The 3/4thening

[Desven]

So I have two PRs that wish to update the vending machine sprites, as well as the arcade ones. They have been deemed controversial because they allegedly don't fit the Aurora style. I've argued against that here. In short; I think the current ones are really ugly and outdated, but I also find them clashing with the rest of the newer sprites (either made by some of us or ported from elsewhere), such as the gas tanks. An example is here, which shares the same top-down perspective the sprites I'm trying to port does.

Current in game vs my PR. As you can see, the current ones don't fit their surroundings.

Most examples are available there. For those too lazy to open Github, here's a picture of some other vendors:

I'm posting this on the forums because this way the broader community can give their opinions on the project. They're not 1 for 1 ports. I've tweaked many of them to fit our schemes and also designed the Zo'ra vendor. I've added animations for vending or just for how the machine looks when idle. I think it's fair to assume that all bar the the Battlemonsters one look just like an upgraded version of themselves. If this is too much of a problem, I can always recolor the Battlemonsters vendor to purple.

(The sec machine when vending an item).

 

In short, should I just drop it? Do you find the perspective of these machines too problematic or not in line with the server? How would you suggest the vending machines to be updated then?

 

UPDATE: this got merged, I have new 3/4 projects now. This is the place to discuss such.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Desven

[Faye <3]

i like the PR ones more.

[Carver]

I'm not a terrible fan of the perspective swap at all, but the sprite quality is about on par so it's not a downgrade.

[Zelmana]

Your sprites align way more with the current machine sprites. In my opinion yours look superior as well. Animations are a bonus.

[Desven]

Just as an addition, here are the arcade sprites. As far as ugly sprites go, I think the current ones arcades are the biggest offender.

 

[Marlon P.]

These look good. 

[Desven]

I updated the battlemonsters machine to match ours. Will upload a pic later.

[MattAtlas]

After some discussion between maintainers following community response, we've chosen to merge this PR. To solve the inconsistency issue we've outlined, we've also ironed out that the perspective we want to move towards is indeed 3/4ths, considering that most of the current SS13 servers use it. Do note however that it'll probably be a long process and will need our own resprites of a lot of things (walls and doors, for example).

[greenjoe]

1 hour ago, MattAtlas said:

walls and doors, for example

Would these walls be baystation-style, with the triangular shape for perspective?

[Rabid Animal]

Pulled from a reddit thread, for visual reference. 

[greenjoe]

I'm quite a fan of those tall walls, though I know opinions on those differ quite a lot

[Carver]

I'd say Infra works best out of those walls, but it also requires some particular talent in regard to spriting.

[Desven]

Two new PRs in the same spirit:

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/12428

Jukeboxes

https://github.com/Aurorastation/Aurora.3/pull/12430

Lockers

 

Not exactly sure about the future of walls and such. I've discussed this a lot with 50n00b and others, and I think the infra/tall walls look the best. What I don't like about slate walls is that they look weird sideways.

[Zelmana]

The issue with true 3/4 is not showing side walls. Say goodbye to posters, terminals, and anything on half of the wall surfaces. It'd require whole remaps.

[greenjoe]

true 3/4 walls can show stuff like wall machines with new sprites made for em, as seen in that example picture, though, yes, other things like posters and signs are problematic...

[Rabid Animal]

RE: things on walls:

This is why the top down style has persisted on many servers, and why the slanted walls became the compromise - and frankly wind up being the better choice in context.

Tall looks the best on its own, but you'd need directional vendors to make up for sudden importance of perspective. Seems you'd have to redo all the doors by hand if you wanted them. The map has to be designed with this perspective in mind to look any good, and lets be real -nbt isn't gonna be scrapped and redone for the sake of aesthetics. IE. it'll look just as bad as before, for entirely different reasons. Which is part of the argument I made in the original PR so, bam.

[Scheveningen]

Tall looks much easier to emulate, not to mention it still appears aesthetically appealing sufficiently enough to be worth investing some level of spriter effort in changing things around.

[Desven]

3 hours ago, Scheveningen said:

Tall looks much easier to emulate, not to mention it still appears aesthetically appealing sufficiently enough to be worth investing some level of spriter effort in changing things around.

Actually, tall is probably the hardest. I've spent a lot of time looking at the examples; the wall is taller than 32 pixels, so it's higher than the player and items. You have to create a transparency effect when next to it. It's possible at the moment, but janky.

[Carver]

Tall feels 'too much', what with the visually overtaking surrounding tiles. Infra, at least in the example image, looks to be very nice when done with a clean and quality aesthetic. Fits the 32x32 of Byond but doesn't break the proper 3/4 perspective.

[Butterrobber202]

I’d personally go with slanted so we can continue to slap shit on walls. But honestly top down doesn’t bother me at all.

[Alberyk]

We are not changing the perspective of the walls and windows due to the nbt map. It is nearly done.

[Rabid Animal]

New vendors look terrible in walls. Would avoid mapping them in walls if possible, particularly if new walls to match that style are off the table - though I doubt new walls would really fix it anyways.