[WIP]Isometric Game Mock Up

[StevenH]

First off, don't ban me because of the blatant Zelda Oracle of Time / Seasons intro dungeon tile rip, it's what I'm using in my current engine to test it out while I did some proper better tile graphics, I am working on some better tiles...

I think I better let you know the limitations on my game engine I'm working on (otherwise any crits may be useless)

1) Each tile is limited to 4 colours from a palette of 16 (any 4 colours can be used, and the first colour can be transparent, but not always)
2) Each tile is edited as an 8 x 8 pixel image (compressed into 16 bytes when stored in memory), but translated to an isometric tile when displayed
3) The output device is currently targeted as the DS, but I may work on a PC version as well (with the same limitations).

The 16 colour palette that I'm using is the generic one from the post by Arne.  I've been working on this engine off and on (mainly off) for a while now (there's a test engine on my PC that was originally written to work in DirectDraw 6!).  The main thing that was stopping me from continuing with the project, apart from lack of time, was the lack of good graphics, I've found that I've got some free time now between work and thought I'd attempt to get the graphics done, but my attempts have not been fruitful (so far I've re-ripped the graphics from Zelda and re-did a small section of the intro map / animation.  Now comes the fun part, actually doing my own graphic tiles, and well I need some serious help in making them look good - so I'm on my knees pleading here, help me 

So here's the 2 mock-ups I've got:

First the ripped tiles from Zelda that have been changed into iso tiles by hand in Paint Shop Pro into an iso scene using the same style output as my game engine:


No CnC on this one, it's a total rip, but it shows you what the walls should be like when I get around to the graphics

And here's the piece that I want some CnC on:

Again, please ignore the Zelda ripped stuff, it's still there as a reminder of how good those tiles look when rendered in my iso engine style.

Please be gentle, and any help or crtis given will be taken on board in the next version of the tiles...

[fil_razorback]

If I understand well, the only bit you want us to criticize is the bottom-most floor pattern, right ?

I do think that this one tiles well but fails at being a pavement tile. It looks much more like a bland gray carpet.
The zelda tiles have a lil' bit of volume while yours are totally flat and I think that this is what you should work.

Also, I'd like to point something about the zelda rip iso render so you do not do the same mistake. It totally lacks shading.
It lacks it so much that at first sight, I didnt understand the floor tiles as floor tiles but as the bottom side of a Parallelepiped whose side sides would be the wall tiles.

[tehwexxl0rz]

Your tile would look much nicer and make more sense if there were distinct stones rather than formless blobs. If you can't break the grid, embrace it!

Also, you need a light source! When you decide on one, I suggest you darken only the very edge of the stones. Without shading, it lacks volume, but don't shade it so much that it doesn't look flat enough to walk on.

[Dusty]

Problem? You took a tile and skewed it instead of drawing it as isometric from scratch... or at least, that's what it looks like.

[tehwexxl0rz]

Problem? You took a tile and skewed it instead of drawing it as isometric from scratch... or at least, that's what it looks like.

I think that's how the engine he's using works? That was my impression. But yeah, pretty weak.....

[Dusty]

If it's the engine than there's nothing to really critique about it since it completely destroys the original graphics... and since he's not using the original graphics there is no reason to critique them and only the output work from his engine. Either way, don't have an engine do it for you unless it's some experimental stuff... and in that case there's nothing we can do to help.

[tehwexxl0rz]

If it's the engine than there's nothing to really critique about it since it completely destroys the original graphics... and since he's not using the original graphics there is no reason to critique them and only the output work from his engine. Either way, don't have an engine do it for you unless it's some experimental stuff... and in that case there's nothing we can do to help.

Hmm? But he drew the original tile! I agree that the distortion is bad, but it's not like the computer created the isometric tile from scratch. It's his design.

[Dusty]

Ya, I knew he drew the original tile... but there's no point in critiquing it because they'll never be seen in the end product. All that's going to be seen is the distorted version... so we can't critique the original because it will be pointless, and we can't critique the distorted one because it's skewed so it's hard to critique because we'd have to determine how it will be skewed and such.

Also, in case it isn't... even if it isn't distorted it severely looks it, I think mainly because it's at a double pixel width ratio and really doesn't look all that great.

[ndchristie]

Ya, I knew he drew the original tile... but there's no point in critiquing it because they'll never be seen in the end product. All that's going to be seen is the distorted version... so we can't critique the original because it will be pointless, and we can't critique the distorted one because it's skewed so it's hard to critique because we'd have to determine how it will be skewed and such.

you've confused "can't" with "don't feel like" I think.  This is still pixel art and this is a pixel board, even if the input to output change is pretty intense.


I gave this a try using your math, and it made me lol because my first shot really didn't work out well from square to diamond:



Still, you can see what i'm trying to show, which is that you need some more sculpting/shading in your tiles, the lines are too harsh by themselves.  think of it as throwing down some ink outlines, then wetting the page so that they soften and lose priority.

[Myran]

The extreme limitations of the engine is going to make it very hard to do some decent tiles. Why only 8x8 4 color tiles? If your weakest target platform is the DS that's really not needed, the DS can handle a lot more than that. You don't need to go down to 16 bytes per tile, the 4 megs of memory can go a long way even without such limitations.