Dancing Hoskuld
Deity
Coast is a definition on cities and buildings also. IE they require coastal which is land next to coast.
There would be some places where there is land without a continental shelf. Take Hawaii for example. We'd have to see how it blends into land and ensure it still works fine to do so.I'm not following you here...
How would that work? Would current ocean terrain be close to land with the coast feature on it... I'm pretty sure ocean graphic would blend really bad with the landmass; and I'm not sure if a feature could fix it.
Coast is a definition on cities and buildings also. IE they require coastal which is land next to coast.
There is atm a blending issue but I will look into it; perhaps there is a way to rectify that.There would be some places where there is land without a continental shelf. Take Hawaii for example. We'd have to see how it blends into land and ensure it still works fine to do so.
The problem is that coast is not about the depth of the ocean but about sailing while remaining insight of land. The current coast/ocean terrains have nothing to do with anything below the surface of the water but are totally about navigation.
@TB:
This is the only solution I could find that has minimal graphical glitches for having deep ocean graphic adjacent to land.
Spoiler :
But this would mean having 6-9 Water terrains excluding the two lake terrains.
Tropical/Polar/Temperate - Continental Shelf (this one could be condensed to only 1 terrain, but that would mean that all shallow ocean would look the same)
Tropical/Polar/Temperate - Ocean (Cannot touch land)
CoastalTrench (Could be dropped altogether. Must touch land)
Trench (Cannot touch land)
DeepCoast (Must touch land)
Now I will rant a bit, no need to read on unless curious about terrain graphics:
The reason this is so technically difficult is due to terrains incapability to blend different with two different terrains besides looking at what layer a terrain is in. Since Blending with land got to be so visually different in the texture than blending with other water textures; an interface terrain is mandatory to connect water and land based terrain.
For example:
-Polar ocean can blend fine with ocean, coast and polar coast due to their similar interface.
-While a coast terrain texture contains color and patterns for a beach along with water this beach part of it's texture blends down on land terrain which are in a lower terrain layer while it gets hidden underneath the opaque part of an higher layered ocean terrain
-If I were to paint in a beach in the ocean texture which is necessary for land blending. This beach would be visible between polar and normal ocean as strange (not blue) belt around the ocean. There are a dozen other glitches and paradoxes that would appear as well, but they are to difficult to explain.
To make matters worse a terrains texture is divided into X squares, and what square is used is based on how many of the same terrain is in the four tiles around the corner of a tile. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that the texture square is not centered in a tile but on its corner so it covers 1/4 of 4 tiles.
Ach, this is complicated s*it.
Yeah lets stick to the old way, I've already done most of the graphical legwork already trying to figure out the rules of terrain.Actually, this is perfect. It means that we still need coastal definitions on terrains and we just add a LOT more terrain types to coasts and oceans. That's actually quite helpful as it will mean there's not a huge mess of coding to attend to. So it means more work for xml defining and art and more work for adapting the mapscripts and there's still a lot of coding to do for the depth considerations and interactions, but it also means that we get to bypass a lot of coding that could inadvertently add a LOT of potential bugs.
So it may seem like more work but it takes a lot of headaches off my plate to do it this way and makes it more possible for me to even address the project. Cool. Not as if there isn't already plenty to worry about with depth definition, AI and mission issues. In fact, with each type having its own terrain definition, the terrain itself can get a tag to define its liquid depth. Much easier.
Oh I thought the texture file with a huge grid over it was an unnecessary file used only for fireaxis texture maker in specialized game engine software..... So I removed those textures. Guess I got to add them back again then. I think I know what you mean but a screen shot would be nice.@Toffer,
So this explains why the Grid (if turned On) is missing now on ocean tiles. And a Mountain tile(s) next to the Ocean can have it's tile divided in 1/4 Grid lines.
I suppose I should post a screen shot, heh?
JosEPh
There would be one advantage of having the coast and later sea (2 tiles out) defined by code. It would enable me to condense 9 continental shelf terrains into 3 continental shelf terrains.It means that we still need coastal definitions on terrains and we just add a LOT more terrain types to coasts and oceans.
There would be one advantage of having the coast and later sea (2 tiles out) defined by code. It would enable me to condense 9 continental shelf terrains into 3 continental shelf terrains.
From
Cont_Shelf_Coast_Trop/Polar/Temp
Cont_Shelf_Sea_Trop/Polar/Temp
Cont_Shelf_Ocean_Trop/Polar/Temp
Into just
Cont_Shelf_Trop/Polar/Temp.
This is the only coastal terrain that can extend further out than 1 tile from land due to it's unique top layer logic in that it can blend the same with both water and land without problem. Since it's shallow I could allow the visible seam outwards toward water terrains as seen in the picture.
@Joe, screen shot is no longer nescesarry, I saw the problem myself.
The grid textures have been re-introduced in the SVN.
Right, you asked me before too; I will make it a priority after I'm satisfied with water graphics.Toffer, if you got spare time then look at Goody Island. There is not transparent beach/water texture in this model and for that Island look strange.
Edit: Example of tropical coast, polar coast blending nicely together, with the sea, and land.
View attachment 398862
K, I fixed the bug on my end 2 days ago but wasn't sure if it was on the SVN; I will have it fixed soonish.@Toffer,
Yes, see screenshots below.
The Grid lines blur and there is a weird dark blue track on coast and coast land.
JosEPh