AuthorTopic: Crocotile 3D - a new 3d modeling tool that acts like a 2d tilemap editor!  (Read 130669 times)

Offline Indigo

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This really is impressive, Alex.  I hope this gets traction for you.  What was it made in?

Offline AlexHW

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Thanks :) I hope so too. The interest in the program has been more than I had expected.
It is made with javascript and three.js

Offline rikfuzz

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Great work, Alex - was sold when I watched the video!  Bought and downloading now. :)

Offline API-Beast

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Reminds me a lot to how terrain was handled in Knights and Merchants.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img24/7548/ai9g.jpg

Would love to see this in a game.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2015, 12:12:42 pm by Mr. Beast »

Offline AlexHW

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Mac version is available now!
version 1.0.6 adds a few things. Mouse buttons can be changed, added a show ruler option, plus other changes/fixes. See the changelog for details.

Offline Ryumaru

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This is really awesome. I haven't always been a fan of low poly/ low res stuff, but this is starting to sway me.

What about the option to import backgrounds/ change the backdrop color? It would be cool to have pixeled skyboxes or just stationary images in there as you work to get a better sense of how the map would feel in game.

What other features do you plan on adding? It looks solid already, but I'd be excited to see it's progress.

 :y:

Offline AlexHW

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@Ryumaru , I never was able to really immerse myself in 3d modeling in the past- I think it was due to the workflow that standard modeling apps have. But I had this idea, and it makes it more enjoyable for me. Someone described the Crocotile 3d process as backwards; Creating the texture and then building the model from that- basically doing it backwards from the standard method of creating the model and then texturing it. I think that is why a pixel-artist can find it fun, because at the very beginning you are applying the texture.

I have thought about including the option to change the background- skyboxes also have been suggested by someone else. I plan to implement those features.

There have been suggestions to improve the tileset/texture window- such as adding the ability to zoom it, better panning controls, and possibly allowing it to separate into its own window. So I'll be looking into those things.

I also originally had the thought of allowing the tilesets to be editable(drawing on them), but I'm hesitant to add such features since it could just bloat the program with features it doesn't need, since everyone has their own drawing programs they use already. Maybe somewhere down the line I might try implementing a simple lightweight drawing editor to make tweaks to the tileset.

There are other things I plan to implement.
If anyone has suggestions for features, I'll consider them too.

Offline Cheetah

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Thanks for the Mac OSX version! I have been messing around with it for a bit, definitely takes some time to adjust to the controls. Here are some thoughts.

1) When zooming out on the OSX version the polys and even primary vertex disappear and there is just a black screen until you zoom in more. Appears to be a glitch.
2) Detachable Tile screen and having a zoom will be key.
3) Making buttons for more of the controls will be good, just too many keys right now.
4) Orthographic project. This needs to be an option for how you view stuff.

More thoughts about how I would use this personally. I think this tool would be amazing for making isometric maps in the style of Final Fantasy Tactics.



I think having the option to lock a base layer to build off of, and to have basic isometric views to easily rotate around with would make thinks much easier. There are also common isometric shapes that are a bit cumbersome to make with your current options (like a single unit pyramid). I get the idea of painting with tiles, instead of painting starting with shapes, but having a few basic shapes that you can quickly apply tiles onto might make things more efficient. I'm hoping to reproduce a FFT map in the next few days to test things out.

Offline AlexHW

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@Cheetah , you can set the camera frustum far plane higher in the settings (f1 key) to see more of the space when you zoom out.
Seems like improving the tileset window and adding buttons/ui seem to be popular requests- so I'll make that my focus.

Orthographic projection is something I haven't thought about, but now that you mention it- it sounds like it could be useful. I don't think it would be too difficult to implement.
As for shape presets.. I'm trying to imagine what benefit it would give. How many presets would there be? As an alternative, you can make your own shapes and simply copy paste them. Now that I think more about it- it might be better to just allow the user to create their own presets which get added to some preset list- kind of how some drawing software have custom brushes.
I'll have to think about how to implement it.

Offline Seiseki

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Just wanted to chime in and say that this looks amazing, huge fan of 3D pixel art..