Friday Facts #199 - The story of tile transitions

[kovarex]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-199

[HammerPiano]

soon

I am very early

[viveks711]

Waiting for it!

soon

[tonberrytoby]

Does an Water/Land rework imply that we will finally get blueprintable landfill?

[Lemlin]

I don´t think the new water system is bad, if you can make it more "irregular" you would have created a stream that would flow nicely into the landscape.

[LordArthas]

I am curious to see how that mega base looks like, or is that just me?
Is it possible to download a save to see it for ourselves?

And as always, great FFF was waiting for it for last 2 hours

[MeduSalem]

Why not make the Tile generation system work on a 2x2 tile base? Similar to how the Rail tiles are locked to a 2x2 tile grid.

That way you might be able to avoid having to create new tiles to handle the 1 tile situation. At least I think it would until someone proves me different that is...


You are going to change the terrain generation anyways for 0.16 so it doesn't really matter anyways.

[kovarex]

Why not make the Tile generation system work on a 2x2 tile base? Similar to how the Rail tiles are locked to a 2x2 tile grid.

That way you would be able to avoid having to create new tiles to handle the 1 tile situation.


You are going to change the terrain generation anyways for 0.16 so it doesn't really matter anyways.

It was also considered, but the shore shape would have much more lower level detail then.

[MeduSalem]

It was also considered, but the shore shape would have much more lower level detail then.

Good point... might look a little... edgy.

[Gergely]

but in next version, we would need to have graphics like this:

No problem! You did the same with concrete titles. I'm sure this will work out somehow. Just please make sure that the title correction logic becomes the thing of the past!!

[kovarex]

but in next version, we would need to have graphics like this:

No problem! You did the same with concrete titles. I'm sure this will work out somehow. Just please make sure that the title correction logic becomes the thing of the past!!

That is my wish as well

[FalcoGer]

As for the tile transitions... There is a mod for that
It's called Water Fix or something of the sort. Looks weird at first, but I suppose all changes do look weird to someone being used to things.

[jorgenRe]

Use our 'tile correction logic' that we hate so much

Fry it!
-In loving memory of "The Underground"'s tile Generation (shit) system

[vegeta897]

Another option is to change the tile graphics to be centered on the intersection between a 2x2 area of tiles.

As demonstrated in this article: http://blog.project-retrograde.com/2013 ... g-squares/

A single strip of land or water can be exactly one tile wide this way.

This solves your issue and also cuts down on the number of necessary transitions, allowing more room in texture memory for variations.

[Bi0nicM4n]

but in next version, we would need to have graphics like this:

I guess this can become an issue, like "I'm running around in my fabulous power armor Mk2 while zoomed as out as possible. Why did I so suddenly stop? Oh, right, it's THAT sneaky water tile".
Isn't the water tile size too low now? I'd rather stick with old tile transitions for the sake of water being always visible.

[akastalker]

About tile transitions: can't you just split transition tile square into 4 smaller squares and make that each of this 4 squares chooses its own appropriate transition based on its own tile type and one of the adjacent tile type. For ideal result it should consider both adjacent tiles (e.g. for left-top smaller square this will be left and top adjacent tiles) but this would be quite many combinations to consider, I suppose. I think that's something Tiled Map Editor is doing. I don't know, just ignore this, is just some amateur talking.

All I care about is concrete\brick tiles would allow transition into water with some sort of pier without this awkward grass patch around puddle in the middle of a factory.

[kovarex]

About tile transitions: can't you just split transition tile square into 4 smaller squares and make that each of this 4 squares chooses its own appropriate transition based on its own tile type and one of the adjacent tile type. For ideal result it should consider both adjacent tiles (e.g. for left-top smaller square this will be left and top adjacent tiles) but this would be quite many combinations to consider, I suppose. I think that's something Tiled Map Editor is doing. I don't know, just ignore this, is just some amateur talking.

All I care about is concrete\brick tiles would allow transition into water with some sort of pier without this awkward grass patch around puddle in the middle of a factory.

It is possible, the only problem is, that you have less space for the transition, so it becomes much more flat.

[draknor]

Another option is to change the tile graphics to be centered on the intersection between a 2x2 area of tiles.

As demonstrated in this article: http://blog.project-retrograde.com/2013 ... g-squares/

A single strip of land or water can be exactly one tile wide this way.

This solves your issue and also cuts down on the number of necessary transitions, allowing more room in texture memory for variations.

I'm not a game developer, but that Marching Squares link was very interesting & informative - thanks for posting!

[Proxy]

Maybe there should be a bit more focus on water than just the Tiles... like a Water Animation... some wave sounds when near large water lakes, etc.

also what you Descriped is LITERALLY 1:1 a thing that exists in Minecraft, let me explain:
in MC you can do resource packs, and via Optifine you can do even more Texturing, like making Textures interact with eachother. This is known as CTM (Connected Textures Mod, which is inside optifine).
You can do a lot of things with this, for example
make Textures connect to the same block I did this with Redstone Lamps:

large picture

or you can do an Overlay, where you tell the game what block places an Overlay texture on a Block that is near it.
for example i did it with Grass, it puts an custom made Overlay onto nearby Stone, sand, Cobble and gravel blocks:

without Resourcepack

with resourcepack

but even tho there exist these 1 tiny Blocks of Stone (or in Factorio's case water) it still looks kinda Natural.
maybe if a Water tile is bewteen 2 Land tiles (either north-south or east-west of the water) it should be passable?

[meganothing]

Thanks for the subtitles to the second interview part. Very interesting.