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Heroes Community > Heroes 7 - Falcon's Last Flight > Thread: Battlefield graphics are awful
Thread: Battlefield graphics are awful This thread is 4 pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT»
MattII
MattII


Legendary Hero
posted August 18, 2014 09:29 PM

Would you like your straight-line movement forward-and-back or site-to-side? With hexes you only get one choice.

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RMZ1989
RMZ1989


Supreme Hero
posted August 18, 2014 09:41 PM

AlexSpl said:
Quote:
I see no other benefit in a hexagon grid other than it being nostalgic?




Battlefields should definitely be smaller in order we could enjoy all the details of those nasty creatures Also, hexagonal grid looks more natural, don't you think?

Ahahah this picture is hilarious. All of them are like "No Hydra, no, don't bite me! "
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become his true self.

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Vindicator
Vindicator


Supreme Hero
Right Back Extraordinaire
posted August 18, 2014 10:08 PM

only4dungeon said:
Why does everybody think you have to choose one ?


Because they don't have infinite time/money

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VOKIALBG
VOKIALBG


Honorable
Legendary Hero
First in line
posted August 18, 2014 10:17 PM

Hexagonals also makes movement of creature in diagonals same in length as the movement in straight direction. When you have squares it takes you more from your movements to reach certain spot if not moving in straight direction. That's why squares are actually harming the player with more speed and faster creatures. There is no such problem with hexagonals.
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Minion
Minion


Legendary Hero
posted August 18, 2014 10:32 PM

What size will creatures bigger than 1 hexagon use, and what will they look like in 3d?

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VOKIALBG
VOKIALBG


Honorable
Legendary Hero
First in line
posted August 18, 2014 10:38 PM
Edited by VOKIALBG at 22:43, 18 Aug 2014.

It depends of the creature after all. At first hexagonals are going to be a bit bigger anyway. Secondly, not all large creatures from H5 and H6 full all 4 squares. They actually can be placed in smaller spot of the field. And as I said, hexagonals are bigger anyway. Small creatures are easy - 1 hexagonal. Large can use 3 without a problem. And 3 will be as big as 4 squares. Its going to work well imo.

Look them here, everything you can put on 4 squares, you can put on 3 hexagonals as well. And it will have the same "form".
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blob2
blob2


Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
posted August 18, 2014 10:48 PM

Haha, that screen with the Hydra is hilarious!

Even the cursor icon is dancing (or trying to evade the Hydras attack).

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alcibiades
alcibiades


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
of Gold Dragons
posted August 18, 2014 11:09 PM

That screenshot is absolutely epic. Purple Dragon and Purple Troll for the win!

However, on a serious note, it's worth remarking how much emotion is shown in the creatures. The graphics are so naïve and primitive by todays standard, but it at the same time caries so much expression and content. That's why I personally don't mind "cartoony" art style as that allows to draw forth and emphasize the relevant details.
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Minion
Minion


Legendary Hero
posted August 18, 2014 11:09 PM

The diameter of a symmetrical aka circular creature inside 3 hexagons is not much bigger than in 1 hexagon. Just look at the grid. Draw a circle. That is why the shape is awkward for bigger units I think. But of course one can always ask how much bigger do we want some units to be in the first place.

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Storm-Giant
Storm-Giant


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
On the Other Side!
posted August 18, 2014 11:11 PM

That screen of the hydra is just perfect
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VOKIALBG
VOKIALBG


Honorable
Legendary Hero
First in line
posted August 19, 2014 09:11 AM
Edited by VOKIALBG at 09:12, 19 Aug 2014.

Minion said:
The diameter of a symmetrical aka circular creature inside 3 hexagons is not much bigger than in 1 hexagon. Just look at the grid. Draw a circle. That is why the shape is awkward for bigger units I think. But of course one can always ask how much bigger do we want some units to be in the first place.


It also depends on the size of the hexagons, the creature and etc... Plus, King's bounty already use them.

PS
Total Hydra destruction!
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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted August 19, 2014 10:40 AM
Edited by Maurice at 13:28, 19 Aug 2014.

I've done some examinations of possible circles that fit within a number of hexagons. You can define two clusters of roughly circular shape: one with a central hexagon and one with three central hexagons (where the connecting node for all three is the actual center). The latter seems to be best for larger creatures, but it actually isn't. It results in just a slightly larger effective circle for the creature relative to one that fits within a single hexagon.

The best way to handle it, is to increase the number of hexagons for each creature to begin with. This means that the smallest creature should already occupy a blob of at least seven hexagons (one central, with 6 around; essentially a ring of hexagons around the central one). The next bigger creature should occupy 19 hexagons (one central, with 18 around; essentially two rings of hexagons around the central one).

This has two effects:
- Most importantly, it reduces the granularity of the battlefield as a whole. The number of hexagons increases considerably, but the size of each one becomes a lot smaller;
- Furthermore, the number of "sides" from which a creature can attack and be attacked, changes depending on size. It's already more or less the case with squares, but switching to hexagons makes this more readily apparent;

The reason to switch to hexagons is because the symmetry is better than with squares. With squares, you can have two squares that only share a single corner. With hexagons, that is impossible. The sharing of that single corner has led to some very awkward positioning issues when it comes to large and small creatures fighting eachother in melee range, that you won't have with hexagons (in the sense that it doesn't matter from where you attack, you will always have the same considerations to make).

I'll try to illustrate with some ASCII art (for squares):

Situation one, most optimal:

11_22
11322
_4X5_
66788
66_88


Here, X is the target being attacked and the numbers 1 through 8 represent creatures attacking it (with huge creatures occupying 4 squares and small creatures occupying 1 square). It can be attacked by 8 enemies at most, regardless of whether creatures 1, 2, 6 and 8 are huge or small. But the positioning of the huge creatures is important here. If they are somehow in a different position, it could reduce the maximum number of attackers:

Situation two, least optimal:

_11__
_1122
33X22
3344_
__44_


Here, four huge creatures attack the same target, but there's no more room for small creatures to attack it as well. So, the positioning of enemy attackers dictates how many attackers can attack at all, which finds its source in the use of squares. With hexagons, this doesn't happen.

You could make the same argument for using defenders, blocking off attackers from a potential vulnerable stack at X, by the way.

Now, in Heroes IV they tried somehing along these lines, but the granularity of the battlefield was extremely small, which led to very weird pathing at times, as well as units continuously shuffling around eachother (although this could also have been the result of bad AI and bad pathing).

Playtesting would have to find the optimal number of hexagons per creature, but personally I think there's more benefit to using hexagons than squares.

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MattII
MattII


Legendary Hero
posted August 19, 2014 11:34 AM

Except that squares allow the creatures to be sized more accurately. With the traditional hexagon setup creatures can be 1x1, 1x2, 1x3 or 3x3, depending on how big you want them to be, whereas with squares you can have 1x1, 1x2, 1x3, 2x2, 2x3 or 3x3. Also, the corner-strike thing can be solved by calculating fractional damage, with the corner creatures taking and doing ~71% damage.

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Nelgirith
Nelgirith


Promising
Supreme Hero
posted August 19, 2014 11:43 AM
Edited by Nelgirith at 11:44, 19 Aug 2014.

Maurice said:

It can be attacked by 8 enemies at most, regardless of whether creatures 1, 2, 6 and 8 are huge or small.

You lost me there ... How can you be attacked by 8 creatures when you're using hexagons ? Hexa = 6 sides

The only real drawback of squares vs hexagons is the poor (non-existant) use of diagonal movement.


Maurice said:
The best way to handle it, is to increase the number of hexagons for each creature to begin with. This means that the smallest creature should already occupy a blob of at least seven hexagons (one central, with 6 around; essentially a ring of hexagons around the central one). The next bigger creature should occupy 19 hexagons (one central, with 18 around; essentially two rings of hexagons around the central one).

Yeah, why make things easy when you can make them (over)complicated ? I liked H4 a lot, but tbh, the grid they used is something I never liked as it was just hard to plan anything. Without the movement shadow, it would have been plain hell to understand anything.

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Maurice
Maurice

Hero of Order
Part of the furniture
posted August 19, 2014 12:08 PM

Nelgirith said:
Maurice said:

It can be attacked by 8 enemies at most, regardless of whether creatures 1, 2, 6 and 8 are huge or small.

You lost me there ... How can you be attacked by 8 creatures when you're using hexagons ? Hexa = 6 sides

The only real drawback of squares vs hexagons is the poor (non-existant) use of diagonal movement.


My example (and ASCII art) dealt with the squares setup. If you can figure out how to do hexagons in ASCII art without making it too large ... please tell me .

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VOKIALBG
VOKIALBG


Honorable
Legendary Hero
First in line
posted August 19, 2014 12:10 PM

Hexas are simply making your army more manoeuvre (if I spell it right).

You are still missing something. Yes 3 hexes may be smaller then 4 squares, but the creature's model is also important. MANY large creatures never fill all the space of the 4 squares. Also the size of the hexas is important. A net of much more smaller hexas may work well as well.
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Double_Trouble
Double_Trouble

Tavern Dweller
posted August 19, 2014 01:24 PM
Edited by Double_Trouble at 13:24, 19 Aug 2014.

What I think is the problem, is this:



I mean, I know you can probably zoom in, so you can not see that and enjoy bigger models, but what would be AWESOME is  if the zoomed in size of battlefield could go over to next fight and so on. Because zooming in and finding the right size every fight is a frickin waste of time, same as the intro to combat that people were complaining about. So I hope there will be functions that disable that 5-10 sec intro to battle and also have the ability to save the zoomed in size, so that everyone can enjoy the size of battlefield they like. Plus I think it should not be very hard to implement.

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AlexSpl
AlexSpl


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted August 19, 2014 01:28 PM

I think they stick to squares because squares are simpler to implement than hexes. You can use a 2D array to store squares' data, while properly organized hexagonal grid requires a linked list (though hexes may be implemented as an array as well with some weird rules to handle adjacent cells). Also, there are chances that they reuse the code written for HoMM V and VI. In case with hexes they'll have to start all the work, including writing new battle AI, from scratch. I think that's the main reason.

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AlexSpl
AlexSpl


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted August 19, 2014 01:34 PM

Quote:
What I think is the problem, is this:

I agree. Side decorations should be optional. Also, we don't need such a wide battlefield, reduce the height and increase the length.

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AlexSpl
AlexSpl


Responsible
Supreme Hero
posted August 19, 2014 01:56 PM
Edited by AlexSpl at 13:57, 19 Aug 2014.

And there is no problem with big creatures when using hex grid. Isn't this dragon big enough? And it occupies only one cell...



A fortiori, two cells will be sufficient for big creatures. If you need more space, just stretch hexes and make them a little wider.

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