Units with different sprites for different terrains.

Naeddyr · Post by **Naeddyr** » April 8th, 2006, 10:20 am

I think it could be useful to have some way to change what sprite a character has depend on what terrain they're standing on or walking through. This way, you could have units with skis or small boats that are 'in rest' on ordinary ground, but 'used' on snow or water.

Post by **zookeeper** » April 8th, 2006, 10:24 am

Can be done in the next release.

Naeddyr · Post by **Naeddyr** » April 8th, 2006, 10:29 am

zookeeper wrote:Can be done in the next release.

How excellent. I say, this Ideas forum really works! That must have taken only a few minutes.

Post by **Zhukov** » April 8th, 2006, 11:11 am

The only hitch with your idea is that someone needs to draw all these terrain specific sprites.

Naeddyr · Post by **Naeddyr** » April 8th, 2006, 11:21 am

Zhukov wrote:The only hitch with your idea is that someone needs to draw all these terrain specific sprites.

I was more of thinking about new units. Skiiers, kayakers, mountain-climbers, tarzans.

Dragon Master · Post by **Dragon Master** » April 8th, 2006, 11:42 am

This could also be imposed to show how the terrain affects units. In snow regions unit could have snow piling on them, they could be wet after they go in the water, sweaty and tired in the desert, etc. Once again the only problem is making all the new unit pics.

jonadab · Post by **jonadab** » April 8th, 2006, 2:36 pm

This would be really useful for units like Manders (link: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=), who really should have small one-person flatboats with them, and use the boats in wet terrains, but carry them on their backs elsewhere.

It would also be useful for "digger" units (think: large humanoid mole-like critters), who might need different sprites on sand, for instance, as you wouldn't expect them to be sprouting out of a brown dirt hole on that terrain; diggers would also probably need special above-ground sprites for bridges and mountains.

In short, although doing terrain-specific sprites for most units would just be a lot of work for a minor visual effect, for a few units it might really be necessary.

Disto · Post by **Disto** » April 8th, 2006, 6:41 pm

jonadab wrote:This would be really useful for units like Manders (link: http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=), who really should have small one-person flatboats with them, and use the boats in wet terrains, but carry them on their backs elsewhere.

It would also be useful for "digger" units (think: large humanoid mole-like critters), who might need different sprites on sand, for instance, as you wouldn't expect them to be sprouting out of a brown dirt hole on that terrain; diggers would also probably need special above-ground sprites for bridges and mountains.

In short, although doing terrain-specific sprites for most units would just be a lot of work for a minor visual effect, for a few units it might really be necessary.

OR Turin's new "Coracle" units.

Post by **irrevenant** » April 9th, 2006, 1:22 am

Zhukov wrote:The only hitch with your idea is that someone needs to draw all these terrain specific sprites.

I tend to think "If you build it, they will come" in regard to content.

I'm sure when someone suggested adding walk animations to all the units, people were horrified by the amount of effort required. But the capability was included in the engine, and animations are slowly but surely being implemented...

SmokemJags · Post by **SmokemJags** » April 9th, 2006, 1:24 am

More slowly less surely though.

Post by **Boucman** » April 9th, 2006, 7:07 am

Naeddyr wrote:
zookeeper wrote:Can be done in the next release.
How excellent. I say, this Ideas forum really works! That must have taken only a few minutes.

it took me a whole week of coding (a week of vacation, full time)
but it was worse it, because it added a whole lot of feature at the same time

Disto · Post by **Disto** » April 9th, 2006, 2:29 pm

Boucman wrote:
Naeddyr wrote: How excellent. I say, this Ideas forum really works! That must have taken only a few minutes.

it took me a whole week of coding (a week of vacation, full time)
but it was worse it, because it added a whole lot of feature at the same time

Worth it, lol not worse it

, unlucky about your week though.

Post by **Boucman** » April 9th, 2006, 3:17 pm

definitely worse it

remember, I didn't work a week to enable different sprite on different terrain

I worked a week on the whole unit display engine... and one of the consequences is different sprites on different terrain

other ones include 6 directions for all unit images
units animated at all time (including when standing) different animations for healing, healed, etc...

filtering on terrain/direction/unit data for all animations

and so on and so forth

Post by **turin** » April 11th, 2006, 1:42 am

Aye, teh Coracle. I'll start on it eventually.

Disto: I've been thinking; I think it would work best as a Marauder unit. Mind if I do the art and add the unit to the Marauder faction?

JW · Post by JW » April 11th, 2006, 2:57 am

Wow...with all of these new abilities in the graphics...I have to learn how to sprite. There are so many things that can be done with the Shifters to utilize these new abilities...they could easily be the most visually appealing faction if they had the graphics for it.

-That is not a request for help, just a statement of how visually complex and awe-some I imagine the faction to be once fully animated and programmed:

Different standing images for different terrains, morphing on different terrains to move, morphing to fight/defend, they could truly be a masterpiece...

So far to go. One step at a time.