Map Graphics Thread, Part II

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Fiera:

Lets wait on rivers... there are many details involved in that choice (FE if a ship steams up a river and the rivers are between tiles, then what tile is it In?) I also need to look up the old posts on the subject so we don't reinvent the wheel, but I may not get the chance for a bit. We can look at the pros and cons when everyone has had a chance to speak, and then decide.

Roads are easier. In the current spec they go from the tile center (where a city would be) and radiate outward towards the center of all 8 adjacent tiles.

If you have more time than I, you can do a search on roads or rivers and see what has gone before in our discussions.

[Richard Bruns]

The hill still looks a bit funny. Instead of one big hill, could you draw a range like you did with the mountains?

There is one thing I'd like to ask you to keep in mind, if possible. In our ecology model, there isn't a unique "forest" terrain. We would like to split the map into geography and vegetation, with different possible combinations, like hills with forest or rolling terrain with desert. Would it be possible to make vegetation something that gets put on top of a basic structure like a hill?

For more information, look in the Ecology Model Thread.

Of course, if it's too time-consuming to do terain this way, let me know and I can rework the model.

[Fiera]

Richard,

I've read the Ecology Thread. I take it that the Ecology system is not yet at a final stage, but if I'm not wrong, last posts showed a trend towards a simplifying of your Version 2 of the Ecology model, which I think it's a great work, but probably too complex.

It seems that there is an agreement to use a few terrain types and combine them with the appropriate vegetation types. That's a good idea and, to answer to your question, I think it can be easily done on the graphic side, at least for flat types (my Desert, Plains, Grassland and Forest tiles already adjust to this idea). For Hills and Mountains I could try to make similar differences using mainly different colors. I can give a try to this if you agree.

If there's something I've missed about how you planned to implement your Ecology model on the game map, please tell me so. I want to fully understand your model before we speak about making any modifications to it.

But for the record, I'd like to say that I don't mind working on, say, 25 terrain tiles instead of 10, if that makes the game better.

[Mark_Everson]

One thought for deforestation was this:

Have one graphic each for:
1. completely forested tile
2. a 'copse' of trees (like 3 toghether)
3. a single tree

Having these three type you can go down gracefully from completely forested (1), to mostly forested (array of 2, missing one copse), to partly forested, to barely at all (one of #3).

I think this basic approach can work with any terrain, just need to give offsets so the trees go in the right place on the hills etc.

[Fiera]

Hi again!

I've been having some problems and I need help to restore some of my files so I can work again on them. Does any of you have/use Paint Shop Pro 6 or PSP 7?

[Lord God Jinnai]

Only at school

[Fiera]

It could help... what I need you to do is to convert some graphic files from PSP format to BMP, which is the only I can currently work with. Shall I mail them to you?

Is there anybody with PSP 6 or 7 at home?

[axi]

I have PSP5, will it do?

------------------
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

[Fiera]

Thanks, Axi, but I've managed to restore the files myself and to get a new terrain demo ready.

I've implemented the deforestation idea as Mark explained it over some grassland tiles. I've put there three types of deforested squares, I think you'll easily distinquish them. I like very much the result, in fact I think we may have "accidentally" found a suitable solution to the excessive flatness of my terrain graphics.

Take a look at it here, and tell me how you like it:
www.geocities.com/fiera_com/demo.html

This may be much more difficult to do for Hills and Mountains. At least, I haven't yet been able to make anything that looked even slightly good.


I have some ideas for roads too. Will discuss them later, for I've gotta go to bed now.


[This message has been edited by Fiera (edited April 14, 2001).]

[axi]

Congratulations! Perfect result! It slightly reminds me of the empty areas in SimCity 3000, where you could plant trees at five different levels of density.

------------------
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
George Orwell

[Richard Bruns]

The trees look really good. But I'm wondering: why limit it to three tiles? We can show up to fifteen or so different layers of forestation by putting down one tree at a time. We can also show a road cut through the terrain by remiving a swatch of trees where the road is. For a small settlement, we can remove a few trees and replace then with small house graphics. That would look really good.

It looks like this would also work on the plains and desert as well. The fir trees might look a little funny on those tiles, but other types of tree would do great. Could you try this with other plants, like a deciduous tree, a jungle tree, and some kind of desert vegetation? Could you make a taiga/arctic tile in addition to the existing ones? Also, we will eventually need a wetlands graphic, and some wetlands vegetation that works like those trees.

Thanks for the good work!

[Fiera]

quote: Originally posted by Richard Bruns on 04-14-2001 09:06 AM We can also show a road cut through the terrain by remiving a swatch of trees where the road is.

Yes, I already had had that idea, but if we plan to have roads for all 8 directions in which units can move, that's gonna be very difficult to make. I may try to do it but I can't grant that the result won't be messy.

The rest of things you ask sound easy to do. Will try make them as soon as possible!

[Mark_Everson]

Hey Fiera:

The new stuff looks good!

On roads being in all 8 directions... Roads Can be in all 8 directions, but for most squares Won't. It won't be like civ where you push 'r' and all possible roads in a square are automatically built. Players will draw the roads they want (or the AI could do it) and only what they want will be built and show up in the graphics. Only a major city would have more than a few major roads going into it. Minor local roads wouldn't be shown. Most squares will just have one major road running through in some direction.

[edit]
Richard, I agree with what you say, and that's the plan I thought I outlined. Fiera, I think, was just doing something easy as a first approximation.
[This message has been edited by Mark_Everson (edited April 14, 2001).]

[Fiera]

That's great to hear, Mark, 'cause one thing I didn't like about civ2 at all was how roads appeared in the map. It's ugly and I wouldn't like to do it that way for Clash. I was thinking more of a single and thin line, with no "strange" bends. What do you think of it?

Richard,

I am, of course, no ecology expert, but I was thinking that the fir trees would probably go better with Hills or Mountains rather than with Grassland. I'll probably use deciduous trees for Grassland.

Edit: I wasn't able to spell "deciduous".
[This message has been edited by Fiera (edited April 14, 2001).]

[Mark_Everson]

Well, I personally was thinking of some bends in the roads just so they have a little more character . And bends in the roads are I think critical for hills and mountains, or they would look odd. But why don't you just try a few different approaches as samples and see what everyone thinks?