Custom Tileset

[LightAndMagic]

Well, I'm making my own custom tilesets for my game, for fun. And It's going well so far, just wanted some opinions. It's nowhere near done, but yeah, in progress.

So two screens to show it off:

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/6236 ... eenqe4.png[/IMG]
http://img175.imageshack.us/img175/9707 ... en2ox2.png[/IMG]


Don't tell me about the bricks on the left house in the first screen, mapping error. And the dirt around the water hasn't been shaded yet, so don't bug me about it.

And it doesn't look like much yet, but I haven't been really dedicated to it, just doing it every now and then. It's like a pet project.

Now the main source of my problem:

The water. It looks alright stagnant (could definately still use some touching up near the center, so it doesn't look so ... stagnant) but everytime I try and make an animated autotile for it, it looks like absolute crap. So... any tips?

 

[Amos36]

It's better than anything I could do! :D

 

[Barunda]

IT'S VERY NICE!!! great job. I dont see any problems with the water... looks fine to me...

 

[saikyo765]

looks great!...
wait did you use a template for that charset?

 

[LightAndMagic]

Oh yeah. That's Green Raven's cucumber template. By custom graphics, I meant the tileset. Oops. Will edit that.

 

[Venetia]

The grass is very well thought-out: it doesn't look like it repeat-tiles at all.

For the water, any chance you could make a quick GIF animation to show what kind of animation you currently have for it? Then I could maybe provide some advice on how to animate it better.

 

[LightAndMagic]

Unfortunately, I don't have a GIF animator. But I can show the actual autotile, and then you could possibly test it in game? I was editing it today, and it's looking a bit better, but still kinda bleh, it's mostly the middle section that I'm having problems with.

Now for the Autotile:

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/7320 ... arteb2.png[/IMG]

 

[Zafrod]

I like it a lot, L&M. Looks great with the Cucumbers.

I can't give much advice, though. I can't tile for squat. I do like the direction you've gone with it though.

 

[Venetia]

I'll test it tonight & get back to you (I'm @ work; I'll edit this post later).

 

[saikyo765]

it does look great man, like before said, especially the grass.

 

[Mustardy85]

Nice Graphics
Amazing addons

What else can I say?

~Keep up the good work

 

[Venetia]

Sorry it took me so long, I had to go to a wedding yesterday .

Anyway, the animation on the shorelines looks good. The problem is the ripple-lines. They sorta look like random dots/flecks.

Here is a good idea for making decent water. I don't know if you have anything better than Paint, but I'm assuming you do.

Take a 40x40 image. Use the color of the water and the light color of the ripples. Fill the space with the water color. Set a grid over it, make the grid go by 32pix intervals. In a 32pix area, take the brush (with feathering) and make a few swoops over that area, making sure to connect the sides so that the image can be repeat-tiled.

Reduce the number of colors in the palette to, say, 2 or 3. Test the repeat-tiling, and if it looks clippy, add or subtract accordingly. When it looks right, without increasing the color depth, smudge the lines horizontally every so often, like flat ripples on a lake. Check the tile-ability again.

When it's just right, smear the edges out a few pixels beyond the 32 pix square border. Plug the 32 pix square you originally made in the center of the autotiles. Then, moving left, right, up, or down, move the selection on the 40x40 image over by one pixel. Plug that in the center of the next frame. Repeat the process until all frames are filled.

That should make a decent moving water animation. I realize I'm not particularly descriptive but I don't want to push you in any particular direction :p. You just have to be sure to move your animation by only one pixel, and make it loopable. Random flecks will only look like random flecks if there's no obvious movement there .

Hope that helps! :#

 

[LightAndMagic]

Thanks for trying to help. Unfortunately, I didn't understand that at all. =\ I have photoshop, so you don't have to worry about the software, just confused by your advice. Thanks though. I'm going to try and decipher it again.

 

[Venetia]

:blushanim02: Heh, sorry about that. It's a somewhat complicated process, making moving autotiles. One day I might have to construct a tutorial.

But if you're working on it and hit a snag, just PM me and I'll try to help you out, okay? :kiss02:

 

[Terru16389]

It looks really good to me. Although I can't help but think I've seen a thread about a tileset that looked almost exactly like this one...

Or maybe I'm going crazy?

 

[Atnas]

You probably saw these screens in the screenshot thread.
---------
Wow, LnM, I love the grass soooo much. <3

 

[Mascarpone]

the only thing really is bugging me is how the dirty boarder on the grass rides up the line of the building in your map it creates a very very very annoying tangent and makes the houses look flat. Otherwise this is very cute, gratss

 

[LightAndMagic]

@Mascarpone: I'm not exactly sure what you mean, d oyou mean the fact that the borders on the house, and the border around the grass are parallel/beside one another? If so, what do you think would "fix" that?

 

[Venetia]

I think Mascarpone means the autotile's dirt edges are butting right up to the walls of the home. This can easily be avoided either by:

a.) using the select, copy, and paste functions in RMXP to make the grass-only tiles butt up against the walls

b.) Make your autotile also available in the tileset, so that the user can manually place the grass and its borders.

It's not a problem with your set, I think it was just a concern with your in-game screenshot.