RE: [Rails-devel] Tile orientations

[John A. T. <ja...@ja...>]

On Mon, 26 Dec 2005, Erik Vos wrote:

> Yes, tile #45. I have chosen the one that appears in the PS18XX tile
> set for 1830, as I think we should align with the PBEM community.

I would think mirroring what is in the actual game is more appropriate. 
For example, in some cases the PS18XX tiles are totally unrelated to the 
orienation used in the original game (in some cases even the tile numbers, 
such as 18MEX, since they were developed before the game was published).

> Yes, that is my approach too. The "database" now is Tiles.xml.
> I have just uploaded new versions of the tile XML files.
>
> However, after a quick check of your database and some of the games you
> have published I now see, that you use Marco's tile orientations rather than
> the ones
> that I found in the 1830 game box and in the PS18XX set for 1830.

I assume you are referring to the web tile images?  Those have not been 
regenerated yet.  I am about 80% done with merging all the different tile 
sources into my database (kept in Informix using the schema I posted 
here earlier).  Too many things going on, but it will get finished one day 
and then I will regenerate all the tile images.

> We clearly must make a choice which orientation set we will use.

I think the first question is what is the goal -- if it is to exactly 
mirror what came in the box, there are a lot of complicating issues such 
as using multiple orientations in the same game and (especially in 182x) 
different print runs having different orientations.  If the goal is to 
support PBEM using only electronic maps, then choosing one orientation is 
best, even if you have to make clear that players using physical boards 
will have to carefully watch orientations -- otherwise, you have to find a 
way to disambiguate different tiles which have the same number but 
different orientations.

> But IMO displaying tile (and revenue) numbers at all
> will only be worth while if we either succeed in implementing SVC graphics,
> or go for a separate gif file for each tile orientation (otherwise
> the number reading directions will rotate with the tile).
> And if we succeed in scaling the numbers such that these are readable
> and still do not overwhelm the map. I have my doubts on this aspect.

The way I intended to handle it was to automatically leave out components 
of the tile image depending on the size being drawn.  That way, if you 
have a sufficiently large screen area or are zoomed in to the map, you 
will see all the detail available in the tile.  If you zoom out, you see 
only the detail that is useful at that resolution.  I haven't downloaded 
and built Rails since the tile code has been working, so I don't know 
exactly how you have implemented this.

-- 
John A. Tamplin					ja...@ja...
770/436-5387 HOME				4116 Manson Ave
                 		 		Smyrna, GA  30082-3723