1.5x skill icons: need redesign

Minim · August 02, 2016, 07:32:20 AM

Decided to try out D Lix for the first time, hoping to create a level for the design contest.

So far, I do like the editing interface, but the play level interface I'm not a fan of, particularly the skill icons. When I use fullscreen mode with my laptop's resolution, (It's 1366x768, therefore the buttons are zoomed 1.5x), I still get tiny skill icons that I can't read. May I suggest that each skill should be labelled while playing, whether you hover over it (ideal) or click on it.

Also, I think a black outline around each lix skill would look nice, just like in DOS Lemmings. That might also help making those icons display more clearly.

Simon · August 02, 2016, 11:45:50 AM

Thanks.

#141 Icons too tiny on 1366x768: Yes. Even though I load the 1.5x file data/images/scale150/skillico.I.png, this file has the unscaled 1x icons in 1.5x-sized cells. I've never got around to scale them to 1.5x. But this has become important. 1.5x is common and I should support it better.

Describe skill: Reasonable. I want tooltips in the game anyway.

Black outline: I want to scale the icons to 1.5x first. If that's not enough, I'll look into this.

-- Simon

Simon · August 13, 2016, 10:18:16 AM

I have only the blocker in 1.5x, see attachment. Exploder and cuber were easy. The builder is a joke, I don't like the builder in the attachment. Instead, I like the blocker's style.

Does someone want to help out? Post your results reasonably early, so that we don't duplicate work.

I'm open to more colors, but discuss this with me. The game recolors this image by a color replacement table. Too many extra colors make this more difficult.

-- Simon

NaOH · August 13, 2016, 07:14:38 PM

Well, I just experimentally tried scaling down the imploder icon from 2x to 1.5x using nearest-neighbour and made a few minor adjustments. Is that all you're looking for? Or am I missing the point?

Also, there's no scale100 in the files. Is that intentional?

NaOH · August 13, 2016, 07:51:46 PM

I made some light adjustments to thin the arms and legs, and added some light to the hair (I know the palette swap stuff could cause a problem, but it's worth a try). How does this look?

Simon · August 14, 2016, 06:15:11 AM

No scale100 because these files are in the base directory ./data/images/. I have no other argument for this but tradition. Some 1x files (spritesheet) need no scaling.

Essence from IRC yesterday: Let's try cel-shading with 2 hair colors for now. I've merged NaOH's imploder and blocker, see attachment for most recent 1.5x icons. I don't have automatic recoloring for the extra hair color yet. I want to continue drawing 1.5x skill icons by hand.

geoo suggests that I draw 4x icons by hand, then downscale. I'm afraid of drawing 4x icons; on the other hand, I'm merely postponing the problem for large icons.

minim: For a workaround, overwrite data/images/scale150/skillico.I.png with the next-larger file, scale200/skillico.I.png. That looks acceptable to me.

-- Simon

Minim · August 14, 2016, 10:37:05 AM

Quote from: Simon on August 14, 2016, 06:15:11 AM
minim: For a workaround, overwrite data/images/scale150/skillico.I.png with the next-larger file, scale200/skillico.I.png. That looks acceptable to me.

Wow, they look big!

But thanks; I can definitely see the skills more clearly. Also, at least they aren't overwriting the number of skills I have left (Which you can just about see if you're wearing glasses in the attachment below).

However, oversizing the skill icons comes with a slight drawback of making them too big for the arrow if a player wants to replay the level as shown below. I personally don't like the arrow being too large anyway.

Quote from: Simon on August 13, 2016, 10:18:16 AM
I have only the blocker in 1.5x, see attachment. Exploder and cuber were easy. The builder is a joke, I don't like the builder in the attachment. Instead, I like the blocker's style.

The builder looks OK to me; just needs to remove or tweak that left eye because that looks like it resembles a ghost!

Simon · August 15, 2016, 02:15:24 PM

QuoteAlso, at least they aren't overwriting the number of skills I have left.

We got lucky -- I didn't pay attention to this in the code, but it ended up the right way.

Quote from: MinimI personally don't like the arrow being too large anyway.

Yeah, this is a design relic. I filed a bug.

I scale the user interface, but also the map: At 1366x768, you start with 2x zoom. When I draw user interface graphics on the map, they're scaled twice; once by the larger user interface, once by the map scaling. That's too much.

-- Simon

Simon · August 28, 2016, 10:22:16 AM

Painting is hardly admissible for abstraction or automation.

I can describe how I want the 1.5x icons to look like. Many rules are sharp and formal.

The problem is that carefully writing down these instructions isn't enough. A human has to implement these rules and produce the images. In the end, there's a rule that I can't formalize: If you did everything by the rules, and a few pixels suck, muster your human courage and change the pixels.

To imbue maximum spirit into the 1.5x icons, I should redesign them by hand, from memory of the 1x sprite. I'm timid and would rather fix bugs in the code. Scaling automatically to 1.5x, then fixing the automation errors, seems too tedious.

Another idea is SVG, which requires an extra lib, requires me to get its output into A5's internal bitmap format, and then make all the SVGs. geoo created a lovely blocker in SVG.

-- Simon