CAVE WALLS

[Primalflower]

one of the best features that I think was dropped from don't starve in all of it's life I think was the cave walls. The cave walls for those who don't know were a feature that was in while the caves were in beta, and were just that.

 

This is what the cave walls looked like when they were first introduced. Later on they got touched up a bit before being ultimately removed. Of course, the cave walls during this point didn't look very good, but as far as i'm concerned it was the first few steps into the caves, actually feeling like they were caves. The caves as of now as you all know just sorta have endless voids in places of what is impassable territory. this doesn't feel to me like anything close to a cave. I think cave walls, implemented in a more developed way (smoothened edges, better way to show where you are aside from just a small circle around you, more textures that make the transition from ground to wall more natural, stuff like that. 

I definitely think that Cave walls have the capability to look good and enhance the experience of being in caves, by virtue of it theoretically making the player feel more like they're in a cave instead of a dark realm with mushrooms.

[maciu67]

Im my opinion caves with "abyss" have more dark and mysterious atmosphere. Walls make claustrophobic look and the exploration is almost impossible.

[Auth]

Even with more improved textures, their square nature is incredibly jarring. They block a lot of view, they are incredibly claustrophobic especially on bridge areas, and they caused performance issues back when they originally existed, apparently. All in all, I don't think they're worth it. The caves being isolated plateaus with a deeper abyss beneath has a much spookier vibe anyway, and is able to make the whole thing place look darker by extension.

[Primalflower]

On 9/2/2019 at 4:51 PM, Auth said:

Even with more improved textures, their square nature is incredibly jarring. They block a lot of view, they are incredibly claustrophobic especially on bridge areas, and they caused performance issues back when they originally existed, apparently. All in all, I don't think they're worth it. The caves being isolated plateaus with a deeper abyss beneath has a much spookier vibe anyway, and is able to make the whole thing place look darker by extension.

Caves are supposed to be sorta claustrophobic, and i think them being flat isnt much a problem if the entire world is such as well. I think it would look fine, all i would want in terms of their shape is for their corners to be rounded out a little. 

[maradyne]

Less boxy looking cave walls are achievable by applying a repeating texture transparent on the edges (just like Turf is applied) rather than solid squares.
How walls would look isn't really a concern. The previous graphics were an early placeholder.
Performance can be worked on; the caves already have vertical textures on the land edges, just like the overworld (the portion displayed on cliffs, underneath the Turf layer). Basically, there's no need to add anything as far as new texture faces go; we're just moving existing faces upward. There should be little difference.

The big concern here is how their display affects gameplay; if you can't see what's near the bottom part of the turf, how do you know to interact with it? Camera turning at random to navigate is...generally bad. And there are situations where you'll still have trouble seeing through solid objects everywhere.
...my first thought it to do it Hamlet-style. Only display certain walls at camera angles that would place them 'at the back', and cover up the bottom turf edges with less blocking textures.

This mod might also be of interest. Makes it possible to see through the currently present 'pillar' elements of the caves (pillars, entrances, stone columns), without actually removing them.

[I_Link_I]

I think the main reason why walls were removed was because they blocked the view.

I think that not being abled to look around corners (without rotating the camera) and getting abushed by enemys would be quite anoying