One way cliff paths

[phoenixffyrnig]

Playing around with cliffs in ME atm, seems like a few things need their inverted twin. In particular, the 1x3 cliff pathway in cliffground and the two 2x3 diagonal pathways in cliff only go from north to south - we could do with all of those having an alternate direction equivalent, ie flipped 180.

Actually, it'd be good to have that 1x3 available on horizontal axis too if poss.

[Endru1241]

I spend quite some time to design missing, good to have elements of cliffs.

I gave my all to think of some kind of logically looking slope from south to north.
And the only one added still looks a little bit out of place - even assuming it represents slope that would normally have 3 tiles if presented on the opposite side.
Imho - there is no way for south to north to have any other logical variant without totally changing angle.
Maybe it could be presented as stairs, but I think there may be not enough pixels for that.

Diagonal stairs are even worse.

For horizontal stairs - feel free to draw.
I don't like the idea of stairs (just how gigantic they would need to be for unit as a group presentation ?), so I'm not gonna do that.

So please - if you have any idea, that would make sense - sketch and post it.

[Endru1241]

And moved to graphics.

That is definitely not any issue.

[phoenixffyrnig]

And the only one added still looks a little bit out of place - even assuming it represents slope that would normally have 3 tiles if presented on the opposite side.

Actually the South to North slope looks ok to me, its clear what it is and fits in with the surrounds fine. And anyway, all the "lower cliff" shapes take more space than the "upper cliff" shapes, it's no bother, just a necessity to acomodate our south to north PoV.

Something like that but narrower is what I meant for the 1x3 cliff ground, a break in the ridge line that slopes away - unfortunately we can't use the existing one back to front because of the blend to cliff at the top and the merge with ground at the bottom. Would reversing those tiles and cutting out the middle to make it 1x2 work?

[phoenixffyrnig]

https://ibb.co/Tmdmrtc

As you can see, I'm no artist. But for the horizontal version of the 1x3, would something like this work, either 2 or 3 squares long, and with an up to down dogleg to show gradient? Someone better than me with visuals might be able to use shading to better demonstrate that.

[phoenixffyrnig]

Diagonal stairs are even worse.

Yeah, true, I guess diagonal slope is impossible south to north (unless keeping the 2x3 configuration, which would look severely warped).

Would be good to have a vertical though, even if approximated, otherwise northern players face significant disadvantage accessing cliffs, eg middle mountain in Land of Gnofolks map

[Endru1241]

That sketch is exactly like existing horizontal slopes if accounting for huge cliffs height.


As for less wide south - north - you mean like that?

I have no idea what you mean about reversing.


I actually planned making both 1 and 2 wide versions of my slopes though, but it takes a lot of time.

[phoenixffyrnig]

That sketch is exactly like existing horizontal slopes if accounting for huge cliffs height.

no, existing slopes are 3x3, I was thinking of a rotation of the 1x3 cliff ground multi-tile, so 3x1 or 2x1 depending on what looks best, but 2x1 in my mind - 1 tile to break the cliff line, the 2nd to land on lower ground. The dogleg was intended to be measured in pixels, not tiles, eg a 5 or 6 pixel staggering within the tile - admittedly this would mean reduced width for the passage itself, but the 90 degree flip in perspective could accommodate that.

you mean like that?

Yeah, exactly like that, a width of 1.

https://ibb.co/Q8PVqJb
re reversing, the current 1x3 path is built to blend in with the cliff at the top, and to merge with whatever ground it lands on at the bottom, meaning it looks like this when used the wrong way round. If it had an alternate version that reversed its poles, ie cliffground at the bottom, merge with whatever ground at the top, then it could be used up and down (again, possibly shortened to 1x2 to accommodate perspective).

[Endru1241]

That sketch is exactly like existing horizontal slopes if accounting for huge cliffs height.

no, existing slopes are 3x3, I was thinking of a rotation of the 1x3 cliff ground multi-tile, so 3x1 or 2x1 depending on what looks best, but 2x1 in my mind - 1 tile to break the cliff line, the 2nd to land on lower ground. The dogleg was intended to be measured in pixels, not tiles, eg a 5 or 6 pixel staggering within the tile - admittedly this would mean reduced width for the passage itself, but the 90 degree flip in perspective could accommodate that.

2x1 is impossible.
Even with 2x2 slope would be barely visible to have even shred of perspective kept.

you mean like that?

Yeah, exactly like that, a width of 1.

https://ibb.co/Q8PVqJb
re reversing, the current 1x3 path is built to blend in with the cliff at the top, and to merge with whatever ground it lands on at the bottom, meaning it looks like this when used the wrong way round. If it had an alternate version that reversed its poles, ie cliffground at the bottom, merge with whatever ground at the top, then it could be used up and down (again, possibly shortened to 1x2 to accommodate perspective).

To properly show perspective here it would look like a line. Or very close to it.
My representation is already not very realistic.

What you propose here is a heresy.

Or maybe - do you like cubism?

[phoenixffyrnig]

What you propose here is a heresy.

Or maybe - do you like cubism?

That's exactly my point - look at the top squares of the slopes
https://ibb.co/rGVKCBS
When using it south to north you cannot make it blend in to other grounds because top tile is hardwired in as cliffground, so it can't even be used approximately to grant passage in that direction.

Or am I missing a rotate button in map editor? That's what I mean by reverse it to make an alternate, take the cliffground off the top tile and add it to bottom tile, and the same thing could be used both directions couldn't it?

[Endru1241]

And what I am telling is that perspective matter!

Unlike what cubists say.

How do you imagine you could go from cliff, that is at least two full tiles higher to ground level?
There is no way of seeing the same thing from plane view with angle of 30-35° if it's reversed.

Rotation is only possible if something is 3d model and actually can be rotated or when views for rotated object/terrain would already be made.

I made pairs of consistent north-south and south-north slopes, as well as consistent west-east and east-west.
After years of all variants lacking it.
Both image and definition.

I don't want to add this ugly abomination of stairs in even more unnatural perspective - breaking way to ruin acceptable, consistent look of cliffs.

If not for already being in use - I'd opt for removing it altogether.

My south-north slope can be used to limit access to chokepoint of 1 tile - just place obstacle over one of south slope tiles - those are terrain layer, so it won't break anything.

[phoenixffyrnig]

Then what you've drawn above is fine. I was only using the abominable stairs because that's all we currently got on the smaller scale. Perhaps remove it from ME then?

Yeah, I've tried obstd on cliffs, it does odd things.

[Endru1241]

Cliffs consist of both terrain layer tiles and decoration layer tiles.

Terrain is straight - there can only be one tile and decoration layer can be placed on top.
Decoration is weirder.
It does allow to place multiple decorations by non-standard ways (by block definiton, like e.g. cliffs), but only one is finally used later on.
Not sure if object placed on decoration layer are sorted at some point or what, but weird things can happen when something would stack at top of another decoration tile.

The problem is map maker has no way to know which parts of block are actually decoration or terrain layer.
It has to be checked by clearing tile (only decoration layer tiles can be cleared) or in the assets.

And honestly - we actually lack more layers, which would make more clearer placement.
Like terrain layer, terrain overload layer, decoration layer.
Or some other solution.

Each possible would be long to implement and hard to determine what would crash, work weirdly etc.