since practically nothing has better movement on any of the potential bases than on flat.

Excellent! I had a feeling that these tiles were destined for mainline inclusion. Congratulations Alarantarala! It's always good to have a new artist who's able to master Wesnoth's (rather complicated) terrain coding and produce high-quality artwork at the same time.

[boru]

I like the tracks very much. Would it be okay to ask for some kind of track terminal? Like a big square stone at the end of the tracks. Otherwise all tracks would have to loop or just go to the edge of the map, right?

[Alarantalara]

I like the tracks very much. Would it be okay to ask for some kind of track terminal? Like a big square stone at the end of the tracks. Otherwise all tracks would have to loop or just go to the edge of the map, right?

The tracks can safely end anywhere. There are some basic rail edge end pieces so that the ties don't look bitten off if they end in the middle of the map.

That said, I think I've decided to write the WML needed to fill in some of the junctions that were not possible using the bridge macro. I've got a basic outline of it in my mind and I know I need to rename 6 of the tiles done so far and add 6 more. Since I'll be revisiting the railroad anyway and can see a need for a way to stop carts from rolling off the track ends, I'll try out a couple ideas for terminals and see if I like any.

[Alarantalara]

I started on the extra tiles and have finished the first two. I've also finished the WML I need to display them. However, I'm a little uncertain as to how to place the ties in the new 90 degree switches.

rails 1.png (3.9 KiB) Viewed 3849 times

This was my original plan, but as I started detailing it I became less and less satisfied with the loose tie. So I made an alternative.

rails 2.png (3.19 KiB) Viewed 3849 times

I feel like the spacing is too large on this one though, so I thought I'd ask for ideas.

I've also tried extending the ties on the main track, but the most important one (second from bottom counting on the straight side) ends up so close to the rails that it is either invisible or way too long.