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Topic: Resource markers in editor

Kiscsirke
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Joined: 2009-12-16, 13:40
Posts: 42
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Pry about Widelands
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Posted at: 2013-03-11, 20:35

Examining bug 723113, I looked into the resource markers we use. Based on my studies, I have two proposals:

Use more images!

Right now for each world the files pics/coal1.png, etc. are used by the editor. The images in the resources folder are not used at all.

But, since this way 4 images are used to represent values 1-20, I think it would be better to use those images!

The images there make up 2 sets for each resource, I guess they were made at a time when there was a possibility that resources would be per triangle, not per node. The sets are for example coal_0x.png and coal_1x.png. The two sets are thus:

and

(The first two images are the same, so they only appear in the first set.)

This is 15 images per set, which is not ideal for representing values 1-20, but I think the first 10 could be used, to change with every 2 resource. An alternative would be to somehow use the 2 sets in an alternating way, since there are more then 20 images total, but I think the largest images are a bit two large, they look very crowded, so I don't think that would be a good idea:

So my proposal is to use images 1-10 of the second set to represent the resources from now on. And remove the others from trunk, since they are unnecessary and confusing clutter. (If needed later, they'll still be there in older versions. Or they can be added to the media repo if we really want to make sure they're not lost.)

Use less images! (Make resources world-independent)

My other problem is that these images appear repeated for all words separately, causing stuff like bug 723113. I don't think it makes sense to have the resources defined separately for each world. Since tribes use all these resources, making some resource exclusive to a world would only make sense if we also had tribes exclusive to that world. (The maximums for the resources could be set by world I guess, but right now it's the same everywhere anyway.)

So I propose to have resources defined in "global", and have the images for them moved out from the world folders.

Conclusion

Pulling the two proposals together, I would like to have the 10 images per resource stored in trunk/pics/resources, instead of its current location.

If agreed, I would also gladly implement these changes, the first should be 10 minutes, the secound shouldn't be very hard either.


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chuckw
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Joined: 2010-03-15, 16:23
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Location: New York - USA
Posted at: 2013-03-12, 15:11

+1 for both of your proposals! Thanks for picking up the ball on this (no pun intended.) face-grin.png


I see little people.

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Adamant

Joined: 2012-10-11, 16:21
Posts: 180
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Location: Alemania
Posted at: 2013-03-13, 17:23

For Editor I would prefer another Style more like a Chart-Bar or something like used in that Business while the Bars are distributed in a Way that they don't cover each other that much. I agree that the more Images tell me more than those few used at Moment but I advice to consider the most important Aspect in this Matter: visual Representation of Resource-Amount. Eg I don't really care if there are Images with 99 and 101 Carbon-Balls as I won't count them but I want a first good Idea on first quick Look and those Images can't give me a Number but just their Size/Area telle me something and that can get told by a single Ball as well by different Sizes. Therefore I point to Chart-Diagramms and their many many 1000 Methods to transform raw Numbers into describvtive Images.

Edited: 2013-03-13, 17:23

Ivan the Terrible is dead .. Genghis Khan is dead .. and I do not feel well, too.

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SirVer

Joined: 2009-02-19, 15:18
Posts: 1445
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Location: Germany - Munich
Posted at: 2013-03-14, 23:58

I am not too fond of the first proposal - I believe having mountains with little resources is currently a design flaw in widelands. Reason is that the tribes that need to enhance their mines have a very, very hard time getting a return of invest out of those spots. I believe either we should change the time when the mines have to be enhanced or we should make the minimum amount much higher - and only have a few levels, like little, medium, much.

Pulling the resources out of the worlds make sense. While you are at it, why not get rid of worlds completely and merge them all into one World - so that the map maker has the true choice of all tiles everywhere. This is much more work though, so I say this half jokingly face-smile.png


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Kiscsirke
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Joined: 2009-12-16, 13:40
Posts: 42
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Pry about Widelands
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Posted at: 2013-03-19, 16:32

I guess I agree with Adamant in that if you're using the editor, you should get exact numbers, since hiding them is silly. That could be done with an overlay saying like "12/20" I guess, but I haven't used the overlay code before.

SirVer wrote: While you are at it, why not get rid of worlds completely and merge them all into one World

Yes, I know that one unified world has been a long-standing wish face-smile.png I'm guessing the major difficulty with it would be compatibility with old maps/savegames, and the S2 map loader. Also, making some useable interface for it in the editor. Sounds fun, but I'm starting my new job on Thursday, so I don't think I want to take it on now face-smile.png

SirVer wrote: I am not too fond of the first proposal...

Well yeah, but that's a gameplay change that I wouldn't want to decide on myself, while the interface change can be done with a simple edit of the conf files. I mean until the gameplay is changed, the interface could be more friendly with little effort, so why not? (Of course, if I'd want to have a numeric overlay too, that could be more effort.)


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