Visuals vs Written

It would be helpful to be able to tag some written things like how the menu in the inn is set for things meant as art. With it being pre-implementation for painting, I ran into a bit of realizations after a character couldn't read one of the creations, alongside not remembering which language some art was 'drawn' in.

Another suggestion is related to papermotes, it would be awesome if they effected the short description on things instead of looking at something to see if it is papermoted before reading it. And if we can set stains etc on papermotes as the helpfile says, we could use them to title or label papers/parchments a little easier in short descriptions.

An example of how it currently goes:

papermote page folded as a crude star
Paper description set.

look page
a page torn from a book
This is a small note of parchment.

< folded as a crude star>

How I imagine it as something in a short description like this:

a page torn from a book folded as a crude star

How I imagine using it to label something:

a page torn from a book labeled 1

a page torn from a book titled Stupid Puns in very large text

As I'm hoping to implement PC artwork soon, primarily thanks to Ighlaf's influence as an active participant in the game world, I'd love to hear player thoughts and suggestions on some of the details that I've yet to work out.
 

A few points regarding the stuff I'm thinking about...

• We do want to have characters able to make dyes and inks.
  • These could be used both for textiles and painting/writing.
  • But is this going to be a separate skill? We put in the Dyeing skill due to thinking about this, but it currently has no abilities.
• While I'm not sure about papermotes showing in the sdesc (as they might be too long for that), I like the idea of being able to change the sdesc of a piece of paper as more than just 'folded'.
  • But it would have to not include any readable text, like a title or label, because of language and literacy barriers.
• We currently have a way to add 'decoration' to objects. This would be doodling on the margins or a map, or painting a mural on a wall, or these kinds of things. Some decoration would be 'washable' and some would not (carving your initials onto a doorframe for example). These might take different abilities (etch vs grafitti).
  • Would art simply be a way to add decoration to things like canvases?
  • If so, how would it handle the canvas sdesc?
  • Ideally, I'd like if the canvas sdesc could be very freely adapted according to a painting, rather than something more limited like a folded-type-of-sdesc adaptation.
• Writing has to be handled different from art, including things like book titles, because it might be in different languages. Someone without any education whatsoever can also not even 'READ' at all, whereas they might easily be able to view a picture (an issue you've run into).
  • We can use different types of decorations concurrently on one object, in order to have both writing and art.
  • But once we've implemented art abilities, we'll need to (?) go back and fix old works of art.
  • We also want to add in the capacity to put small emotes of a sort into written works, something like 'a bunch of scribbles fill up this space between paragraph 1 and paragraph 2'... and that doesn't need to be dependant on language.
  • The framework for this in the code already exists, but the syntax is what I'm still contemplating. Do we make it so any paragraph of text put within two stars (**Some scribbles!**) becomes independent of language to be read?
• How do we include different colors of paint?
  • Again, I'd like not to limit artists too much when it comes to this -- what I'm thinking of right now is that maybe the objective dyes and inks in different specific hues become the 'color theme' for the painting, but we're not limiting the artist purely to those hues. So you could maybe have a forestal scene where the main color themes are blue, brown, and green -- but you're perfectly free to desc a crow in a tree branch, even though it's black and maybe you don't have any black ink used in your art piece.
  • Or, should we have it so that actual mechanical colors show up on the page, and you have to dip your brush or quill or whatever, much like writing, and whatever color paint you use becomes that paragraph's color? Should these colors show up as actual colors, maybe with an extra text indication for visually impaired users -- or should they always only be the text indication? And then you can theoretically desc whatever bit of art you want for this paragraph, but it's being clearly and visibly done in this specific color?

I'm going to drop a bunch of links here of how another game does it! I quite enjoy it, and I think the system provides enough variety that it really frees up player expression. In that game, ASCII is totally banned. Here's some art from Silent Heaven:

Complaints

Spores

Silly Bobblehead

Empurpling

Tribute

Chaos

Wildfire

Breaker of Faces

Four of these are references to major events/RPTs that happened in game; Chaos, Breaker of Faces, the Bobblehead, and Spores. Two of them are sort of emotional character studies, and one's a tribute to Akira Toriyama. They're all very different in style. I really like what we can get done over at Silent Heaven with art. There's some limitations, but people do a lot with it. Some of them I like less than others(I'm super not a fan of gradients, but Breaker of Faces definitely had a lot of work put in and references a really characterful moment).

Obviously we aren't sent into an editor when we make writings in-game right now; should we be? I dunno. But I do like the ability to set a speciific color to certain entries. I think artists should just have the ability to make their own dyes and paints; that should be part of the skillset, to me.

EDIT TO ADD:
%555This bobblehead figure depicts a skeleton with %401menacing ruby eyes %555and a partially unhinged jaw to provide a teeth chattering effect when bobbling. The most eye-catching part of this bobblehead is the realistic %400arti%410st's %540palet%040te of%025 oil %105paint%102s %555resting in its left hand paired with a %210paintb%201rush di%301pped in%300 red oi%400l paint %555in the right hand. The painted on clothing consists of a %125pair of %540pai%040nt-st%400ain%423ed %125jeans, %310brown work boots, and a %242paint %145spla%513tte%303red art %555smock. A small collection of paintbrush heads in varying colors is present, able to replace the red oil paint covered brush. %155Etched onto the bottom of the stand is 'Series 1, #4' and right below that, 'Artist Host'.

What you'd post in-game to make the 'bobblehead.'

Grinning reading the replies on my other post and this one. Thank you for many thoughts!

• Alternative ideas I have as to who can create instead of the separate dyeing skill; ink craftable with education, ink and dye craftable by painters, and dye craftable by tailors. Unless someone also really, really likes the idea of dye making for those characters which would be cool too, and have all of the above.
• I totally didn't think about language requirements for papermotes trying to title things. I do keep thinking about throwing paperplanes at people using pages. (Or wing them into other rooms.)
• Freely adaptable ones do sound more fun. I also ponder what useage higher skill in painting do. Failures could lead to smudges or disruption of the text, or I also imagined a painter attempting portraits of descriptions as a whole of room or characters, and lower rolls capture less of the details or garble that hair style or plant. What would painting 1 do vs painting 10 in it skill? Different types of painting could be 'crafted' at different skills levels, possibly, but I also like the idea of someone with little painting knowledge having a go at a portrait and getting stick figures. Possible speed of erase times with higher skill? (When I makes mistakes then go haha two minutes later forgetting the time it takes.) Can craft more of a big batch of dye?
• Small emotes in written works with ** sounds doable and understandable. I'm assuming applying whatever old arts of work would be a pain coding wise. I think I will keep that in mind and possibly do a text log of writing to recreate once implemented. (Art given to others would be the complication.)
• Different paint colors has been the top of my mind thinking about all this. On one hand, I want all the colors and my character does too. On the other hand, some pigments like shellfish and venom sourced ones aren't easy or cheap to get. I would assume for that reason isn't easily player craftable but do create a reason to travel or get the money for them. (Sirdabi green and Kholabin)
• I like the option of the freedom to choose mechanical colours or not, alongside the extra text indication for visually impaired players. I think the SH concepts look really neat, and maybe after a artist/tailor has purchased or made a certain colour they can set the mechanical colours to pop or dye things in the case of tailors? Here again I think of rarity of some colours but also tracking could be a big pain unless only applied to rare things. I will admit I would not want to stick to only mechanical because possibly not wanting to write it out every time.
• Crafting recipes for colors: We have a few of the base ingredients needed for making paints or dye both with eggs, milk, vinegar and animal fat. Now, technically the actual usage times of those is minutes to days after being made depending on which and includes more ingredients, but handwaved for fun and crafting. The recipes could be simplied to enough for basic colours and we assume an individual can combine them for the bulk of colours, and create a palette with a limited use for painting. And somehow fit rare colours in other types, somehow. I figure a tailor would be boiling a big ol' pot or have a vat for their textiles, so maybe they would make a different kind of collection with a certain amount of uses. Some fabrics might only take well to certain colours, thinking of the wiki entry on a sheep wool that is really good with dye Cape Sorrow - Avaria (songofavaria.com)

Some further thoughts, locking things to only dyes or colors undermines the fun I have thinking of art I can do with supplies and creativity on hand, or decorating, but perhaps craftable custom recipes for rp purposes to prop up creative effort. Doing it with scarce supplies is half the fun with being inspired by new finds in the world, so I imagine an artist controlled palette of sorts we can add favourite colours we want to use (or feel we have crafted or would have purchased/accessed/) with the ability to unlock those very rare/expensive ones, alongside rping using what they have found for decorations.

I love the idea of curating a palette. 

Some pigments might be very difficult to make and require a lot of technical knowledge in the field of dyeing -- also, I reviewed my past conversation with Mistsparrow on this stuff and there's a lot of lore regarding certain dyes as well as the general profession of the dyer, whose work is sometimes gross and messy -- making it a lower-class sort of scorned profession (while at the same time being super cool due to all the colors!)... A lot like leather working, in some ways. (But maybe not quite that gross.) There's even a super lorified and super cool guild that is based off dyeing work (blue dyes in particular).

Something like making oak gall ink should be doable with education (Mistsparrow and I discussed that one too), or making some basic tempura-style paint with art, or like using berry juice to dye some fabric with weaving, etc. I'm still thinking about that, at least. Maybe it should be a combo ability with low level dyeing + the other craft skill, because that represents the class of people who might for instance dabble in stylish paints but certainly never get their hands dirty with the rabble in the actual making of those paints, as well as someone who might specialize in painting and making paints but not have much of an inkling when it comes to dying fabrics.

It's interesting to also take into account mixing paints. If someone has some version of the three basic primary colors they should be able to make all the other basic colors through painting skill alone, I would think. And I believe that once implemented, a basic palette like this should be available to purchase in most places. Even barbarian villages like St Loomis.

The blue dyes on the wiki are what had me thinking not every color would be available, and dye making can be super smelly. I feel a combo ability would be nice along with some using those colors and someone willing to produce them. Primary colours are what I was pondering either as part of creating a personal palette (or purchasing.)

Figured I would keep adding to this thread with feedback/sketch ideas. Woo sketches!

• Looking at current sketches it shows if a specific implement was used 'using a silver-nibbed aquamarine glass pen dipped in dark bluish-black ink:' which reads a little oddly. Same for charcoal. 'using a vine-shaped chunk of charcoal:'
• It would be neat to be able to choose what type of materials shows in the sketch description. I do currently mention them in the drawings themselves, but something like primarily drawn with ink and some charcoal, or drawn with blueish-black ink and charcoal in the same lines mentioned above.
• If there are words on the page, I noticed it refers to the sketch 'There is also a drawing to LOOK at.' but if the page is blank from words, it doesn't give the look hint currently. Looking at something drawn with words read fine as it mentions there is some writing.

Awesome ideas, and super helpful/timely feedback since I'm hoping to polish up the rest of the half-finished art stuff next. I was daydreaming that it'd be easy to add language into sdescs but I don't think it actually will be... anyway that's a bit of a tangent, just working on the LABEL ability right now. The issue is that when getting something's sdesc we don't incorporate the 'looker' every single time. And if I was going to use a different method to incorporate the looker for *reading* the label, then I'd have to change the several thousand times that sdescs are referenced without incorporating the looker... and normally this wouldn't be a problem, but I can see it leading to some issues if someone catches a glimpse of a book's title or something in a language they're really not supposed to know. And also it could add more lag to go through an entire long method for checking languages every time we want something's sdesc. So putting written words into sdescs is probably going to be something for the far future, if ever. Wow, sorry, I really went off on that tangent.

Anyway! We can definitely polish up the way materials show, but probably won't leave the materials to be defined free-form. You can sketch on the same drawing with different objects -- and add more levels of detail, just the way you'd do with a drawing IRL, similar to the way that writing works in-game right now. I like this immersive feeling of kind of working on something in real time and fiddling with it and touching it up while being able to roleplay with people concurrently, rather than being stuck in a menu or editor. This feels much better to me, and of course I'm selfish.  I also think it's a good balance between requiring hard mechanics to do something (like colors of paint), and giving some freeform stylistic freedom, and feeling slow and immersed in producing an end result. What I will probably do with this is.... if you're using a pen/quill/brush to sketch, it'll show whatever it's dipped in... (paint, ink, etc)... and if you're using charcoal it'll show either 'vine charcoal' or 'charcoal'. 

And thanks for that tip about the look hint!

Both these changes have been fixed and should be in with the next reload, hopefully later tonight.

Ty and ty for fixes! I enjoyed reading the tangent on the labels.

So far I haven't spent a lot of time giving the sketches different layers when using both ink and charcoal, so I sort of imagine the primary material is the one used more on some of the stuff when creating a paragraph including both. (I'm winging all the drawings tbh.)

As far as working and fiddling with something in real time, it may be helpful to have a confirmation step on writings or drawings before they get put to paper. Writing does have the erase function, and sometimes I've created a spacing error or spelling error I don't realize until it has already been put to paper. I'm not sure if they will be intended to be eraseable as art, but giving them another pass through with the materials etc feels more realistic than erasing the entire thing.