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Block Tileset (WIP)

Latest Post

Kain Nobel

Member

1,678
Good day everybody!

After a good 2.5 years of neglecting the little bit of artistic talent I do have, I recently started spriting stuff again! Below was more of an excersize than actually making something, I didn't expect myself to get this far in one sitting. I figured maybe this could improve and work later on, but I would like some C&C on it! I'll probably post updates to this set if I continue with it.


This first one just showcases the normal style, with a little bit of the jagged edge ones being used on the top. There isn't much bad about the shadows with this one, but they'll be adjusted accordingly later.



This second one showcases the jagged brick layout (castle-style, if you may). It actually took alot of small fine tuning being at my novice level, as far as the bricks layered. On the other hand, the shadows really need to be tweaked with because as you can see, the side panels display a little bit of the shadow for the next tile up.



What I really need advice on is shading the bricks. I've tried shading the bottom right corner and lightening the upper-left corner but it didn't turn out too well, and neither did 'dithering'. I also know the shadow casted in the second example needs correction, but I think that'll be an easier fix, I'm just not sure about shading.

Also, the windows are too blue but for the life of me I can't quite adjust the color to look good. I've tried grayscaling the actual glass part of the windows and messing with the RGB scales, but for the life of me they either look horrible and the blue sticks out way too much. What can I do to fix it? Can it be a simple color adjust or do I just need to start over with them?

If anybody else has any other advice, please drop a line! I might be inspired to work on this some more.
 

graykid

Member

10
good!!!! show my Tilesets！

[Images Deleted]

Don't post your tilesets in somebody else's thread. Just make your own.
 

silver wind

Member

677
um, graykid, make your own thread?

Kain, it's a good start.
The roof tiles make the wall look too thin. There's a tiny error in the shadow. I mean this part:
block.png

why are the windows blue? They can be yellow to imply of light from inside, or light gray as indoor areas are darker than the outside.
The chimney's shadow seem too big.
 

Kain Nobel

Member

1,678
Just a couple updates! I've added texture to the bricks (I used Super Mario Bros 3 as a reference), and I made some bushes, grass and a grass/dirt autotile. Also, I changed the windows from blue to dark grey and yellow so they look a little bit more realistic. While I personally think the windows look okay, I think they're too small so I might make them bigger, or just make some more windows. Lastly, thanks for pointing out the shadow issue I was aware of it already so I fixed it, just adjusting it a couple pixels up/left did the trick!



How does the grass and the autotile look for the map? There are indeed some flaws to fix as far as it not tiling correctly when going diagonal, and the straight up/down/left/right tiling (1 tile wide) looks kinda wonky, I'll get on that as soon as I can. Also, I know the second screenshot with the window looks odd, I might remove that window and just use the other ones.

I plan on doing more with this set, but I'm not sure what else exactly I should add. Initially, I was gonna make it kinda like the Fort tileset from the RTP, but I could use some feedback and ideas on what could be added to bring this more to life. Maybe I'll do some mountain-ish walls or something to give it elevation, maybe a couple more autotiles.
 

piggman77

Member

138
The grass and mud you made don't really fit with what you've done so far. The grass has a very textured look when compared to your simple styled bricks. The dirt path that you have made also has problems, it looks pretty blurry and smooth, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't actually pixeled.

Sticking with one consistent style is something I struggle with myself, but If I were you I'd try to keep the stuff you're making in the same simple style as your bricks / windows. If you want to detail it a bit more, and head more in the style of your trees and grass, try doing something like this with your bricks (quickie edit, so just use as an example):


Although, I still think your grass has too much texture and differant colors in it. Sort of a personal preference thing, but it looks a lot like the RTP grass.
 

KuidonNZ

Member

204
@Kain Nobel, The tileset looks nice, but I dont like how the walls with the alternating height bricks cast a bigger shadow than the walls that are straight along the top. Enlarge the normal walls shadow or shrink the alternating walls shadow because in reality the alternating wall is the same height or lower in some places.
Also, the tiles in the wire fence not quite line up, and it looks a bit rushed.

@piggman77, that is a very nice edit, it gives nice depth to the bricks.
 

Kain Nobel

Member

1,678
I'm taking everything said into account and I've been redoing parts of the set, namely fixing the shadow depth issue with the roof and I've fixed the fence too the best I could. I'm not sure if I'm gonna make the bricks bigger or not, because I don't like the look of the bulkier bricks when I did it. Also Trebor777 in IRC had a good eye and pointed out the weird pattern made when the grass tiles, it kinda looks like (). Needless to say, I've fixed the pattern issue with the grass and it tiles much better now, so you'll no longer see that issue anymore, but I'm gonna try my hand at hand pixeling the grass later too because I didn't initially intend to make the grass RTP looking.

Here's something I started working on tonight, I know I know it looks pillow shaded and there is some issues as far as the sides of the tile. I might not even use it as a cliff wall tile, I might use it for another tileset as the ground or something. Also, I'm gonna try and work on hand pixeling the grass and then implement it around the base of the cliff, but for now here it is so far...





If anybody has any tips for making things like this, and shading it where it wraps around then that'd be awesome because, as you can tell, I suck major candy ass at doing this kinda stuff and its just 'gradient shaded' as Inquisitor told me in chat.

I'll try and get some more work done with this over the week and thank you guys for being honest about what I've been doing wrong with everything! Keep the critique coming and check back throughout the next following days to see how progress is going!
 

Kain Nobel

Member

1,678
Oh yeah, before I forget, I finally got around to fixing the smooth and blurry wannabe 'dirt' and hand pixeled some real dirt, I hate to admit it but it was the hardest thing in the whole entire set to do and it took me nearly 6 hours! @_@

Ignore everything but the grass to dirt autotile, because this screenshot is already outdated. And, as you can see, I redid the cliff (my post above this one) so that one in the screenshot is no longer even in the set anymore. You can laugh at it all you want but please don't comment on the cliff's wall because it has been removed. Also, as you can see I'm already working on the shadow issue on the roof, this is just WIP so let me finish that first because there is obviously some tiling issues with it, I need to make different corner tiles for the jagged and straight roof brick patterns =P


I've still got corners and stuff to fix with the autotile, but I'll eventually get to that. And yeah, I could still use some help with the cliff wall tiles, because I don't know how to shade things like that properly. If anybody has advice on shading those cliff/wall type tiles, or even a handy tut you can think of offhand, that'd really be appreciated.
 

Kain Nobel

Member

1,678
Mods, please don't lock/delete this I just wasn't thinking when I started deleting stuff from my photobucket account! Yes, I'm still working on this, I'll be updating the top post later in the week hopefully!

Thank you 006, theres lots of good info in that thread that I couldn't really find anywhere else! And yes, I started out the day I started this thread, not counting my spriting skill from back in the day because it is irrelevent to now. Hopefully I'll start gradually improving, this set is more of a practice/experiment than anything, thats why there is still RTP door, character and panorama shown in it. In the end, I'm thinking of using slightly smaller sprites later on so eventually the only thing RTP I'll still use is maybe panoramas/fogs and thats it, I'm rather bored/sick of the RTP myself.

Anyways, slight update not much though, I redid the grass! I was trying to get the feel of long, lush grass and not the RTP-looking speckled 'grass'! I already know that it is too colorful for the rest of the tileset, and theres too much going on in it so I'll try and tone the saturation and noise down in the grass tile. I've also updated the autotile too, but I'm having problems getting it to tile correctly on the outter corners.



Heres a screenie with the new grass... and I've removed the bar from the bottom of the fence, but now its harder to see @_@ Next thing to work on is the 'shrubs' (no, they're not 'trees' just 'shrubs' so please don't tell me they're too small, I'm saving doing actual 'trees' for last =P) The issue with the shrubs are they don't stand out from one another when tiled vertically, so I might redo them from scratch or I'll see if I can edit these ones to look better.

Also, I turned the saturation down on the entire set and I think it looks alot better that way, the old version was too colorful for my taste. Here's a flashback of the set previously, incase I happened to delete the older versions.


Eventually the color/tone of my new grass will be more aimed at what it looked like in that screenie, other than that everything else I add new will also have to be desaturated too.

Oh yeah, and lastly, I'm still working on the 'cliff' or whatever you want to call it. Its more just practicing and figuring out what the hell I'm doing than anything (I'm referencing that thread you posted, thanks), because simply reading a tutorial helped but I'm still doing bad at it. Here's a pic of the third attempt at making it, and then I did a basic 'template' on just the general shape it should be...




...As you can tell, its turning into a complete fail so I'll probably be redoing it again (like everything else, just gotta keep redoing it 'til it looks good @_@) If there is anything that stands out to you as really bad about this version, please pick away because I can extract the comments and knowledge from your brains and try and improve it next round!
 

Velocir_X

Member

414
Kain first two things,
First of there is a pattern of vertical lines in the grass that makes it look tiled,
and also your first screenshots have been deleted by photobucket (at least on my end)

Otherwise great work man, and I gotta say the cliff your making now is nice, however its getting a bit blocky, I'd suggest rounding it out more
 

Kain Nobel

Member

1,678
Yeah, the windows still look bad so I'll probably mess around with the color later on. Also, I've added a very vauge outline around the shrubs, just enough so that they'll stand out from one other when overlapping vertically, but its not like a black outline or anything just some minor shading to the edges of the shrub. That, and I've done alot of work on the grass so now it doesn't look so... blah! It remains fluffy as ever, but with little 'noise' effect now, and desaturated with some fixed pixels... I donno how to explain it, it just looks better, I'll try and post a screenie later within the day if I get that far.

The major thing I've been working on today though is that stupid 'cliff' because I want my map to have elevation and its a necessary evil that I redo it from scratch again and again (4 times total thus far) until it looks good. This time around, I followed the tut that 006 posted even closer, and lined everything up using a template (that cylander looking thing in my post above this one). While there is alot of inconsistancies, shading and cleaning up work to do I'm hoping it looks better than my previous failed attempts thus far. The center and right side of it is blended with my half-assed attempt at shading, while the left side remains unshaded but I'll get to all that eventually.



Even in the WIP stage, if there is anything that stands out as being so bad that I'd be digging myself a hole then let me know. The linework needs to be cleaned up on the 'side' tiles, and shading needs to be re-applied so it blends better, but other than that hopefully I'll be able to finish and clean this up soon. By far, this has probably been the hardest part to get right on the whole set along with the silly grass and dirt tiles, meaning I must need to brush up on more effecient texture techniques @_@
 

006

Member

1,524
O_o it almost looks 3D??? Your cliffs seem, like bricks in a house. You've placed them all in so the cliff is smooth, and cemented them shut.
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation ... 6#msg46596
Pretty advanced stuff in that tutorial (not so much a tutorial as a guide) in that thread. But it gives you an idea of how cliffs should look.
The rocks on your cliff shouldn't be so contained, examples:
http://www.spriters-resource.com/snes/ff6/sheet/6662
http://www.spriters-resource.com/snes/s ... sheet/6348
http://www.spriters-resource.com/snes/live/sheet/3067
http://www.spriters-resource.com/snes/s ... sheet/6346

Try study this the shading, and the shape of the cliff. Hope this helps you.
 

Twirly

Sponsor

829
I think the "light" has to be stronger on this one.
I'd suggest to have more contrast and make the dark parts more purple.
 
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