[Uh-user] New Tile system

[Andreas]

Thomas Kinnen wrote:
> Generally i would say this is not needed. Having the the normal 3 types
> is enough for me and also makes building the rectangular buildings
> somewhat easier.

Do not know what the others think about it, but I appreciate this decision.
My arguments for only 3 types are exactly the same. The new tile system 
should
allow extending the sets anyway if required in later development.

> I don't know how easy it is to make these kind of things look good, but
> generally my first feeling tells me that having animated ground tiles,
> would not be the worst idea. Especially for water that seems useful. I
> don't think we should lay off this option just to save us a few
> sub-folders. Why do you think this is a bad idea?

Maybe because I have absolutely no idea how to make this look good :S
But of course it should be possible somehow. If you feel better about 
allowing this
opportunity for later development I will not refuse using the direction 
folders too.

> Do we really need to make this distinction between transition and
> basic set? Isn't it basically the same, just with the basic tile being
> a special case of the transition_set?



First, I failed with the naming convention. Due to the prefix and set 
numbers used for action sets - which should also be used for other sets 
then - the correct paths should look like this:

/base/climate/ts_setnameno/direct.png
E.g. /base/moderate/ts_grass0/225.png
and
/base/climate/ts_setnameno/set_type/direct.png
E.g. /base/moderate/ts_grass-beach0/straight/225.png

The additional subfolder "set_type" for transitions is for keeping the 
naming conventions for tile images. Otherwise the 3 types would have to 
be written into the filename. Maybe I got your question wrong here. 
Please write a brief example of what you consider to be a distinction, 
Thomas.

> I don't think this is such a good idea. For lakes this could be an
> option, but other stuff like mountains, ponds and stuff should be
> external objects like trees i think.

Good thing. I was hoping for you saying right this. I would suggest to 
have ALL objects being no ground tiles on the terrain layer then.

> Can you elaborate on the idea of multiple images per tile? You mean
> something like the action_set for buildings? If yes then we can do 
> that on first map load if need be. But maybe it's enough to have it during 
> map creation (editor)?

Thomas, you mentioned this feature already in your opening mail:
> It's also not very flexible and doesn't allow adding different graphic sets 
> for the same object.
Maybe I was a bit inarticulate. Personally I would like to see the final 
definition of which of the available images is used for one tile object 
on map load. This would make the maps look slightly different each time 
you load them. BUT, as said then the final definition have to be written 
into the save game database file because it would be quite confusing I 
think if maps look different each time you load a save game.

For the time being,
Andreas