Reviving Iso-Angband, an isometric view addon for Angband

[Hajo]

Somewhen back in 2003 I had been working on a graphical frontend for Angband. The project stopped for several reasons, but the idea never really let me rest. A bit less than a year ago, I got my old C compiler working again, and managed to compile the old Iso-Angband sources. Since then I have been replacing and updating a lot of the images, because I wanted to change the style from semi-realistic to a more symbolic one.

In the Roguelike Temple Forums, there is a thread about the development of the last year, including screenshots and download links. It's long but might be a good read to get an idea about the project:

http://www.roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=487.0

Just recently, I had "updated" the core Angband code from 2.9.1 to 2.9.3 (it's a terribly old project ...) and upon the latest announcement, getter77 pointed me to this place, and said it might be a good idea to announce it over here, too. So I do

Announcement of the last release in the Roguelike Temple Forums:

http://www.roguetemple.com/forums/index.php?topic=487.msg8738#msg8738

Due to the exchange of the Angband code base, I have no good idea how well this works. In my tests it did, and so I have hope it will do for some other people too.

--------------------------------------------------

Edit:

Announcement and download link for latest Iso-Angband version:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showpost.php?p=39220&postcount=29

Iso-Funband, a variant based on Angband 2.9.3:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=3645

Iso-Unangband, the newest line of development for the iso view patch:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?p=39977#post39977

Iso-Unangband, WIP 3:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?p=40160#post40160

Iso-Unangband, WIP 4:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?p=40179#post40179

Iso-Unangband, WIP 5:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?p=40343#post40343

Iso-Unangband, WIP 6:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?p=40510#post40510

[Timo Pietilä]

Somewhen back in 2003 I had been working on a graphical frontend for Angband.
...

including screenshots

I would like to see what it looks like when you encounter something like Gothmog with 20 escorting demons. Can you tell which one is which kind of demon?

[Hajo]

I haven't painted any demons yet, so they will show up as colored ASCII characters. I guess you can tell them apart about as well as you can in vanilla Angband

Overall it should be easier with the pictures, since I could split some monsters that were assigned to the same ASCII character into several groups with individual images. It's still very much the same scheme as the ASCII view used - a shape which is common for all monsters of a sort (e.g. all molds have the same image), and the color tells the exact type. Colors are mostly the same as they were in vanilla Angband, too, so a pink frog is still a pink frog.

I tried to keep the "symbol+color" characteristic, just exchanged ASCII symbols with pictograms. One must learn them (as one had to learn the ASCII characters when starting new with a roguelike), but otherwise it should be about the same "readability" as the traditional ASCII display has. I have tried to keep the shapes very simple and distinct, so it should be easy to remember them and tell them apart.

I've tried write a bit of a summary here:

http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Iso-Angband#Project_goals

At the moment I think I have about 25% of the monster images, and 50% of the item images done. Maybe a bit less.

[Timo Pietilä]

I haven't painted any demons yet, so they will show up as colored ASCII characters. I guess you can tell them apart about as well as you can in vanilla Angband

I mean try situation like this:

##########
#....UX..#
#....UU..#
#........#

Can you even see that "X" in there properly? What if it is something small like floating eye?

Other than that it looks cool, but simple visual error can easily be fatal in angband (like killing bunch of orcs and then their leader the orange "c"...Ooops)

[Atarlost]

What's to prevent the pictograms for eg. orcs and kobolds looking nearly alike? They're both short bipeds with weapons.

[Hajo]

##########
#....UX..#
#....UU..#
#........#

Can you even see that "X" in there properly? What if it is something small like floating eye?

The X shold be clearly visible. A floating eye pictogram is not much smaller than the average other pictogram. So even those are easy to spot.

Other than that it looks cool

Thanks

... but simple visual error can easily be fatal in angband (like killing bunch of orcs and then their leader the orange "c"...Ooops)

If the colors differ in vanilla Angband they will also differ in the iso view. If there are orange orcs and orange captains in between them, I must take care that the captain pictogram is different from the rest.

What's to prevent the pictograms for eg. orcs and kobolds looking nearly alike?

Your warning and my trying to make the pictures easy to read The pictograms do not need to be particularly realistic, so I'm positive there can be some characteristics added to make them distinguishable.

I understand your doubts. I cannot promise that it will work. But I'll try my best to make it playable. Thank you for the warnings and feedback

[thapper]

What's to prevent the pictograms for eg. orcs and kobolds looking nearly alike? They're both short bipeds with weapons.

It is easy to keep them clearly different, in David Gervais 32x32 tiles for example all kobolds are green and orcs are given other colours. And even with 32x32 pixels you can give very clear characteristics so that there's no problem telling an ogre from a giant for example, even if their colours are similar.

Hajo, what's the (maximum) size of your pictograms by the way?

[Hajo]

The tiles are 64x64, but since they are isometric some of the area is not usable for pictograms.

The floor tile has roughly these dimensions:



A small canine would be like this:



And the kobolds look like this currently:



I haven't given them weapons yet ...

The blue hue appears in the proper monster or item color in the game. I have kept the images to outlines, since I don't want to go for realistic images.

There are plenty of options to give orc captains winged or bushed helms, or flags/standards/war banners to make them stand out from the other orcs. It will take some time to find good ideas for everything, but I'm positive that it will work out.

At the moment I'm reworking a number of images, and hope to have a better version to present in a few days.

[Timo Pietilä]

The X shold be clearly visible. A floating eye pictogram is not much smaller than the average other pictogram. So even those are easy to spot.

Can you post a screenshot of that situation. @ in those pictures is quite big, extending to block above it and if that applies to other things too those two U:s in right and left + one at diagonal should block the X-spot so much that you can see only very top of it properly.

Maybe "U" is a bad example. Try "M" instead (like fighting medusa which is "n").

[Hajo]

Timo, I'll happily provide screenshots if you can tell me how to arrange such situations. Maybe there are problems indeed, which need to be fixed, by changing the perspective or the image sizes. But I don't know how I could provide views of the situations that you ask for

Edit: Look at the end of this message, I tried to stage such situations.


Meanwhile I've tried to clean up some of the images and did more testing. At least for me, this version seems to run fairly well.

For Windows users, there is a precompiled executable included. Also two starting batch files, "start_small.bat" and "start_large.bat" which choose a smaller or larger font, and therefore start with a smaller or larger window.

Download:

http://www.funkelwerk.de/data/iso-angband/releases/iso-angband-0_2_8_2.zip

Sources and images are included as well, and I think it should compile for Linux, too, but I had no chance to test that yet (try Makefile.isov-sdl for the SDL based code).

No code changes this time, but some new and changed images:

- Food ration
- Mean looking mercenary
- Stairs up/stairs down
- Mold
- Permanent wall
- Normal floor
- Kobolds got weapons
- Scruffy little dog

A preview of the town and one of the first level in this version (taken with the "large" font):

Click for full size.


Click for full size.

Edit:

Timeo, I've have made a mockup of these situations, at least I understood your concerns. The colors are not the ones as they would be in the game, but it should give an idea how much the characters overlap. Color differences will even help further:

I have no images for such high level creatures yet. I focused on the early game so far.

[Timo Pietilä]

Timo, I'll happily provide screenshots if you can tell me how to arrange such situations. Maybe there are problems indeed, which need to be fixed, by changing the perspective or the image sizes. But I don't know how I could provide views of the situations that you ask for

Edit:

Timeo, I've have made a mockup of these situations, at least I understood your concerns. The colors are not the ones as they would be in the game, but it should give an idea how much the characters overlap. Color differences will even help further:

I have no images for such high level creatures yet. I focused on the early game so far.

That looks better than I expected. Maybe you should make @ a bit smaller, it looks like it blocks the view much more than those "M" or "U". (think that snake in block directly behind @).

[ekolis]

Oh no, it's some sort of conflict brewing between Xavier University and Miami University!

[HallucinationMushroom]

I remember looking at your Isometric screenshots years ago and really liking them. I'm glad you're back on the case! After looking at the screenshots with visual monsters against the one with the Isometric U's, I got to hoping that there would be an option to use iso-ascii characters for all the denizens and items if one wanted to. I think it would be a very interesting novelty, and I'd probably use it from time to time. Not to miss the point of all your hard work visualizing the depths of angband mind you... I really like the way you've portrayed the mushrooms, snakes, townspeople and all the other denizens I've seen.

Oh yes, please forgive if this is mentioned in your mission statement/development journal. I only glanced.

[Hajo]

Not to miss the point of all your hard work visualizing the depths of angband mind you... I really like the way you've portrayed the mushrooms, snakes, townspeople and all the other denizens I've seen.

Thanks, I'm happy to read this

After looking at the screenshots with visual monsters against the one with the Isometric U's, I got to hoping that there would be an option to use iso-ascii characters for all the denizens and items if one wanted to. I think it would be a very interesting novelty, and I'd probably use it from time to time.

If you delete the whole "lib/pref" folder and replace it with the original files from Angband 2.9.3, you have ASCII-Iso view, unfortunately also for the walls and floors. Not sure about doors, might be that I hardcoded those ...

But it should be fairly easy to create a pref file that only maps terrain to images and displays the rest as ASCII characters. I've kept a full ASCII set of characters in their "native" positions, so it should be fairly straightforward.

If I have a bit of extra time I'll see if I can make an example pref file.

Edit:

That was easy I just had to remove all the monster and item definitions from the iso pref file, and it already looked rather well.

http://www.funkelwerk.de/data/iso-an...c/font-iso.prf (4kb)

Just get this file, put it into the lib/pref folder of your Iso-Angband installation and it should do the trick. Maybe you want to backup the former version of the file, in case you want to revert to the more graphical version.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Wow, thank you very much! I'll get a chance to play with that in a few hours and I'll let you know how it goes.