[12-17-09] [r186] Test server content update.

[Mrbloodworth 41]

O Winter! ruler of the inverted year, . . . I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof Of undisturb'd Retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening, know. - William Cowper

Winter has come to the test server!

* All trees have been updated to snow coverd versions

* Snow now covers the land

* Grass has been changed to a snowy version

* Gift boxes have been added to the game (Hint: A item that is usually seen as littler on the countryside has a new use)

* Tall stone walls have a bit of snow on them.

* Short stone walls have a bit of snow on them.

* Palasades have a bit of snow on them.

* Fight icons have been adjusted, but will receive a graphical update in the future.

---

[12-16-09] Hot fix [r183]

* Pine was missing, and has now be found.

* Snow texture adjusted, We are going to have to play with this one a bit, so, will be updated in the future as it is still not quite right.

---

[12-17-09] [r186] Test server content update.

* Snow texture has been updated.

* GrassSprite texture has been updated.

* Tundra is now snow covered.

* Forest textures for a future update have been added.

* Some old unused textures and mappings have been removed

* All terrain textures have been updated (With exception of caves, and doors) and changed to 512 x 512, and the Pre-Darkening has been removed from the images.

As some may have noticed. When we original updated to winter, snow was just about pure white. A brief explanation is that long ago, someone added a brightness to objects, and terrain instead of changing the various content. This at the time I am sure was a good quick fix. However this added "Brightness" created the situation where an artiest was required to account for this "Brightness" by making things darker. This leads to a number of issues. The first, that what an artiest created was not how it would be shown in engine. The second is that colors ran the potential to be washed out, such as the case with the snow, as the brightness on the white completely washed out the slight variations in the snow texture and resulted in being simply white, with very little room to be able to correct the result from the image side of things.

With the corresponding Client update, we have removed this brightness from the terrain, however this would mean we needed to make all terrain images not darkened. This in turn will allow us in the future to make an image, and have it show up exactly how we intended with out having to darken, or account for any in engine adjustments. Currently this brightness has only been removed from the terrain, and not the rest of the world, as that requires us to revamp existing assets to make it work. This will come later.

The change in the textures size was something already planed (For various reasons, memory use, download size, the way we currently render terrain) by the art team, and client team so we went ahead and made this change as this provided a good opportunity.

Those viewing this update may however notice slight changes in how things look color wise as far as ground textures (Remember, we no longer have the client exaggerating color, so they will be slightly different then you recall), but moving forward artists will have more control over this aspect of any terrain asset. It is my hope that it is not too noticeable, and that over time we can dial this all back in and make any necessary changes.

I hope my attempt at explaining the changes are understandable.

Know issues:

* Palisade gates seem to have forgotten they have two parts, and now open as one.

---

[12-18-09] [r191] Test server content update.

* Some sound files have been updated.

* Snowmen have been spotted.

---

The test server client can be found here.

***Special note to "Unstable client" users.*** The packs for the unstable have also been updated. However new items, such as the Gift boxes will not work, as they require a server update as well. As always the unstable client connects to the live server and not the test server.

You can see the corresponding client changes here.

[Guest Robert]

Mycelium/infected trees look like a plain white tile with no detail at all - is that intended?

[Mrbloodworth 41]

Mycelium/infected trees look like a plain white tile with no detail at all - is that intended?

Can I get more details, and perhaps a screen shot? Those tiles were changes to snow, yes, if that is what you mean.

[Guest Robert]

Poor blacklighers will get snow blindness: http://imgur.com/0xf9a

[Burtward 0]

Oh wow man fund it

[tylerd 0]

Oh jesus

[Mrbloodworth 41]

Poor blacklighers will get snow blindness: http://imgur.com/0xf9a

Fixes being gathered and added. Thank you for catching this.

Oh jesus

[Gavin 971]

model.container.giftbox.green    = theme/Winter/GiftBoxes/GiftBox_01.xsi

model.container.giftbox.blue    = theme/Winter/GiftBoxes/GiftBox_02.xsi

model.container.giftbox.striped  = theme/Winter/GiftBoxes/GiftBox_03.xsi

model.container.giftbox.candy    = theme/Winter/GiftBoxes/GiftBox_04.xsi

model.container.giftbox.holly    = theme/Winter/GiftBoxes/GiftBox_05.xsi

wuts this? multiple gift choices?

[Mrbloodworth 41]

[12-16-09] Hot fix [r183]

* Pine was missing, and has now be found.

* Snow texture adjusted, We are going to have to play with this one a bit, so, will be updated in the future as it is still not quite right.

[ZarmaZarma 192]

Could we get some more things to have snow on them? Would be cool to see some things like houses and carts and stuff covered with snow. Oh, and tiles like sand.

Unrelated: Are you the one to see about environmental graphics? Like the sky getting dark when it rains? Because it's pretty often that you can get rain in wurm without even being below a cloud.

[tylerd 0]

Hats!

[Burtward 0]

Make all large carts red and horses have antlers

[Guest RenegadeJesus]

Poor blacklighers will get snow blindness: http://imgur.com/0xf9a

Fixes being gathered and added. Thank you for catching this.

Oh jesus

My panic button has four squiggly squares on it...

I've come to the conclusion that they do indeed both cause panic.

[Mrbloodworth 41]

Could we get some more things to have snow on them? Would be cool to see some things like houses and carts and stuff covered with snow. Oh, and tiles like sand.

Not at this time. I am trying to keep the scope small so we can get it out having tested it.

[Mrbloodworth 41]

[12-17-09] [r186] Test server content update.

* Snow texture has been updated.

* GrassSprite texture has been updated.

* Tundra is now snow covered.

* Forest textures for a future update have been added.

* Some old unused textures and mappings have been removed

* All terrain textures have been updated (With exception of caves, and doors) and changed to 512 x 512, and the Pre-Darkening has been removed from the images.

As some may have noticed. When we original updated to winter, snow was just about pure white. A brief explanation is that long ago, someone added a brightness to objects, and terrain instead of changing the various content. This at the time I am sure was a good quick fix. However this added "Brightness" created the situation where an artiest was required to account for this "Brightness" by making things darker. This leads to a number of issues. The first, that what an artiest created was not how it would be shown in engine. The second is that colors ran the potential to be washed out, such as the case with the snow, as the brightness on the white completely washed out the slight variations in the snow texture and resulted in being simply white, with very little room to be able to correct the result from the image side of things.

With the corresponding Client update, we have removed this brightness from the terrain, however this would mean we needed to make all terrain images not darkened. This in turn will allow us in the future to make an image, and have it show up exactly how we intended with out having to darken, or account for any in engine adjustments. Currently this brightness has only been removed from the terrain, and not the rest of the world, as that requires us to revamp existing assets to make it work. This will come later.

The change in the textures size was something already planed (For various reasons, memory use, download size, the way we currently render terrain) by the art team, and client team so we went ahead and made this change as this provided a good opportunity.

Those viewing this update may however notice slight changes in how things look color wise as far as ground textures (Remember, we no longer have the client exaggerating color, so they will be slightly different then you recall), but moving forward artists will have more control over this aspect of any terrain asset. It is my hope that it is not too noticeable, and that over time we can dial this all back in and make any necessary changes.

I hope my attempt at explaining the changes are understandable.

Know issues:

* Palisade gates seem to have forgotten they have two parts, and now open as one.

[Guest Posteh]

Can you make Palisade Gates dyeable? 

[Mrbloodworth 41]

Can you make Palisade Gates dyeable? 

Lol, not the first post I expected. But to answer, not at this time.

Also, the update to the patch server is taking a bit longer than I expected. So, please bear with me here.

[Guest Robert]

So does that mean things will look a bit less detailed now, since I think the ground textures were previously 1024x1024? Or is the difference not noticable?

And thanks for the work you're putting in.

[Gavin 971]

It still seems extremely bright for me, i need to turn gamma to like -1 to be able to play with unstable client (id rather that than lose binds), and when i load the test client to check if that had the new textures i get a error about a corrupt download.

I assume the new packs you talk about have not been uploaded yet?

[Mrbloodworth 41]

So does that mean things will look a bit less detailed now, since I think the ground textures were previously 1024x1024? Or is the difference not noticable?

And thanks for the work you're putting in.

Technically, even if you manged to use the workaround to have them display at full resolution, it was the same as 512, due to the way we handle terrain. The only real things that going to that size did, was increase the download size, and exclude anyone not running at a resolution higher than 1024 by 1024.

If that makes sense, if not.

TLDR: Not very noticeable.

It still seems extremely bright for me, i need to turn gamma to like -1 to be able to play with unstable client (id rather that than lose binds), and when i load the test client to check if that had the new textures i get a error about a corrupt download.

I assume the new packs you talk about have not been uploaded yet?

Yes, while uploading to the patch server, I was forced to start over. There is also a client release that needs to happen for everyone to see the sum total of the changes. So, that needs to happen to. My post was perhaps a bit early.

[Mrbloodworth 41]

"MMmm yeahhh, We may have removed something we thought was not used, but was, so hold tight and we will get this fixed up in no time, M'kay? Great".

[Gavin 971]

I just jumped on the test server for a sec, everything looks alot better - but - it's almost impossible to tell the difference between snowed cobblestone and rock/sand/dirt. I think there should be more differences with the two.

[Guest RenegadeJesus]

I'm not fond of the change so far.

When I look at snow I see little rainbow colored bits which I assume are the "variations" in the snow tiles.

[Mrbloodworth 41]

Yeah, Waite for the client update to see everything correctly.  ;D

[Mrbloodworth 41]

[12-18-09] [r191] Test server content update.

* Some sound files have been updated.

* Snowmen have been spotted.