Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ivanzypher]

I have this idea of messing about with Aseprite for many cold autumn / winter evenings. I want to work on something great and umbral for this game. What do I need to know? Are there resources around for people who want to start making tilesets for this game? Or should I start by hacking one? Which one?

I'm making a colour palette. How many colours does DF support? DF Wiki talks about colour schemes in 16 colours.

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Color_scheme

But Spacefox has many, many colours in its art folder. This is confusing me.

I'm a bit confused at the distinction of tileset and graphics set. Does the tileset just replace the ASCII characters and the graphics set does separate graphics for creatures and so on? So... do all graphics sets use a tileset also? Are they two different things, both of which are needed? How does the game apply a particular graphic from a graphics set to a creature, if it only has 100+ ASCII characters to choose from? Is there a piece of logic that says Hoary Marmot = this bit of a sprite sheet?

And... I see existing tilesets keep the letters a-z. Is this so that in-game text is rendered correctly? But I thought that TWBT did that, so can I use the full set of characters to make a tileset? And how do graphics sets integrate with TWBT, is that a prerequisite as well?

As you can see, I'm confused, and apologetic, for my many noobish questions. I have to emphasise that I'm not averse to reading the wikis and documentation sites in any way... But it's all very deep and long and I just needed a "quickstart fort" guide but, uh, for graphics sets and tilesets.

[Shonai_Dweller]

TWBT (which requires DFhack) does that by enabling the use of seperate sets for text and graphical tiles if you're using it, but people also make tilesets to work with vanilla DF, for which you'll need the letters too all in one set.

When we reach the next release/6-month bug fixing phase, those of us obsessed with playtesting the latest version won't want to hang around for DFhack to update (but might want a pretty tileset to play with).

[fricy]

Are there resources around for people who want to start making tilesets for this game? Or should I start by hacking one? Which one?

Most of the time people start by modifying their favorite set. If you're a purist start with an ASCII (ASCII, Duerer, Wanderlust, Taffer etc.) it's the easiest to install/replace, as you don't need to modify the raws, or you can go for a graphic set, then I'd recommend Phoebus/Spacefox, they are almost identical in their raw modifications. The new kid on the block is TWBT graphics: This dfhack plugin provides the most flexibility, but keep in mind that users will need to use dfhack load the set. The best/most complete TWBT set is Gemset (though buildings/workshops are not complete yet.)

I'm making a colour palette. How many colours does DF support? DF Wiki talks about colour schemes in 16 colours.
But Spacefox has many, many colours in its art folder. This is confusing me.

16. I'm not sure what you mean by many colours in the art folder in Spacefox. Color information is stored in data/init/colors.txt, this tells the game what rgb value it should use for coloring the tiles with color defined. This is different from colors in the tilesheet. You may want to read how to use/abuse this with Tile Magic.

I'm a bit confused at the distinction of tileset and graphics set. Does the tileset just replace the ASCII characters and the graphics set does separate graphics for creatures and so on? So... do all graphics sets use a tileset also?

Yes. Yes. Graphic sets can use any number of spritesheets. I'm lazy, so let me quote BlackFlyme here.

Tilesets are images that the game uses to display the majority of non-creature objects, from terrain on the map to tools and numbers/letters. A tileset image is typically saved within data/art in the Dwarf Fortress directory, and the selection of the tileset is made within the init file.

Graphics are images stored within raw/graphics in the Dwarf Fortress directory. They are used to create images for creatures, and can include many different images for a single creature based on things such as their profession, whether they are a child or infant, or if they are an animated corpse. The definitions for these graphics are done in files that are also saved within raw/graphics.

How does the game apply a particular graphic from a graphics set to a creature, if it only has 100+ ASCII characters to choose from? Is there a piece of logic that says Hoary Marmot = this bit of a sprite sheet?

Tilesets are mapped by the files in raw/objects, and are limited by the ASCII sprites.
Graphics sets use their own configuration files and spritesheets. Check the raw/graphics folder to see how these look like. Only creature graphics are possible, for everything else you are limited by the main tileset. Except of course if you use twbt: then there's a 3rd configuration file in data/init/overrides.txt. Again, check Gemset for examples.

And... I see existing tilesets keep the letters a-z. Is this so that in-game text is rendered correctly? But I thought that TWBT did that, so can I use the full set of characters to make a tileset?

Yes, more or less.

And how do graphics sets integrate with TWBT, is that a prerequisite as well?

As mentioned above graphics use their own config files. Generally speaking creature graphics are not a problem, and they can work with or without twbt if the config file is written correctly.

[AceSV]

The 16 DF colors apply to overlays that are added according to material or profession.  For example, wooden objects will be brown, microcline will be teal, hunters will be green, pump operators will be red, etc.  Of these colors, there are only 16.  When you make a sprite sheet, you can use any number of colors you want. 

[ivanzypher]

Right! Lots of useful information here, thanks a lot!

So, when I make the 256 sprite sheet which corresponds to extended ASCII, the game will colour this depending on the type of item which is allocated to this character (e.g. cherrywood is the same character as uh, I dunno, applewood, if that even exists in the game, but it's a different shade of the 16 base colours). However, I can have another sprite sheet(s) of my own colours and then allocate this in the raws to a particular creature.

So, hmm, let's say that I wanted to represent cherrywood with a sprite cherry.png and let's say that I wanted to represent applewood with ...an apple.png. This isn't possible to do, is it? Because in the game, these would both point to the same character? Or is there a mod for this?

[Sizik]

So, hmm, let's say that I wanted to represent cherrywood with a sprite cherry.png and let's say that I wanted to represent applewood with ...an apple.png. This isn't possible to do, is it? Because in the game, these would both point to the same character? Or is there a mod for this?

Correct. You can only have individually-specified graphics for creatures, everything else pulls from the extended ASCII tileset. A lot of graphics mods work around this by removing accented letters from the languages, so that they can jam more sprites into the tileset, but they still is subject to the 16 colors the game can assign to them.

[AceSV]

Right! Lots of useful information here, thanks a lot!

So, when I make the 256 sprite sheet which corresponds to extended ASCII, the game will colour this depending on the type of item which is allocated to this character (e.g. cherrywood is the same character as uh, I dunno, applewood, if that even exists in the game, but it's a different shade of the 16 base colours). However, I can have another sprite sheet(s) of my own colours and then allocate this in the raws to a particular creature.

So, hmm, let's say that I wanted to represent cherrywood with a sprite cherry.png and let's say that I wanted to represent applewood with ...an apple.png. This isn't possible to do, is it? Because in the game, these would both point to the same character? Or is there a mod for this?

No, because there are no such item as a cherrywood or an applewood to DF.  There are just logs with a material property attached to them. 

I should say, I think you can give certain kinds of items custom graphics, like weapons or finished goods, but I don't know how.