View Issue Details

IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0006913Valley 1Graphical BugMar 29, 2012 11:56 pm
ReporterPenumbra Assigned ToChris_McElligottPark  
Status resolvedResolutionfixed 
Summary0006913: Visible wind should have an "edge" so it doesn't look like an error
DescriptionIt feels like the wind just "stops" instead of being a cloud head or a giant storm. If it had a softer edge (or and angry one, even) it wouldn't look like a bug.
TagsNo tags attached.
Internal WeightNew

Activities

Chris_McElligottPark

Mar 28, 2012 3:20 pm

administrator   ~0021499

Or I could just remove the visible wind entirely, since people seem to want things with it that are well beyond my abilities. That's what I'm leaning towards at the moment, because as much as it's nice to have visible wind, if it leads to art quality complaints in everyone who sees it... well, that's pretty much something that needs to go away, I think.

Not that I'm complaining about you complaining, but you're more of a canary for things to come, I expect.

Terraziel

Mar 28, 2012 3:24 pm

reporter   ~0021500

I'd recommend at least leaving the areas darkened. That's a visual indicator of the winds existence without trying to be a visual representation of it.

Chris_McElligottPark

Mar 28, 2012 3:27 pm

administrator   ~0021501

Perhaps what I can do is simply make some sort of "black cloud" graphic. And not have it scrolling, but it would have kind of a black cloud that was over each particular region. I could even make them bob up and down a little bit. That would look better at the edges without being hugely involved to do.

I have both a limit in terms of what I can artistically come up with for something like this (I'm simply not a pixel artist), and I also have a really strict GPU load limit for the world map in particular (it's already straining the GPUs for many people).

Penumbra

Mar 28, 2012 3:28 pm

reporter   ~0021502

Fair enough. I think it should be everywhere the player expects. If you left it exactly as it is right now, but made the "intangible" ocean darker, it would look like it belonged. The player has no concept of what is "real" ocean and what is filler. That's why I thought just spreading it as the default would be simple graphically. But if that's the way it is supposed to be, that's fine.


I love the look of it, I love how oppressive it feels on the continent. It certainly makes the small bit of clear land you have fought for feel like a reward. I would be sad to see it go after just getting used to it :)

Penumbra

Mar 28, 2012 3:29 pm

reporter   ~0021503

Last edited: Mar 28, 2012 3:30 pm

Ah, that makes perfect sense. The black cloud graphic would be perfect!

Edit: do you mean for all of it, even on the continent? Or just out in the open ocean?

Chris_McElligottPark

Mar 28, 2012 3:34 pm

administrator   ~0021504

Well, the oceans are a tricky business in and of themselves. What I have to work with for these things is that the number of draw calls -- the number of batches of vertices sent to the graphics card -- matters a great deal. So I can't just say "draw a 64x64 tile in this location." If I do that, then you get something like 2000 draw calls on 1080p resolution, and it will bring the most modern GPU down to its knees (and older GPUs would be lucky to get 4fps out of that).

So it actually becomes an incredibly tricky math or logic problem, depending on how you approach it. Using overdraw and cleverness I can somewhat reduce the math complexity (which is good, because that's not only hard for me to come up with a good algorithm for, it's also more CPU-intensive, which also hurts your framerate).

You'd be surprised how complex some of this gets.

Penumbra

Mar 28, 2012 3:40 pm

reporter   ~0021505

What if there was just a different tile graphic for "deep-deep ocean" that was static but blended with the awesome wind graphic you already created?

Bluddy

Mar 28, 2012 5:21 pm

reporter   ~0021514

Wow how does it get so expensive again? Isn't the map just a bunch of square textures? And other square textures moving over those other ones?

You already have the rain texture for chunks, and I think if you just shrunk it down and animated it on top of the map it should look pretty stormy.

zebramatt

Mar 29, 2012 9:05 am

reporter   ~0021570

I think the visual difference between The Deep and windy areas is that the former are distinct regions with bold black edges; whereas the latter is an overlay.

But personally I much prefer the world with (visible) wind than without, even the way it looks now.

Penumbra

Mar 29, 2012 9:52 am

reporter   ~0021576

Yes, the visible wind adds so much. Please do not remove it because of one canary with a bad heart ;)

Bluddy

Mar 29, 2012 7:33 pm

reporter  

Bluddy

Mar 29, 2012 7:35 pm

reporter   ~0021621

I uploaded a shot of the wind switched to BlackClouds.png and it looks much better IMO. And this is while it's animating in the wrong direction too ie not diagonally (though obviously that's not visible in the shot)!

TechSY730

Mar 29, 2012 7:37 pm

reporter   ~0021623

I think either look fine.

Maybe its my time playing "oldschool" games, but I am used to hard edges on graphical effects in games built around "tiles".

Penumbra

Mar 29, 2012 7:51 pm

reporter   ~0021624

Ah, I have absolutely nothing against the "hard edge" graphically. The existing storm graphic is wonderful! The edge I am referring to is more the fact that the "deep-deep ocean" looks calm.

The hard fought foothold made by the players is small bits of calm amidst the raging storm. To have all that relatively calm ocean out there takes away from that.

If those tiles just had a static, darker, "rough and stormy" ocean image it would be fine.

Terraziel

Mar 29, 2012 8:07 pm

reporter   ~0021625

If that is your concern, then as a quick experiment if you go into your region icons and backup then replace the OceanOverlay.png with a copy of Wind.png the oceans suddenly become a lot more oppressive looking. Too oppressive in fact.

addtionally said wind.png doesn't actually make too bad a wave effect

Penumbra

Mar 29, 2012 8:17 pm

reporter   ~0021626

Wow! Ok then. I don't think "too oppressive" is possible for the "Overpowering wind storm that ended the world"

Terraziel

Mar 29, 2012 8:23 pm

reporter   ~0021627

At the very least I think it shows quite how much of the brightness of the world map comes from the Ocean squares.

Chris_McElligottPark

Mar 29, 2012 8:55 pm

administrator  

RevisedWorldMapWind.png (1,937,951 bytes)

Chris_McElligottPark

Mar 29, 2012 8:57 pm

administrator   ~0021630

Well, see what you think of the attached. It's vastly more oppressive, and uses the black rain like Bluddy was mocking up. It also changes around the graphics for the ocean shelf areas, and removes the rain from being on the deep normally.

So it's roughly the same load on the GPU as before, maybe only slightly more load, and I agree I think the effect is far superior. The edges are still sharp, but there's just no way around that that I can think of.

Penumbra

Mar 29, 2012 9:10 pm

reporter   ~0021632

Awesome!!!! That looks incredible. The focus is now on the land. This truly makes me want to build wind shelters!

There is absolutely no problem with the edges. I only brought up edges when the original reason for keeping the wind isolated to land masses was story based :)

The screen shot you posted above just pops, I love it!

Chris_McElligottPark

Mar 29, 2012 9:14 pm

administrator   ~0021633

Awesome! Whew! ;)

zebramatt

Mar 29, 2012 11:56 pm

reporter   ~0021646

Wow, good job!

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Mar 28, 2012 3:17 pm Penumbra New Issue
Mar 28, 2012 3:20 pm Chris_McElligottPark Internal Weight => New
Mar 28, 2012 3:20 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0021499
Mar 28, 2012 3:20 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status new => closed
Mar 28, 2012 3:20 pm Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
Mar 28, 2012 3:20 pm Chris_McElligottPark Resolution open => not fixable
Mar 28, 2012 3:24 pm Terraziel Note Added: 0021500
Mar 28, 2012 3:27 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0021501
Mar 28, 2012 3:28 pm Penumbra Note Added: 0021502
Mar 28, 2012 3:29 pm Penumbra Note Added: 0021503
Mar 28, 2012 3:30 pm Penumbra Note Edited: 0021503
Mar 28, 2012 3:34 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0021504
Mar 28, 2012 3:40 pm Penumbra Note Added: 0021505
Mar 28, 2012 5:21 pm Bluddy Note Added: 0021514
Mar 29, 2012 9:05 am zebramatt Note Added: 0021570
Mar 29, 2012 9:52 am Penumbra Note Added: 0021576
Mar 29, 2012 7:33 pm Bluddy File Added: Screen Shot 2012-03-29 at 7.30.55 PM.png
Mar 29, 2012 7:35 pm Bluddy Note Added: 0021621
Mar 29, 2012 7:37 pm TechSY730 Note Added: 0021623
Mar 29, 2012 7:51 pm Penumbra Note Added: 0021624
Mar 29, 2012 8:07 pm Terraziel Note Added: 0021625
Mar 29, 2012 8:17 pm Penumbra Note Added: 0021626
Mar 29, 2012 8:23 pm Terraziel Note Added: 0021627
Mar 29, 2012 8:55 pm Chris_McElligottPark File Added: RevisedWorldMapWind.png
Mar 29, 2012 8:57 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0021630
Mar 29, 2012 8:57 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status closed => resolved
Mar 29, 2012 8:57 pm Chris_McElligottPark Resolution not fixable => fixed
Mar 29, 2012 9:10 pm Penumbra Note Added: 0021632
Mar 29, 2012 9:14 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0021633
Mar 29, 2012 11:56 pm zebramatt Note Added: 0021646
Apr 14, 2014 9:29 am Chris_McElligottPark Category Bug - Graphical Issue => Graphical Bug