Map Graphics Thread part III

[Gary Thomas]

The other thread at Map Graphics Thread II is full. This is the continuation thread. It is currently refreshingly content-free.

Cheers

[sas]

Great !

After being away from the forum a couple of days, I can see you guys are already hard at work finalizing the "format" of the coasts. I'm very impressed indeed !

Good work Axi and Gary !!

Well, what can I say...

I guess we can agree on the fact that we're going for overlays. I'm glad you made the decision without me, because I wasn't really sure witch way to go. And after reading your posts I totally agree with your views on how to proceed.

I propose the width to be no more than 1/4, leaving a 60x30 center_of_tile for the other graphics .

Sounds good by me, I think its important not to make the "other graphics" too small.

The 47 distinct tiles, per land type, can be built from 12 independent coast overlays (as detailed in Axi's analysis above) overlaid on different terrain tiles. Any anomalies such as half trees could be patched later. So the work might not be as great as at first sight .

Of course these overlays could be made different or the same with a different orientation (we could have only 6 original overlays and have them mirrored into the other six).

I think we should go for the "12 independent coast overlays" approach. They will look better, but I will try both and compare.


Well, I guess I can use most of what I have already made. But I will have to make certain adjustments.

Expect to hear from me soon....

-Stian-

[colorrr]

Stian, your work is very good!

I would like to say I think that overlays was the right decision.
It allows for much more varied terrain than using fixed tiles.

Jorgen

[sas]

Thanks colorrr!

I'm finally finished with the coastal overlays (beach), and will
post them here tomorrow. They can be used as rivers if the gamecode allows it. After the coastal overlays are given a final workover tonight, i will move on to other matters.

Heres my current "worklist", feel free to add my workload if i have missed anything :

1: A second look at the terrain tiles. Since i'm finished upgrading all the tiles i have to look into how they work together. The "wood" tiles have to be upgraded some, since they dont melt together into a single forest the way they look now. You can to easily see the squares, and that is not a good thing. Allso the transition from coastal waters to deeper waters have to be remade/smoothed out.

2: Make a Transport unit for Gary.

3: Make the rocky coast version.

4: Units !

5. Suggestions.... ??

-Stian-

[axi]

One suggestion

Take a look at Fiera's two city tiles and/or any other city tile we have and see how they fit with the terrain and coasts all put together. Also figure out together with the coder the relative coordinates for their placement, so that we can upgrade the map code in time to include the new graphics to demo 7. Cities is what is outstandingly missing right now. I feel that we probably will have to change the city graphics a few times before we get to something we really like.

Plus we might want to make a provision for graphically fitting forts/city walls into the map in later versions.

Btw, how easy is it to place the city names on the map below the cities as in civ?

[sas]

Damn, I forgot rivers....

[Gary Thomas]

Cities is what is outstandingly missing right now

They are in the new version which is read from an xml file, using Fiera's overlay images. They look pretty good too.

Btw, how easy is it to place the city names on the map below the cities as in civ?

The map is drawn from the top down, so high units will not get over-written. City names would, therefore, get over-written. It would take a second pass over the map to add them. In addition, it would take a third pass to re-draw any units that the city name had over-written. Around two days work, I would say.

Damn, I forgot rivers....

What have you forgotten about rivers? Your coast overlays should fix that.

Cheers

[sas]

Coast overlays !

Here we go....

I've made the first complete set coastal overlays. Once again, I will probably have to tweak them once we get to see how they look in the actual game. This is a 16 overlays model, and to make the coasts look realistic, i think it is needed..

Here's two screens, manually placed. One showing just the overlays and the other how it will look "ingame":





Comments !

So, who should I send the overlays to ?

-Stian-

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Sas!

I think they look Great! I guess you should send them to Gary. He's the guy who'll be implementing them when he can squeeze it into his copious coding schedule.

BTW I think the copyright notice needs a year in it...

[axi]

The way stian is handling them, we will need in some cases to overlay coasts of the second tier to gether with coasts of the fourth tier and coasts of the third tier with coasts of the third tier. This is need ed for the opposite side. Think about a one tile thick strip of land zigzaging inside sea and you'll know what I mean.

I'm only mentioning this because Gary must find some way to code this. I hope he hasn't written code in the format we were discussing until now.

When do we expect to see rocky coasts? With wavecrests foaming around them?

[Gary Thomas]

I hadn't coded anything yet. The idea of multiple overlays on a single square hadn't occurred to me. I will probably build up the combinations internally so every combination (47 wasn't it?) is there and I can just index them. Each square would then get a single overlay.

I will try and pick up the images from the forum page.

Or rather, I was going to before I realized it was one big image.

Stian, could you email the indiividual tiles to me at gthomas@takaro.co.nz

All the others would be good too (the land and mountains etc).

Thanks.

Cheers

[sas]

The way stian is handling them, we will need in some cases to overlay coasts of the second tier to gether with coasts of the fourth tier and coasts of the third tier with coasts of the third tier. This is need ed for the opposite side. Think about a one tile thick strip of land zigzaging inside sea and you'll know what I mean.

Hopefully using multiple overlays on a single square is possible. But if it's even a slight workload on Garys shoulders, i say we skip it. It isnt that much work for me to make a set that doesnt require multiple overlays.

But if it IS possible, then great !

The tiles are in the mail Gary.....


-

When do we expect to see rocky coasts? With wavecrests foaming around them?

Probably in two or three weeks or so, nothing final yet. Meaning i havent even started


-Stian-

[Gary Thomas]

When do we expect to see rocky coasts? With wavecrests foaming around them?

When somebody writes the code. About the time Halley's comet comes back, I think.

The tiles are in the mail Gary....

Thanks. I will pick them up today.

Cheers

[sas]

Sorry about suddenly being away from the forum, and the develeopment of Clash in general. I havent quit my job, i've been hospitalised for 3 weeks or so. It's not as serious as it may sound, but i havent been able to do any work.

So now i'm back....

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Stian:

Sorry to hear about the hospital!!! I hope you're doing ok

Really, some people will use just any old lame excuse

Great to have you back!

Cya,

Mark