Gervais Tiles

[Bill Peterson]

Is anyone working on getting the Gervais tile set to display properly? I just discovered today that, contrary to the on screen warning, graphics tiles do work. They just don't always match up with the images one would expect.

I've figured out how object.txt, monster.txt and graf-dvg.prf work and have fixed a few of the 50' items. I'd be glad to finish the job if no one else is already working on it. I'm proposing to just change the graf-dvg.prf and possibly flvr-dvg.prf and xtra-dvg.prf, so if the devs are planning to change monster and object.txt to fix the graphics tiles I'd appreciate a warning.

[half]

Is anyone working on getting the Gervais tile set to display properly? I just discovered today that, contrary to the on screen warning, graphics tiles do work. They just don't always match up with the images one would expect.

I've figured out how object.txt, monster.txt and graf-dvg.prf work and have fixed a few of the 50' items. I'd be glad to finish the job if no one else is already working on it. I'm proposing to just change the graf-dvg.prf and possibly flvr-dvg.prf and xtra-dvg.prf, so if the devs are planning to change monster and object.txt to fix the graphics tiles I'd appreciate a warning.

Very timely! The goal for Sil 1.3 is graphics support. In particular, the fabulous Shockbolt tiles. We'd noticed that the pre-shockbolt tiles work in the windows version (though aren't always mapped well). However, Scatha and I have quite a strong preference for ASCII over these older tilesets. Combined with the fact that we have plans to add shockbolt tiles and that the older tiles didn't work with the Mac port, we hadn't done any work on them.

On the weekend, I achieved two milestones towards 1.3. I got the older tiles working (still with bad mapping) on the Mac Carbon port, which turned out to only take a one line change to the Makefile. I also managed to start getting the Mac Cocoa port working. This Cocoa port will be the future of Sil on the Mac, and I believe it will help with getting the shockbolt tiles working.

So in summary, we don't like the older tiles much, but if you are willing to do the tile-mapping in the .prf files, then be our guest (and please post your new files to this forum). We aren't planning to change object.txt or monster.txt.

In the future, we hope to see the shockbolt tiles working with Sil, but this will require combining some of the source code from V 3.5 (the windows and mac main files and presumably some other graphics handling files) with the Sil 1.2.1 source code. This is underway, but is tricky and we'll probably require some help.

[Bill Peterson]

Could you explain how the debug command to generate monsters works? I'm relying on an old command list from the Zangband site and it appears that your command set isn't the same. I looked at the code in wizard.c and it looks like the "n" command wants a name rather than a command count but I can't figure out how to get the name entered.

[half]

Could you explain how the debug command to generate monsters works? I'm relying on an old command list from the Zangband site and it appears that your command set isn't the same. I looked at the code in wizard.c and it looks like the "n" command wants a name rather than a command count but I can't figure out how to get the name entered.

Hit 'R' then type in the index number of the monster from monster.txt then hit '^a' then 'n'. This is indeed a crazy and unintuitive interface, but it is what I inherited from Vanilla...

[buzzkill]

@ Bill, are you aware of UT32, The 32x32 Universal Tileset. It's an attempt by me primarily, but with the cooperation of the oook community, to create a Universal Tileset (along with a set of mappings, prf files) that will serve all variants that support 32x32 tiles.

UT32 is based heavily upon the classic Gervias tileset. Many mappings will be identical, or just slightly different. There is a link in my signature to to UT32 if you would like to give it a look.

It may be of interest to you for one reason primarily. It contains a great many more tiles than the standard Vanilla tileset which will allow you to have more choices in selecting tiles with zero additional effort.

If you choose to base your changes upon UT32 I will then assimilate your work into UT32, even if it's incomplete, which will insure that it won't be 'lost' if not directly adopted by the maintainers.

I've been looking for a reason to play Sil and resurrect UT32, this might just do the trick.

[Bill Peterson]

@buzzkill, thanks for the tip, I'll switch to your tiles immediately. I can already see a couple of tiles that will fill holes, birds and a lot more choices for uniques.

[half]

The U32 tile set does sound like a good idea in general, but I think it might require coding changes for Sil in order to read the new pref file format and to even accept a .png file with a different name to normal. So it might make this task a bit bigger for you. That said, I like the basic idea.

[buzzkill]

The U32 tile set does sound like a good idea in general, but I think it might require coding changes for Sil in order to read the new pref file format and to even accept a .png file with a different name to normal. So it might make this task a bit bigger for you. That said, I like the basic idea.

UT32 use a standard prf format (each variant has it's own prf) and I'd be happy to customize a bmp or png, apart from UT32, for inclusion with your distro once the work is finalized.

@ Bill, glad to hear it. Please prepare the prf changes only. Any changes to the tileset itself will need to be made by me.

[debo]

@buzzkill, thanks for the tip, I'll switch to your tiles immediately. I can already see a couple of tiles that will fill holes, birds and a lot more choices for uniques.

Please make sure that shadow spiders and morgoth share a tile

[half]

UT32 use a standard prf format (each variant has it's own prf) and I'd be happy to customize a bmp or png, apart from UT32, for inclusion with your distro once the work is finalized.

I was referring to the fact that in post 9 of the thread you linked to, it was said:

The format of the graf-xxx.prf files changed a bit since 3.2.

And then there are a lot of details. The Sil prf files date back from before 3.2, so they presumably won't be compatible with the V 3.5 ones or with the current UT32 ones. I didn't read through the rest of the thread, but I presume there are other issues like this. I'm not sure how large they will be (particularly as I might want to adopt some of the changes to get Shockbolt tiles working with Sil 1.3), but wanted to flag that it presumably won't be as plug and play as it would be with the Gervais tiles alone (which already work). If Bill were to get a version of the UT32 tiles working with Sil 1.2.1 (even with bad mapping between monsters and images), then that would sort out these issues. I suggest he tries that first.

[buzzkill]

The Sil prf files date back from before 3.2, so they presumably won't be compatible with the V 3.5 ones or with the current UT32 ones.

This matters not. Presuming Bill is altering the prf that is currently compatible with Sil, and he'd have to be in order for it to work for him, then that will be what we will use. Each variant has it's own prf in a format that's compatible with it.

I didn't read through the rest of the thread, but I presume there are other issues like this.

No, probably not. The biggest hurdle will be if the existing tile support infrastructure isn't up to snuff. Since Sil is a offshoot of V, I'd guess that everything is in order.

@Bill, I imagine we'll need a forge graphic, maybe some stuff for the throne room??? I've sadly never played Sil. Is there anything you can think of off the top of your head that's absent from UT32.

[half]

Thanks for the clarification Buzzkill.

[Bill Peterson]

I've plugged in the UT32 tileset and it's perfectly compatible, just had to remap walls and stairs. Floors are much nicer. At a glance it looks like all the Vanilla objects and monsters are in the same places.

@debo, are you serious? I was planning to use the same images as Vanilla where the name is shared, but I'll accept any suggestions. If there's any controversy I'll defer to @half. I've fixed Ed's tile picker so it produces a result in the proper format for the .prf files (0xFF:0xFF). The changed javascript is:

else if (rbXY.checked) {
				result = "0x" + (128 + y).toString(16).toUpperCase() + ":" + "0x" + (128 + x).toString(16).toUpperCase();

Strangely, I can only get the picker to work with Chrome. But if anyone wants to suggest an image for one of the uniques, sending me the coordinates is probably the most efficient way.

My intention was to substitute the UT32 tileset for the Gervais set. I don't hear any suggestion that Sil support both, do I? And are we to continue using the name "Gervais" to designate the tileset?

I was not planning on changing or adding any images, just making do with what's there. But if @buzzkill wants to volunteer the major missing part is herbs. I was planning to use the mushroom images, they're so small that I don't think anyone could tell the difference. But herbs and a forge and any other unique to Sil environment items would be appreciated. I'll let others ask for anything as complicated as an image for a unique.

[Bill Peterson]

Can anyone tell me whether player race and player house have just replaced the vanilla player race and class in the Sil code? I'd like to be able to use xtra-dvg.prf to provide different player images for the various race/house combinations but I need some variables equivalent to $RACE and $CLASS that appear in the Vanilla/NPP versions.

[debo]

@debo, are you serious?

I was very not serious