Topic: To all map creators; Terrain menu

My bad english knowledge will cause confusion Sorry for that. I will make a mockup to show what i mean.

I've told you: now there is sorted everything, but it is sorted in another order:

• Treesorts (type of old world)
• (...)

Nobody new to the game will know which sort of tree depends on the type of world. Imagine to use tree images on the tabs instead of one sort terrain type to show the type of world. The same trees which are used on the tabs in the immovable menu. Than the conclusion of the depending of "sort of tree" and "type of world" is much better and the functionality is the same as before... but the "message" of the images in the menu is much better.

Doing so, we "get rid of the old differences of the worlds" in an optical way, but they are still in game. Thats what i meant. I hope this will make it clearer. Sorry for spending so much time to understand my point.

I will make a mockup next days.

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I imagine better way: use gray image of the trees with coloured background.

I think this isn't a good way:

And thats my idea:

With this suggestion the map maker could see which sort of tree grows on which terrain good. It should also be possible to show which sort of tree could grow not very good (yellowish background of tree icon) or bad (redish background of tree icon). It is also possible to show that different sort of trees do grow. If a terrain (soil) couldn't let grow trees, there is just no icon.

Another question: Wouldn't it be better to rename this menu into something like "Soils select"? I think "terrain" has the meaning of "surface".

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GunChleoc wrote:

For people who know the Terrain Affinity code, could the tree icons be generated using this?

If we have not 3 values for the affinity, it should be doable like the old code where the "is" values are turned into such icons, imho. And in the end we would have only one value for that.

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kaputtnik wrote:

I imagine better way: use gray image of the trees with coloured background.

I think this isn't a good way: (...)

And thats my idea: (...)

Ok. In your idea of terrain-sort I would click a lot to find specific soil. It is completely useless for me. I almost never pick soils from different biome types. I almost every time pick one biome and go with it. If I create multiple biome map I pick one biome, then second one. And how do you sort the terrain types? By colors? It will create unsorted tree types and unsorted "global fertility" (*). That will cause lots of confusing: "Hey! I've picked up a palm-type soil. Why there are NO palms at all?!". Then: "Ok, that was my mistake- the soil was <<red>> one: no trees at all. But where is <<green>> for lots of palms? I have to click many times and look for it for 10 minutes..."

Did you think about that?

( * ) -> "Global fertility" here means how the soil is good for growing trees planted by the forester. If it is good, most of trees are grown to final state, if none of them - global fertility is very low. Your idea (as I understand) is to match global fertility by colour: from green (good) to red (low). It is good idea to match the global fertility with colour:

With this suggestion the map maker could see which sort of tree grows on which terrain good. It should also be possible to show which sort of tree could grow not very good (yellowish background of tree icon) or bad (redish background of tree icon).

But it can be done also with my idea of tree images on old background. Good soil will have correct background color with old icons. It is possible to do.

Another question: Wouldn't it be better to rename this menu into something like "Soils select"? I think "terrain" has the meaning of "surface".

Terrain is good.

GunChleoc wrote:

For people who know the Terrain Affinity code, could the tree icons be generated using this?

The colors can be auto-generated using the common script for foresters (sorting best fit for ground type). Also it can be hard-coded any time

Here I've painted only some of current icons. Just to show my idea. It can be colored in any (understandable) way

Short summary of my understanding the problem:

We both agree that there should be some more information in terrain menu. Especially about basic tree types. Every terrain type has information about:

1. Builds type (buildings, mines, flags only, none)
2. Texture colors
3. Biome type (basic tree type)
4. "Global fertility" (explained above)

So all of the information should be shown somehow in terrain menu. (we both agree about that)

But we disagree about sorting the terraint types. My idea is to keep old sorting:

• Biome type

• Builds type

• Global fertility halfly sorted

• Texture color not sorted

Your idea:

• Builds type

• Texture color

• Biome type halfly sorted

• Global fertility not sorted

How do we want to mark all the information:

• Buildings type is already marked by small icons. Your idea is to put another icon in tabs.
• Biome type should be marked by tree icon in both ideas (the look can be discussed).
• Global fertility marked by background color of icon (build type in my idea, tree type in your idea).

Please correct me if any mistakes, kaputtnik.

And about choosing the new layout: I don't think that it should be decided by only two of us. We both have some good and logic ideas. There are two ways:

• add a feature of "editor options" containing both ideas to choose (lots of new coding!!!)
• pick one of them, but it should be discussed by more people (who is reading this thread? who can "vote"?)

EDIT

DragonAtma wrote:

I think Kaputtnik's idea of tree icons is a good one.

Sorry- that was an answer while writing this long post. So there is "2:1" for You, kaputtnik

einstein13
calculations & maps packages: http://wuatek.no-ip.org/~rak/widelands/
backup website files: http://kartezjusz.ddns.net/upload/widelands/

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kaputtnik wrote:

Your idea (as I understand) is to match global fertility by colour: from green (good) to red (low).

My idea wasn't to match a "global fertility"... i never know that there is a global fertility.

There is no global fertility. There is "global fertility". I thought that I've described that in good way, but I will try to do it again.

Please go to the post here: https://wl.widelands.org/forum/topic/1686/?page=5#post-13116 and read it.

There are some values which describe how many planted trees will grow.

Every soil is different and have different affinity to any tree. But the forester pick best fits and plant them. If it is desert mountain, you expect to grow there desert trees = palms. If you plan ANY tree it will not grow at all! But if you pick wasteland mountains and plant there some wasteland trees (mushrooms, umbrella, etc. -> best fits to this soil!) you can expect that about 40% of them will grow fine. So the "global fertility" term means how many planted trees by forester will grow up to the final stage.

If you still don't understand that, please change every "global fertility" term into "XYZ" in every place.

So XYZ can be found by making some experiments (easier way) or calculations (specific way) using current grow model and forester planting script.

It was more like "This soil is good for coniferes but not good for deciduous and bad for umbrella trees. Palm trees do never grow (no icon)".

It will be lots of mess there. I guess that you will have 12 icons for best soils? Every tree can have different value. Even if you pick only one biome (coniferes, deciduous, ... ). Imagine that there can be soil where are significant changes between birch and aspen (both deciduous), also coniferes trees will grow in good way: better than aspen, worse than birch. What colours will you pick? How will you help to pick right tree type? It is much more complex than you suggest here.

I will try to add an additional argument for my suggestion: It comes with icons that are allways there in the editor. So there is less need to explain what a specific icon , f.e. a stylised building with yellowish background, stands for. And a stylised mountain with green background... what do you think the icon says if you see it the first time?

First of all: I've never sticked to old-type icons. I used them, because I don't have any talent to make any new graphics. You can create any new icon and then I can suggest some small changes. I will get used to new style in short time.

And about your suggestion (f.e.: "And a stylised mountain with green background"): I really don't know how it should look like. I don't know what it stands for. Green background of mountains? It brings me an idea of "lots of resources in the mountains" what is completely wrong in Widelands (any mountains are equal). Of course I try to think about it as newbie, someone who will try the editor for the first time.

einstein13
calculations & maps packages: http://wuatek.no-ip.org/~rak/widelands/
backup website files: http://kartezjusz.ddns.net/upload/widelands/

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