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SPOUT OVERLAYS by Kevin Bulgrien
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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.
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GRAPHICS
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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.
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POSSIBILITIES
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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.
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MAP CONSIDERATIONS
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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.
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