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Topic: Better Scaling of Buildings and Goods

the-x
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Joined: 2019-01-19, 13:23
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Posted at: 2022-01-11, 14:44

I thought about scaling & experimented a bit. In my opinion, buildings, goods, and settlers look best at a 400% scale. Otherwise I am looking for other possibilities to make these 3 categories bigger. Maybe in the next version, but are there other options?

The problem with these extremely small textures that we currently have is that you have no chance of recognizing them at all on 4k. Even with HD they are extremely small and you have to bend closer to the screen, which is unhealthy for your back. It's also unhealthy for the eyes.

Do you know all the possibilities, also except for scaling, how this problem can be solved?

Ich habe nochmal über die Skalierung nachgedacht & ein bisschen herumexperimentiert. Meiner Meinung nach sehen Gebäude, Waren und Siedler bei einer Skalierung von 400% am besten aus. Andernfalls suche ich andere Möglichkeiten, um genau diese 3 Kategorien größer werden zu lassen. Vielleicht in der nächsten Version, gibt es aber noch andere Möglichkeiten? Das Problem bei diesen extrem kleinsten Texturen, die wir zur Zeit haben, ist dass man auf 4k keine Chance hat diese überhaupt zu erkennen. Auch bei HD sind sind sie extremst klein und man muss sich näher an den Bilrschirrm beugen was für Rücken ungesund ist. Außerdem ist das auch für die Augen ungesund. Kennt ihr irgendwelche Möglichkeiten, auch außer Skailierung, wie sich dieses Problem lösen kann?


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hessenfarmer
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Joined: 2014-12-11, 23:16
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Posted at: 2022-01-11, 20:22

there is only one solution for this. We need to find someone who knows blender and is willing to contribute his knowledge to the project to remodel and afterwards export all graphics from the legacy tribe in sufficient resolution and quality (these look bad if fully zoomed in in full HD res). Afterwards we need some coders with knowledge how to scale our richtext strings to adapt these as well.
So far no one stood up and volunteered for these tasks, so everyone is invited.


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tothxa
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Joined: 2021-03-24, 12:44
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Posted at: 2022-01-12, 09:37

I was able to load some old models and scripts in Blender 2.79 on my Debian oldstable when I tried. I don't have the artistic skills nor Blender proficiency to remodel them, but I may be able to just reexport them in higher resolution, and adjust the sizes to fit the new ones. I hope that will give good results, because I think they are very high quality and shouldn't be changed just for the sake of it. I'll give it a try, but can't promise any more yet.

Unfortunately the Blender version in current Debian stable is incompatible with the models, so the texturing gets lost. It's a pity, because the user interface finally got modernised, so I'd be halfway comfortable actually touching the models. But I'm not in a hurry to upgrade my system anyway.


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2022-01-12, 11:40

each model that can be reexported in the correct scales of our 4 zooming steps would improve our graphics dramatically. So if you would be able to do this for the legacy tribes or even parts of them would be a very big improvement.


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Dithus
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Joined: 2015-12-19, 13:19
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Posted at: 2022-02-12, 10:23

Yes, interface scalling is something that need to be done. It was the first thing that I notice when I started playing. Everythig is so small that is almost no point to have different pictures of buildings and materials or workers because it can't be seen....


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tothxa
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Posted at: 2022-02-17, 16:00

OK, I have figured out the workflow, and created some scripts to semi-automate it. (ugly mess of shell, graphicsmagick and awk -- I will now try to redo them in a single python program so that I can publish it, but I've very little experience in python)

I'm through with Empire buildings. Many worked out of the box with Blender 2.79, but I also had to dig up older versions of some of the models from launchpad history and use ancient versions of Blender for them. Unfortunately there still remain a few that have some problem, mostly either with textures (minor, aesthetical/consistency) or with lighting (blocking) which need actual changes in Blender which I'm not yet prepared to do.

Where should I publish the re-exported image files for testing? I don't like bzr and launchpad after learning version control with git, so I'd rather not create a branch on lauchpad. I also don't want to put them in my Widelands tree until tested and ready for merging. I think I'll create a separate repo for each tribe on github...

I wanted to do it as an add-on for testing, but it turned out that it's not yet possible to change only the graphics with modify_unit... I'd rather concentrate on dealing with the graphics for now, instead of implementing this.


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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2022-02-17, 17:18

well that is great news.
I think you could provide it as a branch on Github for testing.
if you prepare a branch you may just add a directory to it where the graphics are stored and I can have a look and integrate them in the lua code one by one


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tothxa
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Posted at: 2022-02-19, 03:49

Sorry for the delay. I did some cleanup, and found out how to fix some renders along the way.

I've set up the github repo at https://github.com/tothxa/wl_graphics_re-export

I created a tarball of the final (for testing) files, but I couldn't figure out how to add it as a github artifact... It's all *_{idle,build,working}_*.png files from all directories. [edit:] These were all processed with pngquant and advpng -z2.

Most interim files are kept as truecolour. Some of the ones with a single idle frame weren't, but I will try to keep those as well from now on. All the original renders are there though without processing.

Edited: 2022-02-19, 10:21

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hessenfarmer
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Posted at: 2022-02-19, 13:25

Nice will have a closer look. I did not find some animations though like teh semltingworks. Smeltingworks looks a bit blueish as well. But all after all it is a major improvement to have them in bigger scales.


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tothxa
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Posted at: 2022-02-19, 15:06

hessenfarmer wrote:

I did not find some animations though like teh semltingworks.

Thanks. I checked it, and the model is actually set to the working animation. I missed it because the first few frames are identical.

Also the shipyard image is the unoccupied one, but after I found out about scenes with the port, I can now make the rest.

Smeltingworks looks a bit blueish as well.

I wasn't sure whether to keep this, but I thought it fits the role somewhat. I'll try with older Blender. But even in Blender 2.49 e.g. the trees of the bakery are darker than the old ones. But I can't go to such depths of Blender yet.


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