Engraving

xTATTEREDx  · +FINE+  · *SUPERIOR*  · ≡EXCEPTIONAL≡  · ☼MASTERWORK☼

v50.14 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF. Note that some content may still need to be updated. More Info · V

A dwarf eating cheese

The process of engraving smoothed walls and floors increases their value further, and gives them a quality level. Engravings made with a quality of << -well-crafted- >> and higher will usually be in reference to previous events. Unlike furniture, engravings won't give passing dwarves happy thoughts. You can examine the contents of an engraving by pressing k->Enter

Any natural tiles composed of non-[SOIL] material can be smoothed and then engraved, even slade and the materials that exist in geological layers only as a result of a glitch. Engraved ice is called 'Sculpted Ice'.

Process

You can only engrave smoothed natural floors and walls. The material the tile is composed of has no effect on the process of engraving, but soil tiles cannot be smoothed beforehand and thus cannot be engraved. Once the area has been smoothed, you may designate it to be engraved using d-e. The dwarf must have the Stone Detailing labor active. You cannot engrave constructed floors or walls.

Once a tile is designated, the theme or content of the engraving can be selected using d-D; otherwise it is left to the choice of the engraver performing the job.

Engravings are directional--only the side the engraving dwarf stood on will receive the engraving value bonus. There is no way to engrave more than one side of a single wall tile.

Using only highly-skilled engravers will result in high-quality engravings, and therefore higher room and fortress value. One way to achieve this is to have a limited number of dwarves with the Stone Detailing labour active, smooth large areas of the fortress until the dwarves are experienced and then have those same dwarves engrave.

Toggling

Engravings can either be obscured or not obscured. If they are not obscured, the tile used to draw the engraved wall or floor will attempt to represent the content of the engraving. If they are obscured, they will look similar to smoothed stone. Sticklers for uniformity will likely want to make their engravings uniform. There are two ways to toggle obscured/not obscured:

• d_init.txt has an entry called ENGRAVINGS_START_OBSCURED, which can be set to either YES or NO.
• While playing, one can designate engravings to be toggled (d->v).

Removal

Floor engravings of unsatisfactory quality and/or content (e.g. Carvings of elephants mauling dwarves) can be removed by designating the carving of minecart Tracks over them. The tracks can then be removed by smoothing the stone, which results in fresh smooth stone tiles ready for another attempt at engraving. Floor engravings can also be removed by placing and removing a construction or a paved road. Note that this takes much longer than engraving and smoothing over a track. It will also leave behind a floor made of the surrounding layer material, which can undo the work invested in creating non-layer floors, e.g. through obsidian casting or cave-ins.

Floor engravings can be removed by allowing magma to flow over them. The tiles will revert to their smooth form.

Using either method to erase a masterwork engraving will cause an unhappy thought in the artist who engraved it, as will mining a wall with a masterpiece on it.

Building and removing constructions or roads will not remove engravings in ice floors. They can be removed by engraving and smoothing track.

Effects on room value

Dwarves never actually look at engravings - they simply take their perceived value into account when evaluating the value of a particular room.

For example, if a picture in a dwarf's bedroom has a "value" of 100☼, then it will make said bedroom worth 100☼ more. If the dwarf likes whatever the picture is depicting, he might decide that it's worth 150☼ to him (and consider the room to be more valuable than another dwarf would). If the dwarf dislikes the picture, though, he might decide that it's worth only 10☼ and subsequently complain that his room is substandard (if he happens to be a noble).

Bugs

While the quality rating of engravings on ice walls is shown properly, the quality of engravings on ice floors is not shown when looking at a tile with k, only when hitting enter to inspect the engraving. This gives the false impression that engraved ice floors have no quality levels. In addition, the engravings are described as "engraved on the wall" instead of "on the floor".