=============================================================================== SPOUT OVERLAYS by Kevin Bulgrien =============================================================================== This is a first run at creating a set of overlays that may be reused in a number of combinations: pour_spout.arc pour_spout.base.111.png : A wall spout with nothing coming out of it. To be placed on top of wall facings A or B, or possibly even 2 and 8. Not designed for use with "short" walls like bwall, cave, dun, etc, but, a spout could be created for them too. pour_h2o.arc pour_h2o.base.111.png pour_h2o.base.112.png pour_h2o.base.113.png pour_h2o.base.114.png : Animated pouring water to be placed over top of the pour spout. This arch and associated graphics are not quite perfected. The water color is suited for pouring into sea arch tiles. =============================================================================== GRAPHICS =============================================================================== The spout.xcf contains many individual layers of components used to create the above artwork. Included are various wall styles and a sea tile for reference. Note that the water design was quite easy. A single color of water was drawn, then GIMP's Filters | Noise | HSV Noise... was used to vary the color. The effect of the filter is somewhat random, so it was a simple matter to generate variants of the water to make the water look like it was flowing. The filter was applied, undone, and applied repeatedly until each frame had a good mix of colors with few dark pixels. Further, the animation frames were each checked to be sure the sequence looked like water falling. HSV Noise settings that seemed reasonable were as follows: Holdness: 8 Hue: 8 Saturation: 80 Value: 160 The flowing water is visible on 32x32 tiles but if pixel size is small, it is not very obvious. It is possible that picking a few more lighter color pixels might improve that, but the water looks pretty good at 64x64 bits in jxclient. The graphics in spout.xcf are in RGB format instead of INDEXED form, so they are not compressed as well as they could be. This is partly because there is no point to converting to indexed while various layers have art not part of either the spout or water. To minimize file size, when exporting the the graphics to .png files, save each frame to a .png. Close the .xcf, then open each .png and convert it to indexed mode, resave, and close it. This ensures that each graphic's pallete can be as small as possible. Furthermore, when saving, use Save As so that you get the Save as PNG dialog which lets you choose the compression level and option. Uncheck all options and select maximum compression before saving the .png. ===============================================================================P POSSIBILITIES =============================================================================== The possibilities of modular overlays becomes more evident if one considers things like the following. Use the same pour_spout.arc on any "tall" wall for a number of variations on the wall/spout theme. Create a few more spout styles that eject fluid in the same place to add even more variety. Then, increase the variability by creating new replacements for the water along the lines of pour_blood.arc, pour_sewage.arc, pour_fire.arc, etc. =============================================================================== MAP CONSIDERATIONS =============================================================================== The pour_spout.arc and pour_h2o.arc are no_pick 1 and will be placed by default onn a no_pick layer. For some reason this causes the a wall piece under the spout and pouring water to disappear, showing only the floor piece underneath. For the wall to not disappear, the spout and water need to be on the items layer. This can be done in a map file with `map_layer item`, but has been set in the pour_spout.arc and pour_h20.arc files so mapmakers will not have to be aware of this.