New water

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zookeeper
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New water

Post by zookeeper »

Actually this has already been committed to master (and thus will be in 1.13.1), but I guess a post is still better late than never? :whistle:

The methodology of how the water is tiled is completely new and I had to implement some little features to allow it ([1] [2]).

Somewhat disjointed technical explanation: the images are size 324x144 and tileable, which are then tiled to fill a 342x180 image (so that it encompasses 12 hexes; 6 horizontally and 2 vertically), of which hex-sized pieces are then cut via the ~MASK IPF and tiled next to each other so that the same 12-hex pattern is always preserved. The same method could be used for other kinds of terrains as well, with different sizes and tiling patterns.

Animated .gif (1.9MB, shallow water doesn't loop cleanly)
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12-hex-tiling.png
new_water-1.jpg
new_water-2.jpg
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UnwiseOwl
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Re: New water

Post by UnwiseOwl »

That's....pretty sexy.
From the UMC creator POV, we won't have to do anything to use this, it'll just replace the current water hexes?
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zookeeper
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Re: New water

Post by zookeeper »

UnwiseOwl wrote:From the UMC creator POV, we won't have to do anything to use this, it'll just replace the current water hexes?
Yes. If you happen to have custom water terrains using the old images, then they'll still continue to work for probably a few development releases, until the old images get removed.
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Dugi
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Re: New water

Post by Dugi »

zookeeper wrote:Yes. If you happen to have custom water terrains using the old images, then they'll still continue to work for probably a few development releases, until the old images get removed.
That is now what he asked about. He wanted to know if it's possible to simply take the new images, replace the current ones and have a much better water. I think that it would not work, the masks probably need some new macros.
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zookeeper
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Re: New water

Post by zookeeper »

Dugi wrote:That is now what he asked about. He wanted to know if it's possible to simply take the new images, replace the current ones and have a much better water. I think that it would not work, the masks probably need some new macros.
Right. No, it's not possible. The WML is completely different so you'll have to switch to the new macros as well. But that ought to be pretty straightforward, if you look at the terrain-graphics.cfg diff in the commit.
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UnwiseOwl
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Re: New water

Post by UnwiseOwl »

Macros...for terrain...

It's a big scary world of WML out there, huh?
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GunChleoc
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Re: New water

Post by GunChleoc »

It looks great :)
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LordBob
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Re: New water

Post by LordBob »

Those waves look awesome.

I'd be tempted to fiddle with the colors for added depth (see samples - the lighter part is before), but I don't realize yet how much work that represents and how many different images would need to be edited.

How does this work for the different types of water terrain (shallow, tropical, deep, ...) ? Is the animation an overlay that is added on top of separate base water tiles, or do you use a distinct animated gif for each type of water?
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watersample.jpg
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zookeeper
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Re: New water

Post by zookeeper »

LordBob wrote:Those waves look awesome.

I'd be tempted to fiddle with the colors for added depth (see samples - the lighter part is before), but I don't realize yet how much work that represents and how many different images would need to be edited.

How does this work for the different types of water terrain (shallow, tropical, deep, ...) ? Is the animation an overlay that is added on top of separate base water tiles, or do you use a distinct animated gif for each type of water?
It's not much extra work; the deep water is 21 images, shallow 17. The normal variants use the images as-is, with the tropical and gray variants being produced automatically via color-shifting.

I'll try it out and see what the adjustment looks like in-game and in some other contexts.
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Re: New water

Post by Wussel »

It looks nice to me. Big improvement compared to the old stuff. Personally I would recommand to use the greyish blue you are having for the flat water and the blueish water from Lord Bob for the deep water.

I would stay away from crazy color variation, which make it undistingishable again. However to go really exotic would be nice. Maybe some greenish/brownish version for tropical?

I was wondering lately if the wesnothian water is actually to dark at day time in general. Maybe some more sunny reflections at day time would be nice.
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LordBob
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Re: New water

Post by LordBob »

zookeeper wrote:It's not much extra work; the deep water is 21 images, shallow 17. The normal variants use the images as-is, with the tropical and gray variants being produced automatically via color-shifting.
Ok, that sounds neat. If it's any help I only adjusted levels, so the fix should be quick enough once you settle for satisfying values

Now that I look at those screenshots, I'm also tempted to do scenery work: regular castles pale in comparison to those beautiful new waters ^_^ .
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zookeeper
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Re: New water

Post by zookeeper »

Applying adjustments which match your mock-ups (upped contrast, then saturation) to the images would give this (compare to the original in first post).

Shall I commit that? I'll probably wait a day or two anyway, in case there's something else to tweak at the same time.
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new_water-1-deeper.jpg
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LordBob
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Re: New water

Post by LordBob »

Perfect! As an added bonus, it makes the land stand out better thanks to the increased value contrast, so it's even more of an improvement. You can commit it when you're ready. :)

By the way, does this new water affect the swamp terrain as well ? I'm guessing not so I'd be curious to see how they look next to each other, and then maybe I'll ask some more questions and give it a shot.
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zookeeper
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Re: New water

Post by zookeeper »

LordBob wrote:By the way, does this new water affect the swamp terrain as well ? I'm guessing not so I'd be curious to see how they look next to each other, and then maybe I'll ask some more questions and give it a shot.
It doesn't affect swamps. There's basically no difference in how the water-swamp transitions work; they were almost completely hidden under the reeds before, and still are.

I did ponder briefly about whether I'd do a new swamp as well, but it seems pointless because you'd practically never see it, and the current reed-covered style seems fine. Maybe the swamp transition onto water should be wider, though, so it'd be more visible instead of the reeds just popping out of the adjacent water.
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LordBob
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Re: New water

Post by LordBob »

That works well enough indeed. I'd forgotten that our swamp tiles were mostly reed and very little water... :oops:
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