18-04-2001 19:07									#31
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Fiera: I'm posting here to let you know I tried to reorganize the ecology model, you might want to take a look at it in the ecology thread.

I'll give you a list of terrain types here:

* Terrain: Basin, Flat, Rolling, Hills, Mountainous
* Climate: Arctic, Sub-Arctic, Cold Temperate, Warm Temperate, Sub-Tropical, Tropical; Ice Cap, Ocean, Sea, Lake
* Vegetation: Wasteland, Desert, Low Cover, High Cover, Light Fores, Forest, Climax Forest

You would need different vegetation graphics only for old (conifer), temperate (decidous), hot (tropical) areas and the water vegetation, although this will most likely only be a few little, green, floating, things.
Do you know Transport Tycoon? Your latest tiles actually reminded me of that game, and there were also three sets of different trees. By the way those graphics are already very good. They look very tangible, in contrast to CivII, where the empires were founded on a moulded pancake . CivI looked better: the terrain was like a spunge that had teeth (mountains).

Can you do something like the three forest tiles with desert-low cover-high cover?

The model still needs to be discussed anyway and will probably be simplified.

	21-04-2001 19:55									#32
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Fiera:

I did a quickie thread on the topic of rivers. There was a reasonbly strong concensus for in-square rivers. So in-square is what you need to work on representations for. Rivers can go in the same basic 8 directions from the tile center that roads can, so we could even put in really contorted rivers some day if desired.

	22-04-2001 07:47									#33
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Hi again, everybody!

I'm sorry, I've been a bit busy lately, but I've managed to put together a deciduous trees demo. They're over a Plains tile, but I can put them over Grassland or whatever you need, as I've made them as separate layers...

I will work on roads now, and then also on rivers now that I know that they'll be in-square...

You can take a look at the demo here:
http://www.geocities.com/fiera_com/demo.html


Simon,

hi, and thanks for your comments!

I started working on these trees before reading your post, however, I think that they might fit in your model.

One thing I need to know: I'm not quite sure about the difference between low-cover and high-cover...
[This message has been edited by Fiera (edited April 21, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by Fiera (edited April 22, 2001).]

	22-04-2001 17:35									#34
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Hi Fiera:

The new trees look a little too "pointy". I'm sure that's because of only having a few pixels at the edge to deal with... but getting the trees perfect is a lot lower priority than roads and rivers etc.

I just had an idea. How about showing amount of farmland on a tile using little squares of 'tilled land'. You could fit maybe 25 of them in a tile if it were filled with them. Then you could have a number of fields proportional to agricultural sites. This shouldn't be done anytime soon, but is just an idea that I wanted to see what others thought about.

	22-04-2001 23:04									#35
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That idea can be extended to other things. If each square has 25 tiles, then each tile can have one tree or one farm or one house representing a village or suburb.

Hmmm, with a 40x80 tile, each of the smaller tiles would have to be 8x16 pixels. Fiera, Can you draw a house icon that small?

Or to get really radical, each square could have multiple terrain types. The square could have 8 mini-squares of desert and 17 of plains This would turn a square into an ecological province, for all practical purposes. So we can use all the old ecological province plans that relied on a big batch of squares with fixed borders. Each province in the old model is now a square on the map. That is probably excessive, but I'd like it a lot and it could make the map look a lot better.

	24-04-2001 17:54									#36
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Fiera:

Low cover means low vegetation overall: grass, some bushes, no trees.
High cover means something between grassland and a forested area: grass, bushes and an occasional tree. I wanted to have a bigger difference between desert and forested than just 1 type. They almost look the same anyway.

On representing sites on the map:
I like details, but maybe we're going to far by giving every pixel on the map a meaning. But as long as the data don't get in each other's way on
the map, it's OK.

Treating the squares as provinces might prove the most simple solution. It would solve many problems regarding province size, overlap etc. But multi-square provinces were also a tool to keep the map unfragmented.

	24-04-2001 20:47									#37
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Things that make the map both look better, and give the player information are great. I don't know how much of that we can get away with, without the graphics looking too busy. Figuring that out is part of Fiera's job .

Rather than terrain micromanagement I think anything we put in the graphics needs to answer the questions that player will frequenly ask, and I don't think 'what ratio of desert to plains is here?' fits that bill... The number of farm sites will be very important economically to the player for at least the first half of the game, which is why I suggested it. But I don't claim to know the exact right answers to what the player will most want to know yet . That'll be best answered in playtesting.

I am strongly against pushing detailed ecological modeling down to within a tile. I don't think the player will get much out of it, and there are tens of thousands of tiles already! If you want that, then just redefine the tiles to be 10km across, and you can basically have a map with terrain governed on the finer scale you want. But for the whole world that'd be over a Million tiles . Only things that are really important like gradual deforestation, and drainage of swamps, are likely to be important enough to model for each tile IMO. And those only at a crude level.

	25-04-2001 07:33									#38
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Hi all,

First off, a quick clarification that I should have made before: the tiles I've been using in my demos (the ones in the demo.html page) are not exactly 80x40 size, but rather 78x40, since that was the only way I managed to finally arrange a symmetrical diamond. Due to this symmetry, these tiles prove perfect for the division in 25 small diamond-sized tiles.

So I've put two small and quick demos implementing farm sites over both grassland and plains. I think they're selfexplanatory, and though I'm not quite satisfied with the way the fields look like, they serve their purpose well, so you can tell wether you like the idea or not.

The demos are here, at the end of the page:
http://www.geocities.com/fiera_com/demo.html

About taking this idea further, I think we should be careful. Showing the degree of deforestation and farming is taking place in a square may be enough. Having 25 different kinds of terrain inside a 78x40 square, when you'll probably have something like 120 visible squares in the map, would drive crazy even the most perfectionist player, IMO.

We have to bear with the fact that the map is just a conventional representation of the world (ie, trees will be always too big in comparison with mountains, as will be units when compared with cities, etc), so a good compromise will be keeping things informative as well as good looking. That's the way I see it.


Simon,

quote: Can you do something like the three forest tiles with desert-low cover-high cover?

So what you'd like me to do is to implement, in three stages, the "evolution" from high-cover to desert? I'm not sure wether I finally understood you...

	25-04-2001 17:37									#39
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The general isea looks good, but could you increase the contrast between the farms abd background? I had to squint to make them out.

I was relly only thinking of two terrin types in a square, like a border between plains/grassland.

	26-04-2001 16:09									#40
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Fiera:

Thanks for trying it out! I'm with Richard. It looks like the general idea will work ok, but the farm patches IMO, if we use them, will need several different colors in them so that they can be made out against different tiles.

	26-04-2001 19:53									#41
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

OK, I'll try putting different colors in.

I thought you'd probably be interested in what CIv3 will look like. PCGameplay has posted the first in-game screenshots. One of them shows the map view. You'll be very surprised to see that they're using something like our power circles! Grassland looks good, similar to what I'm working on but with softer colors. The forests and irrigations seem very ugly to me, however.

See it here: http://www.pcgameplay.co.uk/newscentre.htm

	27-04-2001 04:11									#42
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Man, are those graphics ugly and nonfunctional... There are several types of units represented, but you can barely tell them apart at first glance! And they seem to have picked at the uglier version of the power circle -- the one that we discounted as aesthetically lousy quite some time ago... Also it's not clear if they're using the most important function of the power circle, to show the actual military strength of the army.

I'm with you, the only things I think there really work in these images are the grassland, and the sea is not too bad. What a shame... but I'm sure they'll do better before it is released.

	27-04-2001 15:47									#43
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Fiera:
You did understand. The forest looks fine, you surely can do it for the other vegetation too.

Civ3:
Ugh.. Somebody dropped a box of pixels there. This barely qualifies for a 'fog of war' map. Clash at least has trees instead of green stuff.
If the mess on the roads was irrigation, nobody's ever going to irrigate, just for aesthetic reasons. Thank god it's only a preview.

multiple terrain:
If we want more terrain, why not just increase the number of squares a bit? I would also like a huge map with a square for every km² but, alas, that's not yet possible with common computers (I think).
[This message has been edited by Simon Loverix (edited April 27, 2001).]

	28-04-2001 19:07									#45
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- They still lay their roads on top of the trees. Nice overlook for travellers, but a little expensive in upkeep. Fiera, could you leave space between the trees for roads and/or rivers, so there's always room to draw a road? Laying a road in climax vegetation will downgrade it to normal forest.

- Those guys don't come outside anymore these days, do they? If they did, they would know water does NOT look blue, only the sea. I'd say, don't draw irrigation explicitly, only indicate farmed/not farmed for the small tiles on the square.

We can do a lot with those tiny tiles. We could draw a little building for 4% of the land occupied by infrastructure, a little field for agriculture, a pool for partial wetland,..

[This message has been edited by Simon Loverix (edited April 29, 2001).]

	04-05-2001 03:07									#46
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Yeah, the look is a little better, but still not really good. Thanks for posting it. Other than what you (Fiera) say, I don't get any big messages for us out of it.

	05-05-2001 03:45									#47
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This isn't technically about map graphics, but this seems to have become the general graphics thread...

Thanks to my CAD class, I have developed some (limited) skills in 3-D modeling and rendering. I can now make replicas of various structures without much time or effort. You can see some screenshots here:
http://wcuvax1.wcu.edu/~RB22393/buildings.html

Do we have any use for this sort of thing? In addition to the 2-D pictures, I can also provide 3-D models of the various structures. Can Java use and/or display .dxf files?

	06-05-2001 06:17									#49
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Wow, Richard, I must say you've posted some impressive buildings there. I especially like the Colosseum.

But, I wonder if there's really a purpose for these kind of rendered images in a turn based strategy game. I mean, what benefit can you take out of a 3d image when you can not actually "surround" it? I say this 'cause I'm assuing that the player will be always seeing the same perspective of a given building or unit.

	08-05-2001 03:36									#51
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Can we put 'big building' type wonders in a square or in the skyline of cities? I think it would look nice. Richard, we can use your pictures to display such a wonder from different sides if there will be an option to turn the map view.

That reminds me of another issue: the style of all the graphics in the game should be equal or comparable. A very good example of this is Imperialism. A very bad example of this are (too) many home-made civ2 scenarios. So using 3D pictures in a game with mostly 2D graphics could 'break' the style, unless it's a very small picture (like on the map) or when it's retouched to fit in.

By the way, can we include an option for a map view from above? Very simple, for slow computers owners and civ1 nostalgics (I think I qualify for both ).

	10-05-2001 00:12									#52
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Well I had thought the world could be seen from any of the 4 basic veiws. Anyway atleast for things like cities even if that were not possible, you should make 4 views for each type for variety. Or atleast 2 that you can flip.

There will be differnt styles as in cultural styles if that is what you meant.

	10-05-2001 15:49									#53
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Cultural styles is certainly a must (scenario's etc.) - but include a standard.
What I meant by style is to have a coherent set of graphics. For example, a game that involves spaceships etc. usually has its interface designed like a spaceship dashboard, in Warcraft the cursor was a gauntlet,..
Every graphic in Imperialism is drawn in the appropriate style of the age, even things that don't necessarily need to be so, like trees and rocks. This makes that the game has a very distinctive look.
But that's not everything. They mixed up 3D and 2D, drawn stuff. This causes a little discontinuity when you encounter a screen with such pictures on it and that strains the suspension of disbelief.

I think the style for clash is best not too realistic, because we want (don't we) to display lots of detailed information on the screen. And displaying realistic detail with pixels is like painting a portrait with a broomstick: a mess. So if we want to draw buildings, draw a single, or two, or three recognizable buildings instead of a myriad of three-pixel-huts. Make sure the contrast is always clear, and the lines are always smooth. The main purpose of the graphics is, after all, presenting the game information as pleasant and as clear as possible to the players.

	12-05-2001 19:55									#54
	Increase Your PM Length

Richard:

Your new things look pretty cool! The only direct use I can think of for them offhand is as backgrounds either in skins, or behind character advisers. So when your adviser character pops up to tell you about the economy or what ever, some sort of commercial institution could appear behind them.

BTW, how is the tech stuff coming along using Gary's tech editor? Perhaps best to refer to this in the tech thread rather than here...

Fiera:

Any luck on the new art? Do you think we should try and put the new style tiles in demo five? If so, I need plains, mountains, hills, and swamp. That's all we are likely to use in demo 5.

There was a guy looking to help out on the art front, and I asked him to coordinate with you here, hopefully he will show up soon...

	16-05-2001 06:02									#55
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Hi, Mark and everybody!

Everything's great with me, the only thing is that I've been hopelessly busy with some papers I had to write.

quote: Originally posted by Mark_Everson on 05-12-2001 10:55 AM Any luck on the new art?

The only thing I've been able to put together is a new try on the farmed squares. Look at it here:
http://www.geocities.com/fiera_com/demo.html

The new squares are those at the right. I know it doesn't make that much of a difference, but I think it looks better know...

I've also tried something for the roads, but I don't like at all what I've got.

quote: Do you think we should try and put the new style tiles in demo five? If so, I need plains, mountains, hills, and swamp. That's all we are likely to use in demo 5.

I say let's go for it. I think everybody's happy with the plains and mountains that I already have, so I only need to work on the hills and swamps. I'll focus on it, leaving roads and rivers aside for the moment. Is that alright?

quote: There was a guy looking to help out on the art front, and I asked him to coordinate with you here, hopefully he will show up soon...

That's great, I've already posted something in the other thread. I'm looking forward to his comments on my graphics.

	17-05-2001 04:59									#56
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I've now put together a demo for a new swamp terrain. It's here:
http://www.geocities.com/fiera_com/demo.html

Please tell me how you like it.

	17-05-2001 06:30									#57
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I'm afraid that I really don't like the swamp much. It almost looks like bread mold. However, that could be decieving since we probably won't see that bare tile in the game; the swamp will have trees or other vegetation like the other tiles do.

I like the pattern of unobtrusive basic terrain covered by little vegetation tiles. Perhaps the swamp could be a single color like the others. Then rivers and/or discrete vegetation would add the detail.

I still have to squint to see the farmland. Could you make it stalks of wheat or something that stand out like the trees do?

	17-05-2001 06:34									#58
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Sure, leaving the roads and rivers aside for now is fine. On the swamp... I can't say I like it, I thing its too blobby and indistinct. Here's my idea, and we'll see what you think. Just like you have individual trees that can be assembled for a forest, how about a few different kinds of 'swampy patches' that cover maybe 10% of a tile each. Each swampy patch could show a little standing water and some swamp-type vegitation coming out of it. But each bit should look a little like the real thing, just like your military units do! For a very swampy area we'd put 5 of them down in random non-overlapping positions. (Ideally in areas where roads don't normally go.)

The thing I like about my idea is that when the land is drained we can do it just like deforestation -- gradually. But the player will see a big swampy area change over many turns into good farmland! This should give the player a sense of progress and ownership. And the best thing about it is that the player will achieve this without needing to move around many settlers by hand!

What do you think?