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[Urist McVoyager]

Nice, but honestly I think this is over the top. But maybe I just want the Myth and Magic arc to finally start.

The big reason for a graphical update is to attract a bigger crowd that's turned off by the current graphics. The more of an idea we can have of something just by looking at it, and the less we have to read to figure out if we're even interested in something, I figure the more of a crowd Toady can attract with this thing.

All in all, it's for the good. Hell, we now have a secondary studio involved in the game. It's possible we could see a future where Toady shares some of the workload with them (without giving up control) and development speeds up. Between that and the money this will draw in, I can see it helping a lot.

[Tsov]

Nice, but honestly I think this is over the top. But maybe I just want the Myth and Magic arc to finally start.

Let's be real for a moment.

It will take the better part of 2021 for Toady to finish up the Steam Release at best. Maybe 6 extra months working on the rough edges and more prominent bugs reported by new players.

Then it will take at least one year and half for him to finish what he promised for the Villains release but couldn't do before the Steam Release, and work on the Army and Siege Improvement release.

It will then take 3 years for the Big Wait - and remember, that's just a map rewrite. For Myth and Magic to be actually done one should expect at least 2 years.

So it's safe to say that we'll be at the end of this decade before Myth and Magic is done. So whenever someone says "after Myth and Magic", you should really understand "by 2030".

[Shonai_Dweller]

3 years is the estimate including the map rewrite. And is just a guess at best (last "Big Wait" was 2 years). Map rewrite by itself won't be released because that would be a Big(ish) Wait with nothing at all to show for it. Map rewrite makes adding the features of Mythgen (and future arcs) possible.

[PatrikLundell]

Well, 3 years for the Big Wait is the optimistic guess. I'd say 3-7 to reach the first Myth & Magic release (from the start of the Big Wait, which is some way off, as mentioned). As Shonai_Dweller said, the Map Rewrite part won't be released unless he changes his mind (he's answered that question in the FotF earlier).

It can also be noted that the Premium version happened, and that will affect the work flow through updates to the latest release during the Big Wait, which will require some effort taken from the Myth & Magic work (I don't consider a bit more polishing, minor features, and bug fixing to be a bad thing, but opinions vary).

[Manveru Taurënér]

Kinda feels like the Big Wait gets a few months to a year added to it every time someone mentions it, no need to speculate quite as pessimistically as that

[voliol]

You guys know there's a thread for this topic right?

[Tsov]

Anyway, my original point was that you should not hold your breath for Myth and Magic starting, let alone finishing - it's about as distant as the first inhabited mission to Mars and definitely more distant than the end of the covid crisis.

[[HYBRID BEING]]

Say, i was looking at the bucket and rope over the unanimated water tile (i guess it will be changed later to match the surrounding tiles?) and it got me thinking - would have been nice if there were some kind of ripple or splash animation when objects come into or out of water.

[Starver]

The ripple overlay might need to disipate before getting to the centred tile's edge. Or else do so within a 3x3 set of tiles, applied to water only...

(Though if there's a bank, I suppose you could double-overlay with the flipped/opposite offset of ripple to show a reflected arc. That'd be something for Toady to allow for, before it can be made usefully graphical.)

[[HYBRID BEING]]

The ripple overlay might need to disipate before getting to the centred tile's edge. Or else do so within a 3x3 set of tiles, applied to water only...

(Though if there's a bank, I suppose you could double-overlay with the flipped/opposite offset of ripple to show a reflected arc. That'd be something for Toady to allow for, before it can be made usefully graphical.)

I was thinking of a simple single-tile animation, but multi-tile ripples do sound nice. They might be a deal more complex, though, with currents affecting them (well, that might concern single-tile ripples as well), banks/shores reflecting them and ripples themselves interfering with each other.

[Starver]

I think you could ignore 'substrate movement' for all but the more rapid torrnts of water (that probably, in reality, wouldn't 'take' impact ripples too obviously over their already turbulent surface[1]) and you could always apply a time-related skew upon the not-concentric circles[2] if you have a flow.

Interfering ripples mostly would look like they pass through each other (yes, high+low should look like flat, and double-high/low ought to be more prominent, but unless you're spamming ripples you can probably assume the highlights cross each other in a suitably pleasing way without arranging any special redrawing). And with banks being at tile-edges, if you have graphics for a 3x3 'splash' in 9 tiles and you have the left three tiles actually as ground you can not-draw the left three ripples on the bank and instead overdraw the right three ripples (assuming symmetry, otherwise flip the left three as you translate them) over onto the middle column to give a suitable bank-reflective effect. You could simarly fudge the effects of round-the-corner propogations (and ignore it if its a built floor with water beneath, not solid bank).

The issue here still isn't much an artist issue, but whether the calculations (that already include whether to apply grass-edging/etc to paint over adjacent tiles where slope or stream exists) want to be done to allow such fairly simple art to work.

(And maybe, after such a mock-up, it might need a tweak. Though I'm under no impression it would exactly match Real World fluid-dynamics, just that it could sufficiently look like that to satisfy (most) people, aesthetically. Then you just need to add 'wakes' (standing V-shaped waves) to bridge-footings/similar in sufficiently rapid waterflows (skewed by flow-rate) and it'd be amazing. But probably a Stretch level aim.)


[1] Fast enough and there'd be a wake, essentially the equivalent of a supersonic/near-supersonic wavefront.

[2] I was thinking of an animation that's something like: splash-dot; small circle; largish circle and splash-dot; largest circle (fading) and small circle; largish circle; largest circle (fading)... This being six frames. But if you had four frames of just a single dot/circle and overlayed then they could be frame-dragged by any current, you could activate on entry/exit of any item (or if used for fishing as well, a potential bite) and would be less overall raw graphics (for more layering).

[Meph]

I added the suggestion to the list, but if anything happens, it won't be ripples, but a single tile animation of water droplets splashing a bit.

[clinodev]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/975370/view/4623480703067173288

Full text:

Just Some Typical Elves 🌱

Elves, wearing wooden armor, being a general nuisance

Hi again!

This time I've brought some elves, the third of the major critters you can find in the game, after dwarves and humans.



Brought to you by Mike, they are slighter than humans, as we can see here, and their hair comes in autumn colors, though some have mossy green or silvery white. I have everybody in the same clothing here to focus on the physical features. (Note that some of the beards of the dwarves have been shaved since my creature placer doesn't respect their normal customs.)



These elves grow wooden weapons and armor and don't like to trade any items made from butchered animals or wood they suspect came from felled trees. In the image above, you can see their heavy armor, and a more lightly armored warrior, with some humans in metal equipment for comparison.



And this is the variety of their typical clothing, using profession colors. A few of these professions are atypical for elves, but you can find them in human settlements where they'll often find themselves working in jobs that don't exist in their forest retreats, even those wood-working professions which the elves living among the trees might find offensive. Similarly, fully-acclimated city elves don't appreciate that forest elves eat the people they kill in the ongoing timber skirmishes, so it kind of evens out.

- Tarn

[Silverwing235]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/975370/view/4623480703067173288

Full text:

Just Some Typical Elves 🌱

Elves, wearing wooden armor, being a general nuisance

[snip]These elves grow wooden weapons and armor and don't like to trade any items made from butchered animals or wood they suspect came from felled trees. [snip]

A use of FotF question colour to draw attention to the moderate error of fact here - methinks a correction, if no such has been done yet, would perhaps be in order? Summary: (https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/m2zjhr/steam_community_update_11_march_2021_just_some/gqmnucg/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)

Edit: correcting a rather large post facto setup blunder of my own, as it happens.

[PatrikLundell]

@Silverwing: Quoting that rather large post might not be the best practice, in particular when directly beneath the post referenced, when you can just say something along the lines of "Referring to the previous post...".

(I'm not a fan of excessive scrolling).