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Author Topic: Steam/Itch.io tileset - Mayday/Ironhand - Discussion and Suggestions  (Read 430357 times)

Mike Mayday

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #225 on: March 17, 2019, 06:01:35 pm »

Meph, about professions, I'm pretty sure everyone only has the normal worker professions. Miners, nobles and other special cases obviously do deserve specific sprites. This, in connection with the fact that most clothes are brown or white, definitely makes me stay away from the idea of such accurate depiction of worn clothing.
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Bumber

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #226 on: March 17, 2019, 06:10:16 pm »

Couldn't you put related tools on top of their clothes? E.g., a blacksmith has a tool belt over their clothing. You could also give them a color-coded sash instead of coloring their whole outfit.

I think more people would dye their dwarves' clothing if they could actually see the results.
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Manveru Taurënér

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #227 on: March 17, 2019, 06:17:38 pm »

Unless Tarn feels like updating dyes along with the graphical stuff (which I doubt from what's been said about the update so far), it's probably something better left for the future imo. That along with other updates such as the king actually having say a sceptre and crown that they wear, and whatever symbols of office other nobles might get that might possibly be addable to their sprite, or if it's decided to go ahead with more tools for other professions (blacksmith hammers and what not) would be a better point to implement it, and unless I'm missing something it's not like there'd be any wasted work for you guys or Tarn going with profession colors now and changing it later?

Edit: I guess unless you guys were to put in the effort to make all the different kinds of clothing I suppose, and some preliminary variation to diversify some of the nobles/professions, which I totally get that you have enough on your plate as it is already without.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2019, 06:37:57 pm by Manveru Taurënér »
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VislarRn

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #228 on: March 17, 2019, 06:22:36 pm »

I think more people would dye their dwarves' clothing if they could actually see the results.
I agree. People ignore dyeing because they can't see the results.

My personal humble preference would be dwarves to be represented in actual clothing, since it would make things more interesting as cultures get simulated more deeply in later versions of the game.
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Pillbo

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #229 on: March 17, 2019, 06:27:23 pm »

Quote
Well, players can't play dress-up with their dwarves, because you can't tell them what to wear. Unless you mean via military squads, and assigning individual armor for everything is hidden behind so many menus and such a burden, I don't think people would use it much for ornamental purposes.
And Adventurer.

There's also the possibility of forbidding and dumping clothes players don't want their fort wearing then mass producing what they do want.  Some people will want to do that, Rimworld players seem fond of making uniforms for their people. I think it's a safe guess that most new Steam players will be coming from Rimworld which displays clothing accurately. RW has some skintones, a handful of hairstyles and as far as I can tell there are only 12 items of clothing in Rimworld and 29 distinct leathers/cloth/wool options they can be made from(+10 armor items that are made from 7 materials), and no dyes.  DF has about 37 clothing/armor options and if we consider the color variety of hundreds of leathers, and who knows how many wools, plus all the metals/gem/glass/wood/bone wood armor can be made from) it's kind of a lot. 

Leather could be practically and color if it's accurate to the creatures they come from. Alpacas alone can be BLACK, BROWN, WHITE, GRAY, LIGHT BROWN, DARK BROWN, TAN, AUBURN, CHESTNUT, SLATE GRAY, CREAM, CINNAMON, BUFF, BEIGE, CHOCOLATE, CHARCOAL, ASH GRAY, RUSSET, IVORY, FLAX, PUMPKIN, GOLD, GOLDEN YELLOW, GOLDENROD, COPPER, SAFFRON, AMBER, MAHOGANY, OCHRE, PALE BROWN, RAW UMBER, BURNT SIENNA, BURNT UMBER, SEPIA, DARK TAN, PALE CHESTNUT, DARK CHESTNUT, TAUPE PALE, TAUPE DARK, TAUPE SANDY, TAUPE GRAY, TAUPE MEDIUM, ECRU- I'm guessing nobody will program DF to make the wool's color match the description of the alpaca it came from, but maybe alpaca wool could randomly be one of those colors?

Then there are dyes too. Going the profession route make the industry pointless.
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Meph

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #230 on: March 17, 2019, 06:35:01 pm »

Assuming that tanned skin takes on the color of the creature raws. ^^ Which is currently not the case.
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Cruxador

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #231 on: March 17, 2019, 06:43:36 pm »

Cruxador: Well, players can't play dress-up with their dwarves, because you can't tell them what to wear. Unless you mean via military squads, and assigning individual armor for everything is hidden behind so many menus and such a burden, I don't think people would use it much for ornamental purposes.
First of all, people already do that. I don't see why making the results more visible would cause less people to do so; rather I think it would be more common. And the military screen is one of the things Toady mentioned in the AMA (I believe) is on the short list to get another pass because it's intimidating. The current UI for a feature being inconvenient is not adequate reason to suggest that the feature shouldn't be counted when considering the future of the game.

Second, even when you're not making direct choices, you're the one who decides what clothing elements get made in your fort.

Third, what Shonai said.

--edit
Sorry, that's not meant to sound like a demand. Unfeasible is unfeasible, that's understandable. I just don't think "Not doing it because no player would do it in Fortress mode" is a good enough reason.
It's only a couple dozen sprites (or sprite elements) as far as I can think of. It's not trivial, but it's definitely feasible. Considering how often you encounter clothed people in the game, whether in fort mode or adventure mode, I'd say it's well worth it.

Meph, about professions, I'm pretty sure everyone only has the normal worker professions. Miners, nobles and other special cases obviously do deserve specific sprites. This, in connection with the fact that most clothes are brown or white, definitely makes me stay away from the idea of such accurate depiction of worn clothing.
"Obviously" seems like a bit of a hot take considering that if you go back over the past couple pages, it looks like most posters aren't in favor of profession-based icons and those who are levy significant caveats, while nobody else has applied a caveat similar to yours to the idea of having accurate representations.

I also contest the idea that miners are a special case in the way you're describing for two reasons. First of all, they're objectively not a special case within the context of the game's code. They are a skill-based worker profession just like all the others. The only way in which they're unusual is that, unlike most professions, they actually carry a tool. And that's the second reason. Since they've got their pick on them pretty much 24/7 (and nobody else carries those), there's actually less reason to give them a special sprite than any other job except, arguably, woodcutter. As long as you represent their held item accurately, as with weapons, you can already recognize them readily.

I think more people would dye their dwarves' clothing if they could actually see the results.
I agree. People ignore dyeing because they can't see the results.
Even without being able to see the results, people do use dyes.

I'm guessing nobody will program DF to make the wool's color match the description of the alpaca it came from,
It wouldn't surprise me at all if Toady were to do that. He just hasn't as of now, as Meph says. But while I would hardly consider this a particularly immediate priority, it would be reasonable for some gameplay elements of a particularly visual nature were considered in light of the Steam release. With regards to color property throughput, I suspect it would be a relatively significant timesink (and Toady doesn't really go off on tangents any more the way he did a decade ago) but I could be wrong, and other things might be on the table.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2019, 07:37:57 pm by Cruxador »
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Meph

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #232 on: March 17, 2019, 07:42:03 pm »

Quote
It's only a couple dozen sprites (or sprite elements) as far as I can think of. It's not trivial, but it's definitely feasible. Considering how often you encounter clothed people in the game, whether in fort mode or adventure mode, I'd say it's well worth it.
It's a couple hundred sprites, because the same clothing sprites that fit dwarves wont fit humans, wont fit kobolds, wont fit legless animal men, wont fit very large or small animal men.  ^^

Quote
most posters aren't in favor of profession-based icon
From my 2 year experience in running a tileset, most players are in favor of seeing professions. Of course I could be wrong. I assume that we'll make a big poll at some point, with all the undecided, rather binary design choices and see what is more popular. Even then the popular vote might not help much, because players are not designers. ^^

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Rose

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #233 on: March 17, 2019, 07:54:19 pm »

I feel this can help bring some context to how much variation there is in a typical fortress of dwarfs (Node that these are all bards)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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voliol

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #234 on: March 17, 2019, 08:13:49 pm »

...it looks like most posters aren't in favor of...

A reminder that this tileset is one being made by Meph and Mayday as the official tileset for the Steam and Itch.io release, with us being able to input criticism and suggestions, and not one decided by common vote. In any issues they (or kitfox games/Toady) have the final say. It also stands to say that the posters on this thread are not representative of the entire DF community, and even less the new players intended to be drawn in with this graphical release.
I misread the what your comment was referring to, and either way Meph has already touched at this. My bad.

Meph

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #235 on: March 17, 2019, 08:33:25 pm »

What he said.

Feedback like this always has to be enjoyed with a bit of erring on the side of caution. Have a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle It wouldn't surprise me if the loudest 80% with the strongest opinions make up about 20% of the player base. ;)
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Cruxador

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #236 on: March 17, 2019, 09:08:00 pm »

Quote
It's only a couple dozen sprites (or sprite elements) as far as I can think of. It's not trivial, but it's definitely feasible. Considering how often you encounter clothed people in the game, whether in fort mode or adventure mode, I'd say it's well worth it.
It's a couple hundred sprites, because the same clothing sprites that fit dwarves wont fit humans, wont fit kobolds, wont fit legless animal men, wont fit very large or small animal men.  ^^
Yeah, I should clarify that I doubt it will be worthwhile to fully support every possible combination, just the four civilization-building races and whatever low-hanging fruit (say, if animal men have similar torsos to humans) take little extra work. Considering that, and considering that the racial variants are modifications rather than whole new sprites, I think that it should remain similar in magnitude to doing the hair sprites.

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Quote
most posters aren't in favor of profession-based icon
From my 2 year experience in running a tileset, most players are in favor of seeing professions. Of course I could be wrong.
I don't think that's really a meaningful point of reference, since the tileset you made was for Dwarf Fortress without any new graphical capabilities. Certainly, if profession is the only thing you can show, you may as well show profession. But Toady is going to be working on improving what the game can show, so there's no need to remain bound by what has been possible in the past.

Quote
I assume that we'll make a big poll at some point, with all the undecided, rather binary design choices and see what is more popular. Even then the popular vote might not help much, because players are not designers. ^^
Yeah, Toady is the designer. Nobody's contesting that. But as it happens, lots of DF players know a thing or two about design. I agree that going by raw numbers isn't meaningful, which is why I only mentioned that with regard to whether something could be considered obvious. But the content of posts shouldn't be disregarded solely on the basis that the person making it isn't Toady, there are plenty of good and meaningful arguments made in this very thread, which should be read on their own merit.

To sum up, based on my perception of those arguments, the main points in favor of coloring by profession:
1. Because profession information is sometimes a useful approximation of a dwarf's intended role in the fortress, that should be always visible; otherwise new players may be confused
2. Because the use of dyes and other forms of attention to color and to uniform or type of equipment is some degree less than total, dwarves depicted in their actual clothing would be homogeneous, as seen in Japa's screenshot where most articles of clothing are one of five colors*.

And arguments for representing clothing accurately:
1. On the general principle that people are specifically paying to have graphics that represent what's happening accurately, rather than symbolic graphics as in the ASCII version, the contents of the fort should be represented as accurately as is feasible.
2. People like to care about how their dwarves (or adventurers) look, and their choices in this regard should be respected.

There has been a counterargument to the second of those, that people rarely color their dwarf clothing now because the UI is not convenient to do so. Despite being numeric in nature, that counterargument has not been supported with data.

Arguments for representing clothing accurately also include counterarguments to the notion of profession-based representation:
1. Because profession information is often misleading with regards to a dwarf's potential role in the fortress, making them always visible will confuse new players
2. (Applying both to the second argument for profession iconicism, above, and the counterargument to the second argument for accurate representation): People do set uniforms and outfit their adventurers with aesthetic concerns in mind, including the use of dyes. Intuitively, it can be supposed that if these aesthetic choices were made visible, more players would be interested in making them.

Regardless of whether these arguments were made by designers or not, they can be examined on their own merits.
If I have missed any major arguments, I apologize, please feel free to re-levy them in that case.

What he said.

Feedback like this always has to be enjoyed with a bit of erring on the side of caution. Have a look at this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle It wouldn't surprise me if the loudest 80% with the strongest opinions make up about 20% of the player base. ;)
Hang on now, a moment ago you were saying that players are not designers; that the backing of the majority does not imply that an option is the correct one. Now you're implying that an option can't be correct unless it's backed by the majority? The fact that the people in this thread are not sampled randomly from the entirety of the population that will play the Steam release is not a bad thing. Didn't you yourself say in another thread that the steam forums, for example, are a mess of ignorance (or something to that effect)? This thread biases towards those with a greater level of interest in the game and its presentation, who therefore will have a more solid understanding of the game and of game design both with regards to presentation and otherwise. That makes the posts here more worthy of consideration, not less.



*Note, though, that his screenshot doesn't do a complete job representing the diversity of clothing options since the robes and dresses look very similar in that art style, and the fact that they're all the same profession may have some importance there too. It's probably most representative of colors.
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Putnam

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #237 on: March 17, 2019, 09:26:33 pm »

Hmm. I'd prefer sprite pieces using raw-defined color associations rather than hardpainted colors for each possible hair color or however, unless I'm understanding the purpose of that mockup.

Rose

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #238 on: March 17, 2019, 09:34:56 pm »

I feel like a lot of time can be saved by just having two body types (Stocky and lanky) for all bipedal creatures, and just swap the heads around.

You'd still need custom sprites for snake people and walrus people though.
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Meph

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Re: Steam DF tileset - Mayday/Meph - Discussion and Suggestions
« Reply #239 on: March 17, 2019, 09:36:21 pm »

Hmm. I'd prefer sprite pieces using raw-defined color associations rather than hardpainted colors for each possible hair color or however, unless I'm understanding the purpose of that mockup.
It was a mock-up to show Mike and Toady how it looks using raw colors. I'm not going to make 3700 beard sprites, no worries. The colors should be taken from the raws, maybe, hopefully.

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Now you're implying that an option can't be correct unless it's backed by the majority?
No? That's not what I meant at all. I'm saying that the majority of the feedback comes from a minority of the players.

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Didn't you yourself say in another thread that the steam forums, for example, are a mess of ignorance
I didnt say that.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2019, 09:42:57 pm by Meph »
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