Bay 12 Games Forum

Hmm, well then I suppose I should whip up a low-rez version to go along with the standard "vanilla" one.  Fancy tiles are a no-go at lower rez, I'm afraid.  Not enough space to really get enough detail to make it worth it.

Currently Pts is a...I think it is a material tile.  No worries: still six left.

@ Battlecat: Indeed, something "strandier" is ideal, but it is hard to get such small tiles to look that way convincingly.  I'd prefer something fibrous, like asbestos...hey wait a second...asbestos is a crystal naturally, that happens to be fibrous when processed...maybe I can use that to my advantage...and flair.

me\ actually thought of that while typing

"Wait...you built a working model of Isengard out of mushroom wood and...what the hell is this?  Soap?"

Oh, okay, that makes sense, about the version thing.  Hmmm.

So I recolored metals and reassigned trees with the different tiles.  Tomorrow is all the little vermin, animals, and plants.  Then a sit-back and assessment of what tiles are left after things have been moved, and some more refactoring of minerals and stones.  There should be room for one more tile for gems and the like.

The metals are recolored, roughly, with the foreground as the primary color of the metal, or the closest the colors can muster, and the background as the oxide of the metal.  So Copper is brown/cyan, Silver is white/dark grey, Gold is...well, yellow/yellow.  Bismuth turned out to be like pink (ish) and blue and black bronze as yellow/purple.  The irons have varying intensities for rust, and I sort of arbitrarily ordered them by carbon content (less carbon, deeper red).  Brass is also arbitrarily brown/dark red.  Adamantine is now light cyan and purple, as I think that looks cooler.  If anyone complains about how a metal that doesn't corrode has a purple patina of some sort, I'll chock it up to a naturally iridescent oxide layer that forms on the surface.  'Cause that is cool.

Still can't think of a good tile for adamantine ore...thinking of one of the veined ones, but I feel it should be something unique so it really pops.  Suggestions?  There are plenty of tile slots left, so I can still add things.

Well, yes, quite soon I will need to distribute a test version to iron out all the wrinkles, as I can not test everything myself in a tileset for a game that generates entire worlds on a regular basis.  Someone is actually trying out an earlier version right now...  So yes, there will have to be a beta (will be a separate topic, mind you).

Latest update on the tiles themselves; a lot of additions, and still like half a dozen tiles left to use (after reassignments).  I am making my way to the home stretch, rows 14/15.

Hmm, never been this pleased with the responses from my modding activities...then again, my other major work was at the AOM Heaven forums, and if you ever frequented those when the game was big, the modding section was brutal.  No one seemed to care for my...'unorthodox'? thoughts on texture and terrain design.  Got worse at Wildfire Games and 0AD...my boss in the art department was color blind.  XML-editing and hex-editing particle system files was much more lucrative, and my only real successes stemmed from that. 

So thanks.

Anyway, things are rollin'.  Finished converting all soils, minerals, and stones over to the new colors and tiles, and those are ready for tests.  Added some things too:

The tree trick I mentioned.  Basically, a tree sprite of the trunk is used for the ground level in a special color (essentially red) that extracts darker tones of brown from bright green, the foreground color.  That colors the block pile sprite the appropriate greens and reds and yellows for the canopy.  Holes in the trunk silhouette allow a background color of straight brown to pick up the highlights on the trunk, and add branches through holes in the silhouette mask of the block pile.  End effect is a tree that, By Armok, looks like a freakin' tree from an aerial perspective.  Tower cap and Glumprong tests are still needed, and sadly this kinda looses something for conifers, but it looks intended so I won't complain.

A warehouse showing some of the furniture/item additions.  Idols and chests have a sprite now, as do totems (tentative, I am unhappy with Idols the most and totems marginally).  Mechanisms are in there too, looking spiffy with a worm gear.  The chests sprite was carefully engineered to look either like a chest from above, the top of a fantasy style backpack with tie-down straps, or a ribbed quiver on its side.

Side note: since light magenta has been toned down, I changed Orthoclase to be pink instead of yellow (see the stone stockpile), which it can be in reality.  Thought it would be nice to have all the colors at least represented better.

Housing.  Included to show the primary native metals tile ("nodules") and the grooviness of native copper with patina instead of light gray as its background.  Turns out engraved walls use the background color of the material, and not light gray as I had assumed.  Floor tiles had the black area increased to provide better contrast as per Solifuge's observation.  It still needs work as some stones have issues on the contrast of their new colors (like this obsidian).

The mansion again, but chests are proper now.  Added contrast to all furniture, too.  The hall on the right shows the tweaked floor in a more typical color combination, providing pretty good depth.

The treasury vault, annexed to the Mayor's accommodations.  Included simply for the coin vault so you get the idea of the sprite en mass and the lever right now.  Pretty convincing, I think.

PTTG??: I was considering making a diagonals version, since that is like, fifteen minutes to whip up and everyone has their preference on the issue of corners in the tileset.  A sharp version will also see it through, with no angles save 90 degrees.

Nice thing about these is that, as future screenies will show, the little details of the shape of each section interact in ways that add a lot of depth and variety.  For instance, the corners are square on the inside, so a square smoothed room is indeed square, and the beveled exterior looks angular.  But, smooth a 2x2 column and engrave and suddenly the same tiles are almost perfectly circular.  The flutes at the ends of each section add ribbing in straightaways, but lead the eye into scalloped cutouts when a 1x1 column is added to the wall.

I should stop ranting...I like this set too much.

Huh...works fine on my end.  Can't fix what the browser says isn't broken.  Maybe a server timeout?

Quickie update: Proof-of-concept with the trees is done, just need to lay out the form it will take.  Several hardcoded tiles converted to full sprite-esque glory, a list of recolorings and retilings for all stone layers, soils, and general stones compiled, with a total of 12 tiles dedicated to stones and soils and minerals drawn up and ready to go (four of these are also the hard-coded tiles for flows, hills on the world map, and savanna, since they can easily do double duty).  Half a dozen trees and 6-8 plants are coming up too.  Gemstone item replacements (3) are ready to go.  Two ore item tiles and one natural fuel item tile are next on the list once material tests are done.  After that, there should still be a boat-load of space for more fun stuff...

More screenies:

Siege engines: adding a little wood grain and some ancillary supports to the siege engine tiles gives them a nice, beefy timber look.
My current countess's overly opulent quarters.  Beds and cabinets are now updated, with attention to making the cabinets still resemble a fortress for the map while still looking like furniture and matching the style of the rest of the furniture.  There are two in the bedroom on the left, one in white.

Thanks y'all for the accolades.  It keeps the development going.