Re: Pre-alpha version of a coating-based terrain module

[Elijah Meeks <elijahmeeks@yahoo.com>]

> One way to maybe display multiple coatings would be
> to make custom
> tiles for each coating
> with holes in them...for instance, for grass make a
> cloating that is
> "patchy", so you
> can see the underlying tile terrain underneath.  For
> rain, clouds, and
> snow, it could be patchy
> in alternating areas, so that you could put a grass
> coating and a rain
> coating together
> and have the holes in one merge with the patches in
> the other.
> 
> For thick forest, you could fill the center totally
> with tree texture,
> and leave a couple of
> corners open to show other coatings/terrain...
> 

I think this is the best way, and I'd take it a step
farther by saying you don't need any caveats to show
the terrain underneath, except insofar as, say a
forested hill would need to be obvious.  As it stands,
a high-K-dirt hex, with a sparse-grass coating and a
dense-redwood-forest coating on top of that can look
like just the top coating, with further information
available to players in the position to gather it. 
For the most part, the top coating in this style of
terrain is the dominant terrain in our current method
and that seems to work fine for players.

Now, if the Tolkien-style map tiles works, and we can
import GIS data, does that mean we could one day have
a Tolkien-style map of, say, North America?  Maybe
complete with 'The Desolation of Pittsburgh'...




		
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