05-03-2012, 02:25 AM
2D3D392D012D384C0 wrote:
Yes, I can very well imagine how that added up to a pretty frustrating bunch of work.... and that you eventually ran out of time and nerves to continue....
It's probably not as bad as I made it sound. It was a load of work, but a lot of it was self-imposed. I didn't have to by hyper critical about the L6 issues, and a lot of it definitely got easier with practice. I learned a heck of a lot about when and when L6 should probably be used. My own personal take on it is that if it can't be used convincingly and well, then it's more trouble than it's worth - similar to 3D used in movies. Otherwise it's irritating and takes you out of the game.
The admins did *none* of the things I described with the custom mansions. These sorts of changes were to be left to designers if they felt they needed them. They were things that largely amounted to eye candy and were not deal-breakers.
The one I worry most about is the new shadows. Very wisely only enabled it when the Black background was used. So, this will cut out a lot of ways in which it could look horrible. I *mostly* like the new shadows, though there are places where you need to be careful as a designer.
Let's say you have the same
flattile used in multiple layers (Layer 1 and Layer 6 and/or Layer 4) You might do this if you want to make some object
invisible- coins, keys, etc. In the game if game generated shadows are active in that room, it will spoil the illusion, unless the tiles are black on black. The layers that are hiding the object will cast a shadow. The newest Builder (that only works on Snow Leopard and earlier provides you with an option to disable the shadows.
The only other way shadows are a nuisance will be if you have a very carefully designed mansion with lots of painted shadows. It can be awful to see all that work marred by the generated shadows. Generally, having game generated shadows saves a lot of design time, and looks pretty good - in some ways better than hand-painted ones, and in some ways worse.