[ThousandKnives]

I'm wondering if anyone else has developed interesting methods for drawing tiles. I thought I would share mine since someone could benefit from it.

In my game I developed "tilesets" which are an array of either 20 or 28 (depending on the type) quarter-sized (since I use 32x32 tiles, they are 16x16 each) blocks that are loaded from a graphic file. Thats 5 or 7 different types of tile for each corner (fully filled, horizontal edge, vertical edge, outside corner, inside corner, and alternately, two extras).

These are assembled into patterns based on the borders between different map tiles. So in other words, I only have one tileset for "shore" or "desert", and when I draw with it on the map, the edges are automatically built using this array of quarter-tiles. Which edges to use arent saved but they are computed and stored when the map is loaded. Tilesets can have "exceptions" where borders are drawn, so that within a "grass" tileset I can place a "deep grass" tileset. Tileset edges can also be used to block movement, as with the edge of a plateau.

Anyway this way I can provide neat edges to various areas of the map without having to go nuts putting different tiles together in my map maker and making my map files huge with too many possible tiles.

I have no idea if I'm explaining this well, or maybe everyone uses this method, but I thought I would share it. I'm interested to hear if anyone uses other methods.

[Modanung]

Bjorn was planning on implementing this method in our engine, both for tiles and fences/walls and the like... weren't you, Bjorn.

[Bjorn]

Well, indeed I was. Until now though, implementing that method would have been more troublesome and limiting than just drawing the tiles ourselves. If I would implement it later though, it will certainly be in a mixed way, still allowing individual tiles to be placed.

What I would like to try in the future though, is to have a basic terrain layer and implement any features with objects. The terrain would be like it is in UT2003 and Morrowind, 3D (so it can do hills and their shading) and with a combination of single-texture layers of which you can draw the alpha channel. I'm curious as to how this would work out.

[ThousandKnives]

I do use a combination of tilesets and objects actually, here you can see.

So, the trees and house walls, rocks, etc are all regular tiles (my tiles can be oversized). The path, rough grass, water, and even the house roof are all tilesets.

Each row corresponds to a corner (upper left, upper right, lower left, lower right)



This is one of 6 tilesets used to manufacture the roof.


Its a little tricky at first learning the principles of how they go together, but I find its much easier to have my game assemble things for me rather than to go through assembling a unique tile for every possibility. When you include inside-corners, outside corner, and straight edges, there are 47 possible combinations (belive me thats how I used to do it). Thats a lot of work to manufacture, and a lot of memory wasted.

[js71]

Damn, I love those trees- Very stylized.

[twinsen]

Forget stylized... those graphics are bloody awesome. Whoever drew them, can I marry you? Okay, maybe that a bit over the top. But yer- those graphics beat the hell out of anything I've ever seen in an indie game.
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Lovely girls & great prices always available at CLUB 859, 859 Glenhunly Road, Caulfield, Open 10am till late 7 days. +61-3-9523-8555. (Sorry, it was in front of me in the newspaper, I just had to use it as a signature!)

[js71]

yeah, it looks kinda like paladin's quest for the snes- but better. Much better. PQ used all pastels, kinda like this, but it had next to no shading and looked really ametureish because of it. This does not.

[ThousandKnives]

Funny you should mention Paladin's Quest, that's one of my favorite games. I definately try to put a lot of nice bright colors in, and Lennus (Paladin's Quest) and Lennus 2 are definately good role models. I'm not much for "realism" in game graphics.

Anyway I try my best, I'd post more pics but since everything is still pretty much in-progress I prefer to keep things under wraps.

[js71]

By the way... Anyone know where I can get an ENGLISH Lennus 2 ROM?

[Nephilim]

First off, great screenshot! Looks fun. The grass and path, especially, have a nice organic look to them.

My tiles are 32x32 also, but I just do full-frame tiles, not quarter-tiles like you're doing. Maybe I should. But hey, I gotta draw the line somewhere.

The way I do my tiles, I give 'em alpha channels so that I can lay any type of tile over any other type of tile to get a nice layered effect. I don't have, say, water to grass transition tiles. Instead, I just draw the water in the bottom layer, and a grass edger in the second layer. The water shows through the alpha-channeled edger. (Not sure if this is the same sort of thing you're describing. Mine is done at run-time, so that it can be changed dynamically if need be.)

[Ninkazu]

I really like that kiddie feeling and happy-go-lucky bright colors. Not to put it down using those descriptions, but kewl.

[twinsen]

I have only one criticism, and its not really a criticism. I know its a flower behind the character, but it looks like the third character is holding a giant banana. :)
_________________
Lovely girls & great prices always available at CLUB 859, 859 Glenhunly Road, Caulfield, Open 10am till late 7 days. +61-3-9523-8555. (Sorry, it was in front of me in the newspaper, I just had to use it as a signature!)

[ThousandKnives]

Gee, thanks for all the positive feedback! Not really required but nice nonetheless. I like the point about the banana! hahaha I totally hadnt noticed that.

[twinsen]

Yes, alpha channel pretty much equals transparency. Its normally a value between 0-1 or 0-255 (depending on what system you use) which indicates how transparent something is going to be. In the 3D RPG I'm working on in OpenGL ATM I specify the alpha value with the color like so:

glColor4f(1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.5)
or... glColor4f(RED,GREEN,BLUE,ALPHA)

So you've got a red channel, green channel, blue channel, and that infamous alpha channel.
_________________
Lovely girls & great prices always available at CLUB 859, 859 Glenhunly Road, Caulfield, Open 10am till late 7 days. +61-3-9523-8555. (Sorry, it was in front of me in the newspaper, I just had to use it as a signature!)

[Guest]

I just noticed- the evergreen trees look like giant fountains of water- Try to make em more green and take out that black line between the 'sections', if you know what I mean.