Re: Terrain images proposal

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald at phy dot cmich dot edu>]

mskala@ansuz.sooke.bc.ca wrote:

> What I had in mind was that each cell has only one override image, if any,
> and if it has one, that completely replaces the regular terrain image.  

This is what I had in mind as well. But, perhaps I misunderstood you, 
when you were saying things about providing a starting position from 
which source map images would be embedded into the area display. The 
impression I had gotten from you is that you were interested in being 
able to associate a whole region of cells (and not just one cell) with a 
source map image. The problem that I saw is what if you have a source 
image that is about 10x10 cells and starts at, say, (1,1), and then you 
specify another source image at, say, (4,4)? There is an overlap. From 
which source image do you extract the cell image?

> So
> when XConq wants to draw the cell terrain in a cell, at present it looks
> up the cell's terrain type and then looks up the image for that terrain
> type.  

Correct.

> With my change, it would look for the image for that terrain type
> and that cell position; if there was one, it would use that, otherwise it
> would use the default image for that terrain type.  

Right. I thought this was what we were talking about earlier when we 
referred to "overriding" the image associated with the terrain type.

> If you tell XConq you are defining an override image for a given cell but
> the image you specify doesn't cover the cell, then (depending on
> implementation) that's either a syntax error, or it fills in the extra
> space with black or some other well-defined pattern, or it's undefined,
> and in any case, the solution is not to do that if you don't like the
> result.

If the image is smaller than the cell region; it might be best to 
convert it into a patterned tile within the cell region.

> A critical point here is that the entire rectangle in the image would not
> necessarily appear on the map.  

Well obviously I agree with this on a per cell image basis. It is how 
Xconq already works. The image is clipped with a hexagonal mask, if you 
will.

But, I had thought that you were suggesting that whole rectangles 
(spanning multiple cells) simply be embedded into the map at given 
coordinates. Based on your response, I think this is not what you 
actually had in mind....

Eric