27-05-2004 15:16									#91
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quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas I do not belive that we need a wasteland different from a desert, at the present stage of development of the game. I would rank a forested hill much higher in priority. Cheers

1. To me wasteland is just another name for a desert, so I was a bit taken by the request. But I would agree that a forested hill would be more important.

2. I still have the transparency issue. I can't continue until that is resolved. If I'm not mistaken, Gary, you did some tiles didn't you? What editor did you use? Maybe it's just my editor causing the problem.

3. I can agree that perhaps the irrigation would cover most of the tile, but there will be some of the underlying tile showing through, so I think it needs to be an overlay. I guess I could always fill in the open spots though, I assume this is what you want.

And while I'm on graphics.....

4. Why is Forest not an overlay? Jungle? Swamp? All of these can be cut down/drained and while I can see just swaping the whole tile if it was an all or nothing thing, such as is the case with Swamp, how do you know what to swap it to? It may be predetermined, so I'll drop the Swamp.

But, I can't agree with Jungle and Forest not being overlays. Do you really want to draw Forest on tundra, Forest on flat, Forest on plains, etc.? Also, Clash will have deforestation, eventually, so wouldn't it be nice if we had these tiles:
Forest5.gif
Forest10.gif
Forest15.gif
...
Forest95.gif
with the numbers representing the percentage of deforestation? Also if you want a little variety, just throw a number in front of "Forest" for each different version of overlay... for that matter do it with all tiles to add variety to the map.

5. Why are the coasts encroaching on the land tiles? IMO it would be much better to go the other way... into the coastal tiles. This would allow for a more natural-looking coast line (more room to work with), and it wouldn't cause the narrowing of land tiles, which will look really bad when we have city graphics in place IMO.

6. I know it's a bit of work, but I think the graphics should be set up this way now instead of going back and redoing it later. I'll redraw the whole darn tile set if I have to in order to get it this way. And while I'm on the subject of redrawing, I really wish the tiles were larger in order to get more detail into them. A different format with more colors would be nice too.

I'll stop the rant now.

	28-05-2004 15:23									#92
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We should make all vegetation, water, etc. an overlay. That way it is consistent with the ecology model.
By the way, instead of the possible-confusing terms BM and PBM an "ecological infrastructure" class could be used if it is more consistent with the rest of the models. I just need a numerical quantification of the actual and potential ecological complexity.

	29-05-2004 00:13									#93
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All vegetation should be overlays, but it's hard to have an overlay work the same on a mountain or on plains. We might need different overlays, which kind of ruins the point.

About transparency: In gif's you have a transparency option. For instance you can open any image with Irfanview (freeware), when saving you have save as, pick gif or jpg, options in the lower right corner, and JPEG/GIF: Save transparent color, and pick the palette entry.

	29-05-2004 12:52									#94
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Thanks Laurent. That will allow me to finish up the tiles.

	29-05-2004 16:49									#95
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Gary,
I'm just posting to give you an update on the graphics.

quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas The irrigation won't be an overlay, largely because the irrigation itself will pretty much cover the underlying terrain with nice green crops.

I've been thinking about this irrigation. Personally, I'd rather not see irrigation/mines and roads/railroads on every tile as was done in Civ. I'd rather these things be handled as infrastructure within the tile, and not shown on the map at all. The exceptions to no infrastructure shown on the map, IMO, would be:

A. Roads the player builds, which would be a sort of Roman road network/modern interstate system. Though, and option to turn these off would be nice.
B. Military installations Naval, Air and Army bases. The only reason for this, is to make it easier on the player when searching for his bases in other civ's territory and to hit the enemy's bases during war. Also, all unit creation should be done in bases as well IMO, rather than pop up in the provincial capital. These bases can still be built on city tiles, though the city graphic would show instead of the base graphic, with small icons indicating if a base existed there. It would be nice if the bases flew a flag showing the owner's color, to make them easier to identify.
C. There may be a few more items that I'm not thinking of right now that may be worth putting on the map, but I think we should really try to keep it to a minimum.

With that said, I do have an irrigation tile ready for critiques. It looks a little off in game because I had to make the base brown like dirt due to the fact that there is so much green above and it kind of just blended together when the base was green.

quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas Rivers need six varieties: 1. right along the north-west edge 2. right along the north-east edge 3. halfway along the north-west edge from the north end 4. halfway along the north-west edge from the west end 5. halfway along the north-east edge from the north end 6. halfway along the north-east edge from the east end

I've also added the following for when the river meets the coast:
7. Delta running north to west
8. Delta running west to north
9. Delta running north to east
10. Delta running east to north

I should have these to you by tomorrow or the day after. They are really simple to do, being so small, that I've made 3 variations for each tile. I can't see how they look in game currently, though, so there may be some mis-alignments or the colors may not be quite right.

	29-05-2004 23:55									#96
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quote: Originally posted by LDiCesare All vegetation should be overlays, but it's hard to have an overlay work the same on a mountain or on plains. We might need different overlays, which kind of ruins the point.

I'm no graphics programmer myself (at least, no professional), but does Java have classes for translation, shearing and so on of graphics? That might work...

	30-05-2004 05:12									#97
	Increase the size of your Attachments

In general, overlays cause problems. Potentially one could have half a dozen overlays in the same square, so the order of overlay becomes important.

From the coding point of view a single tile for the square is hugely simpler, so until a coder shows up who is willing to produce the necessary complexities, we will probably be stuck with a single tile per square. This is the reason that we want separate tiles for forested and irrigated squares.

Another point about overlays is that relatively few of the possible combinations actually make sense: a swampy desert, or mountain? A forested city?

That said, the roads and coastlines are overlays, as will the rivers be.

The main reason that coastlines are on the land is that land units cannot go onto the sea without transport, but sea units can go "onto" the land, that is, into port, or in earlier days, beached. But if the coastlines are on the sea square, we would expect land units to be able to go onto those squares. Another reason is that the sea tiles with coastline will necessarily show a bit of the land, so we would need coast pieces for every possible type of land.

I would point out that all these issues have been extensively discussed before any action was taken.

As long as someone doesn't bring up the old chestnut of in square or on edge rivers...

I am rather unhappy about the way roads are handled, but haven't got a better idea. With rivers, we will have to think about bridges.

On the subject of irrigation, it doesn't matter what kind of flat land is under the irrigation - the appearance will be the same. There is an argument for having a separate tile for terraced and irrigated hillsides. That would be a nice one to have.

I look forward to seeing the deltas.

Cheers

	30-05-2004 05:15									#98
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alms66:
What graphics program are you using? The main ones (PhotoShop or CorelPaint) have an option, when you save as a gif file, of setting the colour which is to be regarded as transparent. I tend to use pure magenta, but each to his or her own.

Cheers

	30-05-2004 10:47									#99
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quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas alms66: What graphics program are you using? The main ones (PhotoShop or CorelPaint) have an option, when you save as a gif file, of setting the colour which is to be regarded as transparent. I tend to use pure magenta, but each to his or her own. Cheers

I'm using a mixture of MS Paint (the only program that has a line feature set up the way I like it) to draw the tile outline and Paintshop Pro to fill in the details. I just found the transparentcy bit in Paintshop after Laurent mentioned the name of the feature I was looking for.

	30-05-2004 20:24									#100
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So I still need to do:

a Jungle (current one is way off color-wise)
Forested Hill (requested by Gary)
Bridges
Glacier
Rocky Desert

Also, Gary, you said you aren't happy with the way roads work, could you elaborate and I can take a crack at fixing it.

Any other urgent needs?

Edit:
After searching around I found a few more and added them.

Last edited by alms66 on 30-05-2004 at 21:28

	31-05-2004 11:56									#101
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You understand that this has been discussed at great length...

Roads can be uderstood at two levels - the concept that the square has roads (an infrastucture concept), and the equivalent of Roman military roads (a specific road object). We have never really sorted out how to handle this distinction. As far as a square is concerned, both reduce the time for units to move through the square. I have a vague personal notion that these concepts should be split in some way. However, the way it works now is the same as Civ3etc (my generic name for a swarm of games) does - once a square has roads, it connects with all adjacent squares with roads. It was not always thus. Originally one had to build specific roads from a designated square to an adjacent designated square. Unfortunately this meant that a three by three grid required 21 different roads. This drove me mad, so the system was changed to one that only requires 9 roads. I actually did a fair bit of research on the Roman road system, and they were far more pervasive, at least in Italy, than we suppose. Essentially every square that had Roman roads at all was connected to every other such square.

So, we wound up with the Civ3etc system.

I still don't know of a better idea.

In passing, when I said PhotoShop (the Corel product), I actually meant PaintShop.

Cheers

	14-06-2004 01:46									#102
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The background
I have been having some correspondence with Adam (alms66) on the subject of rivers. This eventually led me to the realization that there is a "graphics error" in the existing system (which would have carried over to rivers). Because my solution to the problem is a little sweeping, I thought it better to have some discussion on the forum.

As a bit of background, the tiles are designed so that each slightly overlaps the ones above and below. This prevents any black background peeping through.

When the map is drawn, the tiles are drawn in rows from the top down. This means that where tiles are adjacent, the southern tile very slightly overlaps the northern tile. The effect is that terrain features that project vertically (mountains, hills or cities) will lie on top of the northern (upper) tile. This works quite well until water enters the picture.

At present coastlines are drawn afterwards, as an overlay on top of the land part of the tile that has the coastline. It was intended that rivers would be drawn in the same way, and Adam has done some preliminary, winding, rivers for this purpose.

The problem
This brought me to realize that there is a problem. A coastline or river along the north-east or north-west edge of a tile will lie on top of any projecting terrain such as mountains, hills or cities. This looks rather odd and unprofessional.

I had a fair bit of agonizing about this, and eventually came to the conclusion that there were only two possible solutions.

Solution 1, layering
The first solution I came up with was to split tiles with a vertical dimension into two - a low level part and a high level part. Then the map could be drawn in order: low level part, water overlay to the north-east and north-west, then the high level layer.

Solution 2 - move the water north
The other way of doing it is to put all water (coastline or river) on the south-east or south-west edges of the northern tile. That is, the overlay will run along the bottom edges of a tile only, and hence will not conflict with any vertical projection of that tile. Any northern coastline will then be an overlay onto the sea to the north-east or north-west.

Pros and cons
Layering will require much more coding, and mean that some tiles will need two gifs to draw. However, it will look better, I think.

Moving the water north will take minimal coding changes, and need fewer overlay tiles (I think, I haven't counted). It will also make possible a new kind of terrain feature - an escarpment.

Summary
I welcome (sensible) comments on this. I am keen to add rivers (in particular the Tigris and Euphrates) to implement a new scenario (Eridu) that I have in mind.

One hope I have is that we might get a comment from someone who has worked on a commercial game and could tell us how they do it.

Cheers

	14-06-2004 01:49									#103
	Got spare money?

If I am to be fiddling with the map, I might as well add a fairly simple modification that allows the player to rotate the map view to any of the cardinal points of the compass, so it can be viewed from the North, East or West, instead of only from the South.

Any interest in this small improvement?

Cheers

	14-06-2004 04:27									#104
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Hi Gary:

I don't have any particular interest in map rotation at this point. On the bigger issue of layering or not. . . I have a suspicion that we will have to go to layering at some point anyway as more and more things are added to the map. For that reason I'm mildly in favor of the layering approach. However, you're much closer to the job, and I have no problem with your picking whatever seems best from your perspective.

On Roads:

We can just show major roads, and have a "transportation infrastructure" class in the economic model handle local roads. The local movement rate could be modified by the infra class value as a continuous function if we wanted it to. I've been toying with that idea for quite a while. An approach like the major-or-infra one might give better looking maps, but could be tougher for the player to guess expected movement rates for the areas not covered by major roads.

	14-06-2004 04:44									#105
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I am, I admit, slowly edging toward the layer option. It may surprise you to realise that I am thinking ahead to polygons here - the move water north option will not work for polygons.

With layering, we could experiment with terrain that is larger than one square in size, and hence looks better.

On the subject of roads, the present roads are merely a marker to show that a square is "roaded". Personally I don't think that roads should be built as a government option. To my knowledge this has never been the way it worked.

The Roman roads were driven by the military. When this stopped, at the collapse of the Empire, roads deteriorated under local control. Even in recent times roading tends to be driven by local needs, with perhaps some, normally earmarked, government finance. This would put, at least in the ancient era, roads into the automatic infrastructure class, except that, as a military engineering option, military roads could be built in areas that would not ordinarily be roaded.

Cheers

	14-06-2004 06:30									#106
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Layering:
I'm obviously in favor of this.

Roads:

quote: by Gary: On the subject of roads, the present roads are merely a marker to show that a square is "roaded". Personally I don't think that roads should be built as a government option. To my knowledge this has never been the way it worked.

Modern Interstate systems should fall under gov't roads.

I support having a separation in local roads (infrastructure) and gov't roads (military & Interstate). It may cause a little confusion for players, but it can only speed movement, not slow it, so I don't think it will be much of a problem.

	14-06-2004 12:45									#107
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If we do go with the layered approach, while someone updates that code, I propose we also update the code that reads the images in to be able to detect the width and height of the image from the file itself, rather than hardcode it. I really want to be able to use larger tiles...128x128 (see next paragraph) would be awesome, I could settle for less though.

Also, we need to update the drawing code to work with square images rather than rectangular. This would allow us to center the tile image in the file and draw "above" the tile, whereas currently, the top of tiles tend to have a rounded look, because of this limitation. See the forest tile for an example of how "hideous" this looks - don't get me wrong, the forest itself looks great, it's that rounded top edge that looks off.

	15-06-2004 00:17									#108
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quote: If we do go with the layered approach, while someone updates that code, I propose we also update the code that reads the images in to be able to detect the width and height of the image from the file itself, rather than hardcode it.

I believe that the code does this already. It then converts it to 80 x 40 to display.

quote: I really want to be able to use larger tiles...128x128 (see next paragraph) would be awesome

Do you mean to display at this size?

quote: Also, we need to update the drawing code to work with square images rather than rectangular.

The view used is an isometric one, viewed from an angle of 30 degrees. The decision to display the map in that form predates my joining the project, but I believe that there was some discussion about it.

I am not completely clear what you are suggesting here. Do you want to go to a vertical view looking down on the map?

Cheers

	15-06-2004 13:49									#109
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quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas Do you mean to display at this size?

128x96 would be the maximum size I'd suggest - and then at maximum zoom in.

I, for some insane reason, was thinking the image needed to be square in order to draw "below" the tile outline, though in reality anything drawn there would be covered by the tile in the next row below, so the image can remain a rectangle.

quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas The view used is an isometric one, viewed from an angle of 30 degrees. The decision to display the map in that form predates my joining the project, but I believe that there was some discussion about it. I am not completely clear what you are suggesting here. Do you want to go to a vertical view looking down on the map?

The example below should illustrate my point of being able to draw above the north point well enough.

	16-06-2004 06:07									#110
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Ah! now I see. I don't see any particular problem in allowing map tiles to project above the northern edge - unit graphics already have that provision. I will check the code.

As far as the 128 x 96 size you suggest, this will substantially reduce the amount of map visible in the map window. I can't help feeling that 80 x 40 is a reasonable compromise.

Cheers

	16-06-2004 09:23									#111
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quote: Originally posted by Gary Thomas As far as the 128 x 96 size you suggest, this will substantially reduce the amount of map visible in the map window. I can't help feeling that 80 x 40 is a reasonable compromise.

I'm not suggesting we make the switch now, mind you, but I'd like the program to support using larger tiles now(i.e. don't hardcode that information in loading routines or zooming algo's). If we do it this way, it will allow some nutty artist to come along later and draw the tileset at the larger resolution. Given two tiles drawn by the same artist, in the same style, and all other variables being equal, the larger of the two tiles will look better because the higher resolution allows more detail compared to the smaller tile. It's that simple. Compare Civ2 screenshots to Civ3 screenshots. Clash currently looks more like Civ2 than Civ3, and considering Clash will be released, at the earliest, when Civ4 comes out (or is out), then I think we should at least strive for that Civ3 level of quality. While you may not agree with the Civ3 art style, you cannot deny that the increased resolution (128 width - same as what I suggest) allows for a higher quality image. My reason, after all, for bringing up these graphical issues has been to help get Clash looking better and more appealing at first glance, which I would hope would draw more interest from artist, programmers and playtesters alike.

And you are absolutely correct that it will reduce the map shown, though I've got a solution to that problem as well. It was supposed to be a part of my interface proposal (interface overhaul to be more accurate), which I've currently shelved, so I don't really want to get into that discussion here. If you want to get into that discussion, email me, we'll talk about it there. For now though, let's just say, if implemented, the overhaul would keep you seeing approx. the same amount of map you currently do, just at a larger resolution.

	18-06-2004 19:31									#112
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Just in case you're interested: I once wrote a program in C++ (it was a world generator for RPGs). Its map has got isometric tiles, different height levels and is zoomable and rotatable. It was a helluva work, but if you want, I can send you the code. Just give me a PM with your mail address.

	19-06-2004 17:09									#113
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I think the overlays is the best way to go too. It will require more work from the artists and code to handle that, but then what?
About map size, I'd like to be able to zoom the map in and out. This means various resolutions, so the initial tiles would look better if they are bigger on higher resolution. But then that's no big priority for me and I think it can be added at any time without major changes to whatever drawing system we use.

	17-07-2004 14:42									#114
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well i won't be drawing anything more until you decide what you want.

	22-11-2004 17:00									#115
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Roads (and other tile improvements):

I hate building them everywhere and I hate looking at them everywhere. They have plagued civ-like games for ages. Clash can finally be rid of them. The only things I want to see on the map are cities, armies, and military facilities (forts, ports, and airfields).

With the way Clash handles infrastructure (see the model for all the gory details), combined with the movement system (keyboard isn't used), there is absolutely no reason to show roads on the map. They should only aid in movement, and since that is automated, the player will never need to know where roads are (though, given the new Map Filters, he can still find out), he simply clicks a destination.

If the infrastructure level is of the ‘1-100’ variety, then simply take the currentRoadInfrastructureLevel-10, to determine the % reduction of movement cost to cross the tile. This, of course would cause more effect if movement points were equal to miles (or a distance equal to crossing one flat tile, I'll assume 100 miles for this example). So if an army can travel 200 miles in a turn, it has 200 movement points. It normally costs 100 to cross a flat square, so a road infrastructure level of 20 would reduce the cost by 10% or 10 points, making the cost to cross the tile 90 points. If the army were to traverse two such tiles it would have only used 180 of the 200 movement points, so what do the rest do?

They stay there and store up (each turn 200 more points are added in). Eventually there will be enough 'stored up' to cross some other tile somewhere. These unused points could provide bonuses if attacked as well as other things (or penalties if force-marching).

Irrigation & Mines: The same reasoning behind not showing roads applies to irrigation and mines as well, though since armies don’t use them, they’re even more useless to display.

Cities: If I’m not mistaken, all these are for is to show that a tile is heavily urbanized. If that is the case, we should have several sizes, otherwise the map may quickly look boring.

Forts/Ports/Airfields: These have never (to my knowledge) been discussed specifically as tile improvement graphics, but I think we should show them, unless they fall on a city tile (and in that case I’d show small graphic icons near the city tile to indicate their presence).

	25-11-2004 17:33									#116
	yes but Increase the size of your Attachments

yes, i'd certainly say that they're lower down the list... and it is a monotonous task sending units to a location to install a road, irrigation, mine or other improvement - it should be just actionable without any icon... but I think people will want to see overlays which indicate human transformation of the terrain - but this could be done quite effectively by a single-colour transparent overlay: colour-shaded areas where relevant, and lines for roads and rail.

As for airports and ports - I think a simply small icon attached to the location - like an ownership flag would be all you'd need: a little anchor for a port; a little runway for an airfield; a little castle for a fort; and so on...

as for cities - I wouldn't like to see fixed-size icons, however pretty.
I'd like to see "urbanisation" displayed so you get different sized and shaped cities: much more organic, and in keeping with the spirit of accuracy in the game.

Coders have hung on for icons too much. I've promised, and haven't delivered; but I'm not even sure whether so many are needed: the real game is in the AI and information, I'm not sure whether it's a useful activity to produce ethnic and historically relevant icons - I'd stick with simple 4 colour sillhouette things: low on memory, high on animation potential.

	26-11-2004 01:10									#117
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Related to the graphics, I have a question, how "modifyable" are graphics in the game? I currently don't have the code for Clash, so I can't really check, but it seems to me like with the scenario system that was set - with each scenario having its own folder, it'd be pretty easy to override default game graphics by implementing a system a-la Civ3, where the game first checks the particular scenario folder for art, and if for something the art is not found, then the default art is used. If that is the case, then it seems to me like yellowdaddy has a strong point in that there is no need to provide large visual diversity - like differently looking units for different nations - by default. If the scenario creators can add in all the art they want, then really the default art can be fairly straightforward. Although note that I did not read this whole thread, so I am sorry if I said something stupid.

	26-11-2004 01:13									#118
	Re: yes but Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by yellowdaddy as for cities - I wouldn't like to see fixed-size icons, however pretty. I'd like to see "urbanisation" displayed so you get different sized and shaped cities: much more organic, and in keeping with the spirit of accuracy in the game.

Well, it seems to me like this urbanization idea is already in full swing in the backend, and that it wouldn't be too hard to implement this in the view. I mean, you already have provinces where each tile is populated by some number of people. You could have a number of little houses and things drawn for the art, and then on each tile, for each 1000 inhabitants, you display another house selected from the list. That way, you get the visual queue from the map as to the population of your provinces, and also it looks nice and provides plenty of visual diversity. IMO.

	27-11-2004 09:44									#119
	Re: Re: yes but Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by vovan Related to the graphics, I have a question, how "modifyable" are graphics in the game? I currently don't have the code for Clash, so I can't really check, but it seems to me like with the scenario system that was set - with each scenario having its own folder, it'd be pretty easy to override default game graphics by implementing a system a-la Civ3, where the game first checks the particular scenario folder for art, and if for something the art is not found, then the default art is used. If that is the case, then it seems to me like yellowdaddy has a strong point in that there is no need to provide large visual diversity - like differently looking units for different nations - by default. If the scenario creators can add in all the art they want, then really the default art can be fairly straightforward. Although note that I did not read this whole thread, so I am sorry if I said something stupid.

It seems what happens currently, is that the system loads the ‘standard’ files, then overwrites any part that is redefined in the scenario file, which is a bit of a waste, if it is so. I’d like to go for a Civ3 type system as well, and if Gary hasn’t come back to work on the editor by the time I’m ready to start coding, the editor will be my first order of business.

quote: Originally posted by vovan Well, it seems to me like this urbanization idea is already in full swing in the backend, and that it wouldn't be too hard to implement this in the view. I mean, you already have provinces where each tile is populated by some number of people. You could have a number of little houses and things drawn for the art, and then on each tile, for each 1000 inhabitants, you display another house selected from the list. That way, you get the visual queue from the map as to the population of your provinces, and also it looks nice and provides plenty of visual diversity. IMO.

I’d prefer to have several (5-10) different city graphics of various size, as a single overlay rather than dozens of house graphics overlain to show urbanization. Only the largest (population) ‘cities’ need be shown, so that even in the modern era, there are still some large tracts of rural (or terrain) tiles showing.

	27-11-2004 20:36									#120
	Put an end to popups!

quote: It seems what happens currently, is that the system loads the ‘standard’ files, then overwrites any part that is redefined in the scenario file, which is a bit of a waste, if it is so.

Not really. There's a file saying which logical name coresponds to what actual image, and you can then override that. But the image itself isn't loaded. I'm not sure whether we need to load all images in the image file anyway. I'd rather wait for Gary to have the single scenario file made with scenario editor out of bits of other resources files if needed thing than touch it myself.

About roads, if you find them ugly, I think we could define the set of overlays that you want shown on the map at any time. (Though thinking of coding the dialogue to show that makes me ill.)