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Author Topic: Bitlands  (Read 67937 times)

DragonDePlatino

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Bitlands
« on: November 16, 2018, 12:15:39 pm »


Bitlands is the first complete 12x18 tileset with full TWBT support. It features over 6,000 overrides which overhauls all of the creatures, tiles, items, plants, minerals and buildings of vanilla Dwarf Fortress. If you include the overrides for animal parts and wall-encased objects, there are well over 50,000 overrides making Bitlands the most comprehensive tileset ever. Bitlands is available in both 1x and 2x versions, with planned future support for workshop graphics.

When I began development on Bitlands, I wanted to answer the question of "what would Dwarf Fortress look like if it had a default tileset?" It needed to be something with the clarity of text, but the extra information tiles provide. Personally, I feel like a lot of tilesets try to fight the ASCII aesthetic and the result is a lot of muddied visual design that produces blocky-looking environments. So I wanted to do something different.

In the end I settled on a 2:3 aspect ratio, same as the default tiles. 8x12 is too small for modern displays and 16x24 was too much work, so I compromised with 12x18 tiles. If you use the 2x version of the tileset then it should fit perfectly on a 1080p monitor. For color, I went with monochrome graphics like ASCII. I think this feels authentic to older PC games and allows users to customize the look of the tileset with their own color files.

Overall, I am very happy with the results and welcome any kind of feedback for future development!


INSTALLATION


Bitlands comes pre-installed with the lastest Win64 version of Dwarf Fortress, DFHack and the TWBT plugin. If you would like to install Bitlands onto a pre-existing save or modded raws, move the "bitlands" folder into either your top-level DF directory (next to the .exe) or directly inside of a save folder. When you run DFPatch, all of the necessary files will be patched.

DFPatch was designed to be reusable, so feel free to use it for your own tilesets. If you would like to port DFPatch to other systems, the source code is available here.


SCREENSHOTS


Spoiler (click to show/hide)


CREDITS


Bitlands would not have been possible without the contribution of these users.

« Last Edit: November 30, 2018, 09:24:50 pm by DragonDePlatino »
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encrusted bucket

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2018, 01:12:44 pm »

cool and good
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sketchesofpayne

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2018, 02:02:09 pm »

Nice work!  Reminds me of Caves of Qud.
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Meph

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2018, 06:09:01 pm »

Yeah, you finished it. :)

The Ascii set to end all Ascii sets.

Quote
with planned future support for workshop graphics.
Would it be a lot of work to make the workshops, just for a preview?  You can try that out ingame with the soap maker. :)

Love the spiral staircase btw. And the trees looks fantastic.

Is that a tiny override bug in the center tile of siege engines? When they are EW aligned, it shows a || in the center, which would fit a NS alignment. Similar sprite on the tail-end of the ballista ammo in a north-facing ballista. Sorry I didn't catch that earlier.
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Mallard

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2018, 09:27:52 pm »

Christmas came early this year! Thank you for all the hard work, it looks amazing!

I've looked through this install instructions, but I'm wondering: is it possible to install this set using the Starter Pack? It looks like there's much more going on than in something like Gemset.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2019, 11:07:29 pm by Mallard »
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isitanos

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2018, 01:24:56 am »

This looks seriously amazing. Congratulations on the release.


I hope you'll get the technical foundations needed for adding workshop graphics from TWBT or even Toady.
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DragonDePlatino

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #6 on: November 17, 2018, 01:13:41 pm »

Would it be a lot of work to make the workshops, just for a preview?  You can try that out ingame with the soap maker. :)

Love the spiral staircase btw. And the trees looks fantastic.

Is that a tiny override bug in the center tile of siege engines? When they are EW aligned, it shows a || in the center, which would fit a NS alignment. Similar sprite on the tail-end of the ballista ammo in a north-facing ballista. Sorry I didn't catch that earlier.

My current plan is to do a mockup of all of the different workshops and then pitch it to mifki! I'll look into tweaking the soap shop so I can be sure this stuff will work once support is added.

Thanks for mentioning the siege engine issue. I'll write this down and give it a look in-game.

Christmas came early this year! Thank you for all the hard work, it looks amazing!

I've looked through this install instructions, but I'm wondering: is it possible to install this set using the Starter Pack? It looks like there's much more going on than in something like Gemset.

Thank you! I'm not sure if it's possible to install Bitlands using the Starter Pack because I've never used that before. But if any maintainers of the Starter Pack would like to include a pre-patched version of Bitlands in it, they have my permission. You'll be missing out on the ability to patch saves and heavily-modded raws though!

Wokko

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #7 on: November 17, 2018, 02:20:27 pm »

Wow, it's finally out, congrats. Looks better than Cataclysm's Retrodays.

Can I ask for some 1.5x version though? In my opinion, 1x version looks too small, and 2x version is too large (in fortress mode). Is there any chance for something like 1.5x?

Great tileset overall.

edit: Also, could you consider changing how red sand looks? It has the same tiles as lava. Maybe it would be better to have loam like tiles (some dots).
« Last Edit: November 17, 2018, 02:44:13 pm by Wokko »
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Teneb

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #8 on: November 17, 2018, 03:54:04 pm »

This is super neat, congratulations.
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DS

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #9 on: November 17, 2018, 10:19:20 pm »

Heyyy, a tileset I actually like!

I'll probably never switch from ASCII at this point, but I have to commend this. Excellent work, looks great!
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tundalus

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2018, 09:56:47 pm »

Looks awesome, congrats! I remember keeping an eye on this way back in '16 when you put up the first images of what you were planning and they got me super hype. Happy you followed this whole project to completion.
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bwbill

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #11 on: November 21, 2018, 01:40:26 pm »

I really want to try this out! Has anyone gotten it working on Linux?
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Pvt. Pirate

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #12 on: November 22, 2018, 08:05:55 am »

i like the looks :)
it looks ascii enough and yet everything is instantly distinguishable!
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DragonDePlatino

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #13 on: November 25, 2018, 04:08:43 pm »

Thanks everyone! I'm really happy I was able to eventually release this, it was a long time in the making and I'm looking forward to expanding it and improving the patcher.

Can I ask for some 1.5x version though? In my opinion, 1x version looks too small, and 2x version is too large (in fortress mode). Is there any chance for something like 1.5x?

Sorry, unfortunately a 1.5x version wouldn't work! At half-resolutions like that, really tiny pixel art like this looks very blurry and distorted. I have been considering doing a hand-drawn 16x24 version, however.

edit: Also, could you consider changing how red sand looks? It has the same tiles as lava. Maybe it would be better to have loam like tiles (some dots).

Sure thing! I'll change the direction of the sand to differenciate it from liquids a little more.

Augur

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Re: Bitlands
« Reply #14 on: November 25, 2018, 07:19:45 pm »

Hey I absolutely love this tileset, everything's very distinct and I dig the aesthetic. I wanna ask though, how difficult would it be to make it an 18x18 set? What are all the files I would need to change? Also, I suppose I should check to see if you're planning on doing it yourself first.

Also as a note I love GemSet, it was my favorite graphics pack before this one, though with this and GemSet I've been noticing that sometimes at night the ground/wall tiles seem to change. I'll have to post a picture of what I'm talking about, I couldn't find any discussion about it.

[EDIT] Alright so here's what I was talking about:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As you can see, the ground tiles all change back to what I think might be the original ASCII tiles? Unfortunately there were no trees where it happened this time but their leaves will turn to "1/4" text etc.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then a few paces later it goes back to normal. Sometimes it takes longer, sometimes it's only for a few instants, but it usually happens around nightfall or sunrise.

[EDIT2] Got another cap of it inside a hall, just as I woke from sleep
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: November 26, 2018, 08:25:03 pm by Augur »
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