Graphics style

[Mark_Everson]

'F': Cute toy. When we get a few more things to show off we should start a demo thread too, so people can immediately see the project is active. Or perhaps have a demo / graphics page at the main web site.

[Mark_Everson]

Blade Runner:

Yep, we need Both good mouse and keyboard support.

Manu:

I saw the same thing. It would be interesting if we could do such a thing. It mainly requires artwork time, because the programming would be trivial.

Artwork People, do you think this would be worth the effort?

One further related idea I had would be that the map could "fade" over a period of time from the style of one epoch into another. Say for each of 10 key techs in the transition that 10% more of the pixels would come from the new tile style. This could be very effective, or very ugly, we'd just have to experiment.

[Dominique]

manurein, Mark:

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you absolutely underestimate the effort of doing convincing AND clearly understandable map graphics

Having any given tile style (let's assume 48 x 48 pixels for the square map, quite a comfortable size), what must the image of the tile reflect?

a) base terrain
b) streets / railroads (maglevs?)
c) modifications / fortresses

Believe me (I have experience in this), this alone is quite tough and requires many, many hours if the result is to look good, too.

Add to this the effort of making tiles look seamless (today, you just can't give the people 20 separate mountains, they want to see real, interconnected ranges).

Now, what "styles" do you have in mind - other than what comes to mind naturally (from CIV, the General series etc.)?

Okay, I make something up: The epoch is the early renaissance - so a quite obvious style to use could be one like Leonardo da Vinci's drawings, i.e. pergament background, brown drawings... could look great, but this, if done convincingly, reduces us to a more or less black and white map...

Okay, even if we COULD manage to do this: Can you imagine how a tile with 50% default CIV image and 50% Leonardo pixels would look like? Do you think you could recognize ANYTHING on that tile? Now add some streets a nd a castle...

I'm certainly not the mastermind here, and in the end it's all up to Mark, but I can only advise you NOT to fiddle around too much with the basic map graphics. These must be clearly recognizable and shouldn't change. The only thing I'd gladly see changing over time would be the look of modifications / buildings.

What do you say?


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If somebody asks you "Art thou a god?", you tell him "YES!"

[This message has been edited by Dominique (edited May 19, 1999).]

[Mark_Everson]

Dominique:

Very good points. That's why I asked for opinons of people who'd potentially be doing it Your prescription sounds good to me.

So we must pick one style for the map and stick with it. Even then we'll need representations that look good both for isometric and top-down views. (At least I think we've bought into the concept of having both isometric and "diamonds" top-down available.)

[Dominique]

Mark:

Diamonds and squares, yes, so as to satisfied the visually oriented AND the hardcore strategists, yes

AFAIK there's not too much coding involved with the alternative map layout - there only have to be alternative "draw map modules" (classes) - am I right in this assumption?

As for the style, I'm afraid there's not too many choices - if you look at the genre, most maps look more or less similar. And why not? After all, the essential thing is to be able to easily read and understand the map. But maybe the most important question as for the map tiles is: Are you planning to include elevation (I wouldn't think so, since this would be typically tactical, just asking)?

The tiles needed are more or less the same in all those games:

- grassland
- plains
- desert (both sands and ice)
- tundra
- jungle
- woods
- hills
- mountains
- swamps

maybe I would add brushland, too

then, of course the river tiles (canals?)

...and of course water (coast / deep sea) with all those coastal tiles.

[Mark_Everson]

Dominique:

Yep, those are the basics. There might be a few additions as you mention, like brush, a couple different types of forest, etc.

I was thinking of whether we could give an indication of the population on the map. The plan is to have people everywhere in Clash. Here is just a crude idea of a way to show the local population:
It would have to be logarithmic, one little guy on the square would indicate up to 5k people, 2 up to 25k, 3 up to 100k, etc. Do you think it could work, or be too cluttered?

I wasn't planning to put elevation on the map, but we might use such information in the background... We'll have to see what Gregor comes up with on the map generation.

[Peter Dobrovka]

Nice discussion, but I would like to see Mark (who is the 'inventor' of this game) to give some statements about what structures do exist / shall exist.
Will there be road / railroad construction?
Will there be tile improvements?
What parameters will a tile have? Which of these would be essential to display and which optional (and which hidden)?

Even a silly question like "will rivers have a direction they flow?" is of importance.

Don't forget: you will have some layers for a tile to display, but you have to harmonize these. If you don't provide space for a structure you will have trouble to put it in later.

I can tell you the 'layers' of PoM in the order of appearance:
- basic terrain
- farms or city
- pollution
- rivers, roads, railroads, maglev
- trees (forest) or buildings
- units
- resources (if displaying enabled)

Peter

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3DTT - the 3D sequel to Transport Tycoon - demo 4.0 coming soon
Path of Mankind. Turnbased Civ-like game - demo 15 coming soon

[Mark_Everson]

Peter:

I've put my responses in "Terrain and Improvements to it". These are not all well thought out yet. Thanks for keeping me honest.

-Mark