search

Warzone2100 / warzone2100

Command the forces of The Project in a battle to rebuild the world after mankind has been nearly destroyed by nuclear missiles. A 100% free and open source real-time strategy game for Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD+
https://wz2100.net
GNU General Public License v2.0
3.15k stars 520 forks source link

Mini-maps are incorrectly shaded #1006

Open aco4 opened 4 years ago

aco4 commented 4 years ago

Describe the bug The minimap in the bottom right corner is shaded with the light source at the bottom of the map. This makes mountains look like valleys, and valleys look like mountains.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

  1. Start a skirmish game
  2. Look at the map, specifically ramps/mountains
  3. See issue

Expected behavior The maps should be shaded with the light source at the top of the map.

Screenshots or Videos This video explains the illusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7C318DGB38 This is what current shading looks like: https://i.imgur.com/pN0c8Xb.jpg (Notice the circled areas, they look like bumps. When the mapped is flipped: https://i.imgur.com/e3wRnDf.jpg (Now, the bumps look like craters, which is what they are.)

Your System:

Additional context None

bjorn-ali-goransson commented 3 years ago

@berserkingyadis do you agree on this?

@KJeff01 @past-due @perim

berserkingyadis commented 3 years ago

Hmm i think this is a very subjective thing. Not sure if I would judge it actionable.

johan-boule commented 3 years ago

Yeah, the map shows the way things would really look from far above rather than a symbolic representation. Sun comes from south-west in WZ, because it looks better this way. So, at least the map and the main 3D view are coherent.

bjorn-ali-goransson commented 3 years ago

We would need a PR to test this in order to decide tbh.

bjorn-ali-goransson commented 3 years ago

Note that the light source is N-NW on these reference images:

image

image

KJeff01 commented 3 years ago

Why would A Link to the Past hold any form of bearing on a completely different game and genre, or any game for that matter? Games can do their own thing if they want. Our current sun position is perfect with a due North camera as the default.

Take note the mini-map is correctly showing the light sources as they appear on the map themselves. Dark areas of the map represent real dark areas on the mini-map. What this "issue" suggests is a mirror effect against the real map... which makes no sense to me other than wanting to change things for the sake of a perspective.

bjorn-ali-goransson commented 3 years ago

Can we add a contested label? ;)

So you're saying the map would accurately reflect the changes if we were to move the suns position?

Also, nothing wrong with wanting to see a map-style minimap, as opposed to a realistic miniature, tbh. It'a matter of opinion, and if someone wants to have a go at modifying it, it could theoretically be toggled with a keypress.

Den mån 21 sep. 2020 19:04KJeff01 notifications@github.com skrev:

Why would A Link to the Past hold any form of bearing on a completely different game and genre, or any game for that matter? Games can do their own thing if they want. Our current sun position is perfect with a due North camera as the default.

Take note the mini-map is correctly showing the light sources as they appear on the map themselves. Dark areas of the map represent real dark areas on the mini-map. What this "issue" suggests is a mirror effect against the real map... which makes no sense to me other than wanting to change things for the sake of a perspective.

— You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/Warzone2100/warzone2100/issues/1006#issuecomment-696221394, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAFDEAGZYPVFFYSUJ3S5ZWTSG54IDANCNFSM4OPZ5ZRA .

berserkingyadis commented 3 years ago

We have a "state: please discuss" label which seems to fit here :)

aco4 commented 1 year ago

Can this issue be reopened?

Previous discussion argues that the mini-map realistically represents dark and light areas on the actual map, so it should remain as it is. Or, the mini-map shading is merely an aesthetic choice.

I disagree with both of these points. Read the following excerpt:

In fact, the mountain or valley illusion is so strong that shaded relief maps of the northern hemisphere generally show light coming from the north, a direction the sun never actually shines in most of those places. Cartographers are more than willing to put the sun in a physically impossible position to ensure that they accurately communicate the geographic features they're mapping. —The "Mountain Or Valley?" Illusion

As you can see, placement of the light source on a relief map is not subjective. It is widely accepted that the light source is always placed at the top. Thus, the current mini-map shading in Warzone 2100 is an error, not a matter of opinion.

mirror176 commented 11 months ago

TLDR: yes there is an optical illusion that people suffer from, intermittently can overcome it, and its not guaranteed to be fixed by lighting from the top. Read below for details, workarounds, fixes, etc. Though I typed this mostly as direct response to aco4's latest post, others can benefit and it may impact development if acting on any of the information. No offense intended to anyone, though I disagree that Warzone is an error unless it is decided that the radar is an artistic shaded relief map instead of an overhead imagery representation and get into other errors a little bit if that is the case.

As someone who 1. sees the bumps as craters by default and 2. can switch which way I see it in my head, I disagree that it is clear cut with alternatives having to be wrong. Yes, research shows there is an optical illusion to contend with, but same research shows that it is less of an issue as more detail beyond 'artistic work' is added including such terrain features as snow, rivers/lakes, etc. They also talk of a bias for deciding if something is a peak vs valley instead of just being the direction it is lit. The article I link shows that it was not something always known and done, and I have found reviewing some shaded relief maps I have still don't reflect that only 1 direction is in use. Further issues come up when considering if it is artistic created shaded relief maps vs satellite; satellite imagery doesn't attempt to fight the sun's location to follow such conventions (though they 'could' re-illuminate imagery to change that, I haven't seen it done after reviewing several satellite and aerial imagery providers).

Rather than just listening to a youtube video for education about how shaded relief maps are always lit from the top that gives wikipedia as its source which actually states in its few words that it is lit from the left normally, another that vaguely mentions the illusion, and a 3rd being a now expired link to a source that fixed a bottom left lit image by rotating it to top right lighting (contradicting previous wikipedia article that it needs to be top left lit if ignoring the rest of it which mentions only left as I previously stated), scientific studies of who gets what right seem more fun so it is time for a link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17538947.2018.1447030 and as a challenge, its also fun to ask 'what did they do wrong' on these. Further reading is available through sources that research mentioned.

A couple of current workarounds:

Workarounds not currently available based on ideas I haven't yet found suggested and didn't yet report myself: make the radar view a 3d plane that we can rotate that has hills elevated on it; fixes #3268 as now we just draw a rectangle in the 3d plane to represent current view of the larger map and makes map able to be sorted by visualizing depth while rotating it. I have no 3d headset for my computer but if supported by the game then such a 3d radar would have a real depth in its visibility as it would likely be represented close to the users' face. Another solution would be an expansion of allowing radar to be always fixed to north and spin view window around inside it as camera rotates; having that be acceptable to you would require a 'south is up' option applied so that it cannot slip as you spin camera.

What would be better than saying "I'm particularly susceptible to this optical illusion and want the game to stop representing things as an accurate overhead model of the lit terrain and give me something easier for my head to sometimes (once again that article describes related research says people don't consistently ever get it right or wrong) see it as intended", why not propose adding an 'additional' radar representation with such an optical illusion corrected on it or just an average shaded relief model with the correction but no care about overhead imagery accuracy? Admittedly, it'll be very weird if the sun moves with camera rotation so the radar rotation needs to be fixed or people need to accept the artifact of how it changes, but such a map option may also have its uses. If we get such a map as additional instead of as a replacement, people have choices of what tool they want/prefer to use.

In a related area, we could have a game setting of which maps are able to be hotkey rotated though if we had 'too many' so we can avoid accidentally activating any undesired models (confusing, or other reasons) or filtering down to our most preferred choices.

On a similar topic, but offtopic, why doesn't the sun move? It takes me hours to research a tech tree in skirmish if I play with late game tech; it won't be the same time of day throughout that process. Campaign takes longer but it could be debated that campaign 'breaks' allow us to resume orders at the same time the next day so maybe less movement. Anyways, that + night mode are for other suggestion reports to add more graphical variety to the game like night and dawn/dusk gameplay just like adding weather to gameplay. Depending where future campaign missions end up being on the world, will we move the sun accordingly? We could already slightly alter it for the different campaign stages we have.

mirror176 commented 11 months ago

As a correction, options>radar=fixed will lock radar but just to a north=up and doesn't describe that detail