Populate the underwater areas with unused water sprites

[King of Worms]

We have the texture archives 105 and 106:

105 consists of 11 static underwater sprites
106 consists of 2 static sprites and 5 animated sprites

Id like to see them scattered in the lakes/sea areas as well as in flooded dungeon parts
And opened for modding/upscaling

If u aim for realism than:
Sprites elegible for sea usage - all

Sprites elegible for sunken dungeon parts - 105_5-0 to 105_10-0 IMO even 1-0 and 2-0 can be used.
Whole 106 archive

Sprites elegible for lake usage - whole 105 archive but 2,3,4. Whole 106 archive but 5-0


Especially those animated water bubbles, see weeds and such are beautiful! But the statics are nice as well!

Its sad this artwork is not used anywhere in game.

[BansheeXYZ]

It's pretty clear they weren't used because there isn't any depth to oceans. Starfish, reef plants, anchors... these are things that would exist on a seabed, not an inside pool blocked from sunlight and ship access.

[King of Worms]

90% of those sprites in the mentioned archives will look good in sunken dung parts and open oceans are in DFU (or at least were at one point of time)

So the point u want to raise here is that u named a few sprites of 10s which dont fit in sunken dungeons? Thanks for expanding the list than.

[BansheeXYZ]

I mean... I only count 18 and plants need sunlight to exist. Even the silt piles are green with algae, and some of them have what look like seashells, seastars, and shipwreck fragments. It would look odd in dungeons, but if someone made an ocean depth mod, they look made for that.

[King of Worms]

Yes, only some fit in the dungeons mate, I get it. Thanks for reminding the obvious twice.

[Baler]

I really like this idea. I'd like to think this could be the foundation for future custom underwater object art.
Give buoyancy and water breathing some more merit in the world. Under water dungeons/caverns. Sunken cities.
Of course I'm getting ahead of myself. I'd like to see this happen.

[Adrinus]

For the ocean tiles at least, I imagine you could get things to spawn in the way the flats for trees and plants are placed.

I reckon the sea-level is exactly the same height in all parts of the game-world. So you would have to get the generation algorithm to only place things below that level. I haven't looked at the code, but I reckon a similar algorithm is used to keep trees from spawning below that line.

[Ommamar]

D

[Sirellyn]

Was thinking of getting to doing a heightmap mod for the ocean areas and populating them waay down the road.
If someone else is planning on this, great! I suspect the current heightmaps lowest point is sea level, meaning you'd need a completely new (reverse) height map for the water areas.
Populating them with random underwater flora is trivial. Making it more intelligent will be a bit harder. And adding locations may be tricky.

[King of Worms]

Was thinking of getting to doing a heightmap mod for the ocean areas and populating them waay down the road.
If someone else is planning on this, great! I suspect the current heightmaps lowest point is sea level, meaning you'd need a completely new (reverse) height map for the water areas.
Populating them with random underwater flora is trivial. Making it more intelligent will be a bit harder. And adding locations may be tricky.

Would be really cool indeed