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[Oab]

I know ramps are discussed to death here, but I found a decent solution for them with my own mockups that I think may be helpful.

Have you guys considered not using the entire 32 pixels for the ramps?  If you scale them down to half the size it would solve the issues being mentioned throughout this thread.

Here is a quick and dirty edit of what I mean.

[Mike Mayday]

Hey Oab, that idea was discarded because it wouldn't look very good with a multilevel view (that we're hoping for).

[Cruxador]

And I really dislike this kind of animations, but I hope that it will be easy to remove it with mod.

Well, one thing that I would expect to happen would be an options menu added to the game. They're not that hard (just pure UI work basically) and although it's easy, modern gamers aren't accustomed to going into an init file to change things. That being the case, I would think disabling any/all animations to recoup a frame or two would be second on the list for graphical options, after a tileset selector which has already been discussed.

[Pillbo]

And I really dislike this kind of animations, but I hope that it will be easy to remove it with mod.

Just out of curiosity, what is it about the animation in particular?  The color, the size of the sparkle, frame rate?

I agree so I'll throw in my 2 cents. I am not a fan of constantly repeating animations like gifs. I'm not positive what it is that bothers me, but I can't stop them from grabbing my attention and have trouble focusing on anything else when they are on my screen.  For example I have a gif stopping extension installed that I had to disable to be able to see what this image really looked like, I thought it was static. I use it because I can't even read a forum post if there is a gif playing next to it.

For this I think I'd like it more if the animation was slower and sparkles a little smaller. Ideally if just a tile or two sparkled randomly every 4 or 5 seconds, or if they could manage to make a single cluster sprakle every now and then but not all on the screen- that would be nice and get the job done IMO.  I think it's the predictable rhythm that distracts me, so even if it was just slower it probably would be distracting to me if every gem on screen sparkled in the exact same pattern over and over.

In general I'm pro-animations, I really like the fire and water animations I've seen so far in Meph's tileset. I might just need to find a tileset mod that removes some of them.

[Meph]

They would be less in-your-face as in the example; I tried to test out all the little sparkle animations I made in one picture. But apparently it does do it's job: Get peoples attention to that specific sprite. On this picture it might be a bit much, especially considering that nothing else moves.

Now imagine a fort with 100 dwarves, pets, some wildlife and vermin running around, flowing water...

Other places I'm considering animations for my own personal sett (and that's just me, not Tarn or Mike, animations are pretty much a stretch goal so far. I just think it's fun to do.):
 - Liquids like water/magma.
 - Fire/Smoke.
 - Tree leaves/Grass tufts gently swaying in the wind.
 - Flower buds opening. (2-3 frames, then stay get a still image. Better than grass that suddenly pops up fully grown flowers)
 - Workshops currently in use.
 - Glows, for example glowworms or the embers in a forge.
 - Machinery currently in use. (It already does that)
 - Creature Idle animation. (There is a reason most old-school RPGs have gently bobbing/breathing creatures, makes them stand apart from the static terrain)
 - Rain drops.
 - Hives with single pixel ants/bees buzzing around.
 - Mining/Woodchopping/Engraving with single pixel particles of rock or wood chips flying around.
 - Sparks/Blood pixels flying around when a unit gets hit in combat.
 - Plants growing in farmplots in stages. (Guess that counts as a very slow animation?)
 - Smell from rotting food/bodyparts.

I'm aware that it's not to everyones liking, but for my own personal adaption or future tilesets, I'd certainly love to include animations. With TWBT they are causing instability; the Steam update fixes that issue.

[Wokko]

They would be less in-your-face as in the example; I tried to test out all the little sparkle animations I made in one picture. But apparently it does do it's job: Get peoples attention to that specific sprite. On this picture it might be a bit much, especially considering that nothing else moves.

Now imagine a fort with 100 dwarves, pets, some wildlife and vermin running around, flowing water...

Other places I'm considering animations (and that's just me, not Tarn or Mike, animations are pretty much a stretch goal so far. I just think it's fun to do.):
 - Liquids like water/magma.
 - Fire/Smoke.
 - Tree leaves/Grass tufts gently swaying in the wind.
 - Flower buds opening. (2-3 frames, then stay get a still image. Better than grass that suddenly pops up fully grown flowers)
 - Workshops currently in use.
 - Glows, for example glowworms or the embers in a forge.
 - Machinery currently in use. (It already does that)
 - Creature Idle animation. (There is a reason most old-school RPGs have gently bobbing/breathing creatures, makes them stand apart from the static terrain)
 - Rain drops.
 - Hives with single pixel ants/bees buzzing around.
 - Mining/Woodchopping/Engraving with single pixel particles of rock or wood chips flying around.
 - Sparks/Blood pixels flying around when a unit gets hit in combat.
 - Plants growing in farmplots in stages. (Guess that counts as a very slow animation?)
 - Smell from rotting food/bodyparts.

I'm aware that it's not to everyones liking, but for my own personal adaption or future tilesets, I'd certainly love to include animations. With TWBT they are causing instability; the Steam update fixes that issue.

Something like KeeperRL's animations would be nice: no additional sprite work, just moving&tilting the entire creature sprites to show they are walking/digging. Somebody already proposed KeeperRL style animations on the previous pages.

[darkhog]

And I really dislike this kind of animations, but I hope that it will be easy to remove it with mod.

Just out of curiosity, what is it about the animation in particular?  The color, the size of the sparkle, frame rate?

I think it's both that glimmer is too bright and that it is too big regarding surrounding stone. Somewhat more subtle glimmer would work better IMO.


//edit: Example showing what I mean:   

[mko]

And I really dislike this kind of animations, but I hope that it will be easy to remove it with mod.

Just out of curiosity, what is it about the animation in particular?  The color, the size of the sparkle, frame rate?

1) not critically needed - OK gray gems in gray rock will be hard to see, but I do not really care about gray gems. Most of use for my gems is keeping them in walls as a decoration (in unsmoothed rock to have them visible in ASCII) and ugly animation would make me to mine them out

2) permanent animation - animation for me is OK for something temporary (especially when it is important)

3) repeated extremely often what makes it even worse

I hate animations in general, I disabled interface animation in my OS, I disabled them on the phone.

---------

Though for example in Factorio, where there is plenty of moving objects I was OK with all that movement and with animated factories. Maybe the same will be here? But I hated this specific gif, and for example I expect that my practice of graves near gem clusters would either end or I would mod animations out.

[Meph]

Bamboo to replace the placeholder that was in the grass list earlier.



Darkhog: That's a cool idea, just making the actual gem glimmer, without extra pixel effects outside of the actual gemstone.

mko:

I do not really care about gray gems. I hate animations in general, I disabled interface animation in my OS, I disabled them on the phone.

Which means it has nothing to do with the pixelart itself. That's good to know.

[bloop_bleep]

I think the main problem is just that they're busy and distracting when constant. I agree that maybe stagger the sparkling a bit, so that about 1 gem is sparkling on-screen at any given moment, and the order of the sparkling of the gems is somewhat random. Helps give the gems more life and be more noticeable without being too distracting.

Also, as an alternative:

[/color]

I like the general idea of this (the gems sparkle by lighting up occasionally) but I feel like this specific mock-up doesn't... really seem like sparkling to me? Seems more like someone lit a candle in the corner of the room or something.

What I'd suggest is occasionally white light sweeping over the entire gem, giving it that reflective, brilliant quality. I generally lack the pixel art skills to make a mock up myself, so instead I just found this gif that illustrates what I mean.



Except that the gem is more saturated, and the light sweeping across the gem is way brighter (like white) and more pronounced. Also the animation is more occasional, not cyclic.

And no orbiting blue dots lol. That'd be annoying.

[Meph]

What I'd suggest is occasionally white light sweeping over the entire gem, giving it that reflective, brilliant quality.

I like this. I'll make a mock-up.

[MCipher]

Not sure if this has been asked before, but would the individual feature sprites (hair, facial hair, skin color, ETC) support greyscale for modifications? For instance, if someone modded in a new race/modded in bonus colors for hair/skin/eyes, would those colors be reflected in the sprites as-is (so say, someone gave elves the ability to have "HELIOTROPE" hair and "IRIS_EYE_VERMILION/IRIS_EYE_VIOLET" eyes, or goblins with "LIGHT_BLUE" skin, would the sprite show the appropriate RGB values for said colors)?
Oh, and can I just say that the previews thus far look fantastic?

[Meph]

Mcipher: We discussed this. I'm not sure where we stand atm, but Mike is more of the opinion "lets use fewer pre-set colors that look good", while I lean towards the "lets use perfect representation of the raw values". We have to see and test everything ingame before we can see how horrid that would look or not.

Grass growths. (Ignore the one static grass, it slipped in by accident)
 - Babytoe succulents
 - Pebble plant
 - Meadowsweet
 - Rush
 - Marsh Thistle
 - Cottongrass
 - Ignore, has no growths.
 - Mountain avens
 - Cloudberry



In general it goes "plant => plant + bud => plant + flower". Ingame the transition is staggered, invidivual tiles are slower/faster than the neighbours.

[Rekov]

Those look great visually Meph, but you got me thinking about plants.

is this an animation you plan on playing over a few frame as the plant blooms, or do these represent the different stages of plant growth that occur mechanically?

Instead of

plant > plant+bud > plant+flower

Mechanically you would have something like

plant > plant+flower > plant+fruit.

[Meph]

Those are grasses.

They represent the plant growths as they are in the raws. This "animation" is nothing new and any tileset right now can do this with TWBT. It's a these things:

[PLANT:BABY TOES SUCCULENT]
   Fenestraria
   [NAME:baby toes succulent][NAME_PLURAL:baby toes succulents][ADJ:baby toes succulent]
   [USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STRUCTURAL:STRUCTURAL_PLANT_TEMPLATE]
   [BASIC_MAT:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:STRUCTURAL]
   [GRASS]
   [GRASS_TILES:'.':',':'`':''']
   [GRASS_COLORS:2:0:1:2:0:0:2:0:0:6:0:0]
   [WET]
   [DRY]
   [BIOME:ANY_DESERT]
   [GROWTH:BUD]
      [GROWTH_NAME:baby toes succulent bud:STP]
      [GROWTH_ITEM:PLANT_GROWTH:NONE:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:STRUCTURAL]
      [GROWTH_DENSITY:1]
      [GROWTH_TIMING:240000:249999]
      [GROWTH_PRINT:0:7:2:0:0:NONE]
   [GROWTH:FLOWER]
      [GROWTH_NAME:baby toes succulent flower:STP]
      [GROWTH_ITEM:PLANT_GROWTH:NONE:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:STRUCTURAL]
      [GROWTH_DENSITY:1]
      [GROWTH_TIMING:250000:260000]
      [GROWTH_PRINT:5:5:7:0:1:250000:260000:1]