Paths & Lakes

[Dinonykos]

Well then, I finally managed to find out the secrets of paths, rivers, lakes and all that stuff. Although there is no 100% convincing solution, I personally would give the approach with walls 90%:



With backgrounds, you could do something more graphically convincing, but it would be at least thrice the effort, so I will follow the wall approach...

[Uatu]

Wow, that is incredible! You did that with walls?!

I did think that it was possible to do with walls - but probably not the default type (which is what I was using). But now you have done it and proved it for us!

[Dinonykos]

You need one of the extended wall formats. I will post a grid for "background" walls sooner or later.

[SilentThief]

That is incredible! Perhaps I should look into the different wall types. I had figured one type was as good as another and just used the default.

ST

[manikus]

Looks great, Dinonykos.

I just happened to be working on the same thing yesterday. I have an underground pond and stream that I had done as backdrops, but have started to redo as walls, using the hyper walls.

I've said it before, anything you can do with walls, you can do with backgrounds and vice versa. The caveat is that for some things may be more work than the other while the other may look a little nicer.

[manikus]

I was done with this little animation a while ago, but let's just say that sometimes Real Life comes along and kicks you in the rear.

This is my example of an underground lake. I had originally worked on this as backdrops for a yet unreleased mod. I decided to re-do my project using walls. It took three walls to accomplish this effect. I was going to have a stream coming in or going out of the lake, but that would be 3 more walls.

I don't think there is any savings on the amount of art done by choosing walls over backdrops, but it is simpler to code in DC.

[Dinonykos]

That looks very nice, Manikus. Only the water surface does not really convince me.

Originally Posted by manikus I don't think there is any savings on the amount of art done by choosing walls over backdrops,

In this case, I respectfully disagree, but this is certainly also depending on art style and working processes.

Originally Posted by manikus but it is simpler to code in DC.

Yep. Handling backdrops is more difficult in the DC editor also in my opinion. Furthermore, as far as I know, changing backdrops in game does not work, does it?

[Uatu]

Dang, it seems that everyone has their own set of lakes now! (Except me... ) One of these days...

[Dinonykos]

I must admit I do not now if the "hyper format" is already included in the newest config.txt file. If it is, it should be no problem for you to get one of those lakes .

[manikus]

The hyper wall format is in the most recent version of the config.txt file available through the CVS at SourceForge, but not in the one the default DC download, as that pre-dates hyper walls.

I'll attach it for everyone's convenience.

About the water...I know. There's a reason for that in the original mod it was designed for, but for the new application I need to work on that. I'm sure it's obvious by the look, but this whole thing is hand-drawn, no rendering at all, so I've got a bit of work to do to get the water looking better.