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Author Topic: Bridges - WIP  (Read 20072 times)

Meph

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Bridges - WIP
« on: April 28, 2021, 07:13:45 pm »

I stumbled upon old designs for bridges and was reminded that I wanted to improve them. This is just WIP, but what do you guys think about a design like this?

Photoshop mock-up:
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Shonai_Dweller

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2021, 07:47:33 pm »

Oh, these are nice.
Crosses that divide between "drawbridge" and "bridge over a brook in the wilderness" better than the flat designs.

Shadow for where the bridge will fall is a good idea. Ability to turn it off would be good too.
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Starver

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2021, 08:01:25 pm »

Fuller reply over on the other thread.

The "shadow where the unraised bridge" bit is good, though, and I didn't know to address it when writing the other.

Multi-arched bridge-piers still don't look right for in-game context (especially when the bridge vanishes). And wouldn't even be visible in Z-1 viewslice (or N-S orientation) so probably more flavour than it's worth in trying to do it right.

(MMMV.)

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Meph

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #3 on: April 29, 2021, 02:12:15 am »

What's MMMV? Google isn't helpful at all.
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neobit

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #4 on: April 29, 2021, 03:13:19 am »

It is a piece of beauty, really nice. Shadow is great as well.

Yet, drawbridges with arches don't look right.
As you are able to determine whether mechanism is attached, would it be possible (and feasible) to do:
- no mechanism -> arches
- mechanism -> flat?
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PatrikLundell

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #5 on: April 29, 2021, 04:09:08 am »

neobit posted while I wrote, so the below is essentially a more long winded repeat:

Like others have mentioned, the bridge looks really nice, but the arches match "real" bridges more than drawbridges, so I imagine it would look really nice for adventure mode bridges (which, if I understand it correctly, aren't actually drawbridges). If it was possible to have the arches for bridges that were not hooked up to any mechanism (and morph the display when a mechanism was installed), I guess it could give players who want their embarks to look good a reason to elect to build fixed drawbridges rather than floors over rivers and the like.
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Meph

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2021, 04:59:30 am »

Current iteration:



I understand that they look a tiny bit too solid for drawbridges, but if I don't make them 3D-ish, a lot of people say that they look too flat. :/ I guess I could change the tiny arches to something straight...
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Starver

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #7 on: April 29, 2021, 06:24:22 am »

What's MMMV? Google isn't helpful at all.
(My Mileage May Vary - slightly more self-doubting than the typical YMMV, is how I intended.)

N-S orientations (and vice-versa) work well enough with the end-shade, IMO, I see. The one-tile E-W extended bridge works well (obviously just one tile and extended), and so does the N-S equivalent (though the shade loses out, slightly, I don't know how you can prevent that, as is, and it still works with other hints).

If you feel the need to add a span, make it a whole-span. Ends with 'flavour-wedge'[1] to support the general profile of a skewed-up/-down flooring (obvious by profile, when side-on, and shading) and just a continual underside layer (and shadow-effect, which is essentially what remains as a raised 'ghost bridge') that doesn't even try to 'sink piers' down that don't exist.

For multi-pier non-retracting bridges, they'd be best to be procedurally built with mid-stream piers, with full actual archetectural[2] structures.

I speak only as one who knows (somewhat) how the game actually works, though. I cannot say how a newcomer might react to impossibly-slender depictions, if you refrain from this little graphical 'lie' to maintain a surrogate verisimilitude. But given you can run a raising bridge half way across a 'bottomless' gorge (dry, and dug deep enough to fade out into mist any obvious bottom) to be met from the side by another such bridge sent out from the opposite cliff-edge (L-shape or Z-shape pathing across the ravine - incidentally needing wagons to cross the stake-and-rope-edging(s)!), this would render such aesthetic renderings even odder in appearance. So unless you're catering for the examples shown (simple river traversal) as separate treatments to the 'simple slightly elevated bridge' then the effort might be wasted.

IMO. Always IMO, naturally. (Just because I put a lot of words down about it, now, doesn't mean I'm right. It's just me inefficiently explaining what's in my head, given I lack your obvious ability to use single pictures in the place of those thousand ill-judged words.) I claim no more authority than a buzzing mosquito!


[1] Technically, such an abuttment should be far more substantial to look 'real', but given you can run a 'floating floor' across the entire map from atop a single support, we can't begrudge you not bowing to the otherwise ignored physics of such long-low arches across a mere ten-ish tiles with supports probably at both ends. ;)

[2] Something for Tarn to do, if at all... you'd just be graphicking resources to fit with loads of one-tile arches (or lintels, as per clapper-bridges) between supporting pillars rising from the riverbed, which is probably already within your graphics palette without any tinkering.
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Wokko

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #8 on: April 29, 2021, 06:42:18 am »

imo, the second image is a step back. Jagged lines look too weird, and thicker fences/ropes on the sides of the bridge looked better in the first pic, looked more "3d-like".

Between these two, the first is a lot better in my opinion.
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Meph

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #9 on: April 29, 2021, 10:45:47 am »

The difference is that the first one is 32x38, which is currently not possible for constructions; while the second one is 32x32.
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voliol

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #10 on: April 29, 2021, 01:01:06 pm »

Considering how flat the terrain is otherwise (especially walls) you might actually want bridges to be less 3D. Just a guess on my part.

vettlingr

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #11 on: April 30, 2021, 12:42:44 am »

I would say loose the railings or fences all together.

Rekov

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #12 on: May 05, 2021, 06:51:29 pm »

I would say lose the railings or fences all together.
I would suggest this especially because bridges don't actually restrict movement side to side. If someone builds two bridges parallel to each other, the graphics would imply that creatures can't move from one to the other, when by the mechanics they can.

It also saves you the trouble of creating an entirely different look for retracting bridges, which don't have an orientation for the railings to go.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2021, 06:54:12 pm by Rekov »
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Mr Crabman

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #13 on: May 06, 2021, 03:47:58 am »

I would say lose the railings or fences all together.
I would suggest this especially because bridges don't actually restrict movement side to side. If someone builds two bridges parallel to each other, the graphics would imply that creatures can't move from one to the other, when by the mechanics they can.

It also saves you the trouble of creating an entirely different look for retracting bridges, which don't have an orientation for the railings to go.

I'll third this opinion, and also agree with voliol and Starver that the 3d curve should be dropped.

Meph

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Re: Bridges - WIP
« Reply #14 on: May 07, 2021, 12:25:01 am »

The funny thing is, if I drop the 3D elements (which brings the bridge in line with furniture and buildings), people will complain that it looks too flat. As was evident in the first version, which was top-down.
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