Creating tilesets for beat em up.

[Stickman]

Hi guys! I've been creating animations for a target renegade style beat em up for the Amstrad CPC 128k. The main character (on the right), all his moves have been animated along with splitting the legs and torso's so they can be reused on other characters along with other technical bits and pieces(there's a programmer who is interested in taking this on). Definitely the most difficult of the sprites with over 30 moves (whoooo!)



Anyway - I'm looking to create an animated demo/mock up of the first level of the game and just need to animate the enemy character moves which should not toake too long as they have few moves. What I need to create are the background tiles which I haven't done before. What is the best way of doing these? Would I draw the whole background first then cut them up?
The game is in wide pixels and I have a sheet of 160x200 for the background tiles.

Thanks

Edit: With creating 8x16 tiles on a 160x200 I can have around 125 tiles/bytes which will be 16kb uncompressed. So I'll only be needing one sheet.

[ptoing]

Nice sprites

For the backgrounds I would do a rough layout which are snapped to the tile boundries (8x8 i guess) and then fill in detail.
A good perspective would be something like in double dragon of final fight I suppose, where you have a kinda skewed floor.

[Helm]

these look great. If I can offer a piece of advice,  try to make a background with middle values and not too much sharp saturation, if possible with the palette. I'd even prefer a two greys + black background color set to a full-palette tileset because the characters will be drowned out in all the loudness.

[Stickman]

Thanks for the replies.

@ptoing: I indeed have started to do a layout of the background. It looks like I will be creating tiles that are 8x16 because of the wide pixels. I noticed that on the CPC version of Renegade it flicks 5 creens, and on Target Renegade it flicks 14 screens. They dont flick "whole" screens - just a quater(or something like that). So what your saying is for me to put a grid on the layout that I'm roughing out where the squares are 8x16?
Yes - the background will be that perspective style of the old beat em ups.

@Helm. Yes your right. This has been one of the things that I need to be extremely careful of. There are a few easy on the eye tones on the CPC palette but only 1 grey unfortunately. There is a very easy green that also works well and isn't very harsh. The current picture I posted has 12 colours, so I have another 4 to play with. Looking at the CPC renegade stuff, they do a really nice job of making sure that the characters standout as they seem to keep all the busy areas at the top of the screen, with the ground area a peppered texture of only 2 colours.

[Mathias]

Attractive sprites. Wide-pixel isn't the easiest.

All those sprites share the same legs, I find that a tad odd. Especially the far feet with the cyan details, really jump out and creates an odd repeating effect. At the least, I'd recommend a palette swap to differentiate player char from enemies.

[Stickman]

Attractive sprites. Wide-pixel isn't the easiest.

All those sprites share the same legs, I find that a tad odd. Especially the far feet with the cyan details, really jump out and creates an odd repeating effect. At the least, I'd recommend a palette swap to differentiate player char from enemies.

It's true, but I have to see what the programmer can do. It's a 2 player game and the second character has different coloured jeans. Studying the renegade games share thye same legs due to RAM space. The sprites have to be composited together as well as other things such as music, weapons and just generally the whole game engine on a 4mhz cpu with no hardware sprites and limited scrolling capabilities and 128kb of rAM that can't be accessed all at once. This all has to be processed in real time along with a conversion array to mirror the sprites. Adding palette changes would also be have to be coded, so I haven't done much variation colours on the legs as yet. It's a tricky battle between RAM vs CPU with these 8 bit machines.

But yeah....I think when it comes to the animation demo, I'll do one palette change of legs for one of the enemy groups and I'll have a look at that cyan on the feet.

[Stickman]

Unfinished rough layout background of what I'm aiming for. I still need to add stuff to the alleyway, but I think that the sprites will be readable with these colours. I very much doubt if any of this is tile friendly! There are obvious mistakes I would need to sort out like the pavement lines, shutter details, cracks and wear and tear on the wall etc. (Pretty much the whole thing!)
As a test, I cut out only the brick work on the front of the building (8 pixels wide, 16 pixels down) and looks like I would end up with over 30 tiles! I'm going to have to do some serious research and whole lot of learning on how to do tiles.

[ptoing]

Nitpicks:
I think the highlights on the garage shutter stand out too much and the dude with the grey pants looks like he kinda has ghost legs, due to the ground colour.

Otherwise this looks very nice.

[Stickman]

Nitpicks:
I think the highlights on the garage shutter stand out too much and the dude with the grey pants looks like he kinda has ghost legs, due to the ground colour.

Otherwise this looks very nice.

I agree about the highlights and will either tone them down with another colour and if not, I'll get rid of the light blue.
The grey jeans - When zoomed in and not shown at this small scale, is a lot more visible. It would be played 3 times the size. However - I do have a mellow purple jeans version just in case

Edit: I need 8 screens worth or tiles for the scrolling. I take it that it would be best for me to rough out the whole level 8 screens wide?

[ptoing]

At this point you probably also could copy paste bits you already have in this screen around and then do edits and connecting bits.

[Carnivac]

I don't normally post here but a friend linked me saying 'hey someones doing some cpc stuff' and I knew it would be stickman.  

Anyways I like the sprites a lot and the re-using legs is a pretty neat idea to save memory.  I didn't even notice they were using the same leg sprite until it was pointed out as I was more focused on the top half of the sprite which is always the part with most character.

The tiles though just don't work for me at all due to those colors chosen.  It's a pretty putrid scheme for the walls mainly due to the dark yellow and it all looks washed out and bland.  The main reason I love the CPC so much is for vivid colors with a lot of boldness and depth.  I'd probably use the dark brown and orange with a bit of red and yellow in the brick tiles to various degrees or if I was trying to go for a atmospheric night level, the purple, dark blue, light blue and a bit of the magenta and have some parts lit up by lights.   I don't think you have to worry about the sprites being too hard to see against the backdrop since you can keep the road relatively simple (maybe with white lines along through the road for a nice detail) and that's the area they'd mostly be on anyways.  And besides when at proper size and with sprites moving about I've never had any problems with CPC game sprites getting lost in the background.

I'm really keen to see how the animations look as that's pretty much what you excell in more than most pixellers do.

[Stickman]

At this point you probably also could copy paste bits you already have in this screen around and then do edits and connecting bits.

Okay. I'll need to rough out some windows, doors, lampost, posters as well. (also the pavement could do with a kerb too)

I don't normally post here but a friend linked me saying 'hey someones doing some cpc stuff' and I knew it would be stickman. 

Anyways I like the sprites a lot and the re-using legs is a pretty neat idea to save memory.  I didn't even notice they were using the same leg sprite until it was pointed out as I was more focused on the top half of the sprite which is always the part with most character.

The tiles though just don't work for me at all due to those colors chosen.  It's a pretty putrid scheme for the walls mainly due to the dark yellow and it all looks washed out and bland.  The main reason I love the CPC so much is for vivid colors with a lot of boldness and depth.  I'd probably use the dark brown and orange with a bit of red and yellow in the brick tiles to various degrees or if I was trying to go for a atmospheric night level, the purple, dark blue, light blue and a bit of the magenta and have some parts lit up by lights.   I don't think you have to worry about the sprites being too hard to see against the backdrop since you can keep the road relatively simple (maybe with white lines along through the road for a nice detail) and that's the area they'd mostly be on anyways.  And besides when at proper size and with sprites moving about I've never had any problems with CPC game sprites getting lost in the background.

I'm really keen to see how the animations look as that's pretty much what you excell in more than most pixellers do.

Hi Carnivac. Interesting points on the palette. I was trying to make the sprites really pop out from the background and avoid using to bold a colours. Your mentioning of the orange, brown, red and yellow seems like it would be very strong for this type of level where eveything is quite walled in. However it does work on the other renegade games which are heavy with bold colours. There going to be 6 levels and the character sprites will be dictating the colours of the background and there is going to be the classic night scene battle, where the blues and purples will be used. (I think the amstrad pallete is slightly off in these stills by a few numbers, but nothing enough to impact the difference.)

Your bold colour choices do sound interesting though and I'll give a bold look a try as it's still early days, but I do like how the sprites are reading at the moment.

[Carnivac]

Sure, they 'pop' but I think it's easy enough to do that without forcing the background to use such a terribly ugly color scheme.  The washed out lack of contrast in the backdrop too almost make it seem not really there like it's far too seperate from the characters who are supposed to exist in the same place (just woke up so no idea if any of that makes sense).

(I think the amstrad pallete is slightly off in these stills by a few numbers, but nothing enough to impact the difference.)

Yeah I thought the brown and yellow looked slightly darker in relation to the other colors and I kinda hate that I noticed that.

[Stickman]

Sure, they 'pop' but I think it's easy enough to do that without forcing the background to use such a terribly ugly color scheme.  The washed out lack of contrast in the backdrop too almost make it seem not really there like it's far too seperate from the characters who are supposed to exist in the same place (just woke up so no idea if any of that makes sense).

..as you've just woken up - get yourself some breakfast and do me an edit



Playing around with another version. Changed the brick work and I'm partial to the mellow version on the right

Edit: And before I touch this anymore, I need to get the correct pallete colour sorted out. The CPC pallete I downloaded is slightly off for some reason, but I managed to source out the correct RGB numbers.

[Stickman]

Will go for the blue version and do the connecting bits like ptoing said. Hopefully will have something to show by the end of this week.

[Helm]

Actually I think even simpler. Why have wet highlights on everything?



Think of it as an inked oldschool comic background panel. Save the higher value range for the sprites. I'd do it even darker if I had more palette control, but I went with the colors that were in the mockup already.

[Stickman]

Actually I think even simpler. Why have wet highlights on everything?



Think of it as an inked oldschool comic background panel. Save the higher value range for the sprites. I'd do it even darker if I had more palette control, but I went with the colors that were in the mockup already.

This is perfect and far more atmospheric than what I achieved. I'm glad that you removed all those highlights! It's also made me understand what look I need to be going for(background wise) as I was struggling with a theme for the game.
All the dark colours are already in this mock up and I'm just going to add some wall damage bricks and cracks on top of what you've done as well as some darker bits between the bricks. I had started another brick texture which was just overly complicated and getting to the point where it was far too busy looking. I really appreciate what you've done here Helm and will follow this theme through out the game. Nice and simple!

[Helm]

I'm glad to have helped.

[Stickman]

Here's the latest update. Haven't a clue how I'm going to optimize those crack tiles yet, but I feel that this is working.



I'm going to get working on the next scene of this level. Still have tiles space for lamposts, doors, extra windows etc. Just 7 more to do!

[Helm]

That looks great to me. However reconsider the way you're doing shadows below the feet of the spites, it looks like they've chained their feet together instead. I'd rather no shadow at all to this.

The cracks give it a cool style. This is great progress I think.

[Stickman]

That looks great to me. However reconsider the way you're doing shadows below the feet of the spites, it looks like they've chained their feet together instead. I'd rather no shadow at all to this.

The cracks give it a cool style. This is great progress I think.

At first, I just had a black shadow but I found it a bit too strong and swapping it with another colour wouldn't work to well as I may have different coloured grounds for them to fight on and the colurs might clash. Also, with a thicker shadow - when the srites come into contact with each other, I dont want the shadow of one sprite interfering or covering another too much, but this wont look so bad with the dither shadow.

Without a shadow it just looks really floaty.

I understand about the chain look, but when they start moving it should be fine.

Edit: Some new ideas for for ground damage for the next screen:

[Stickman]

I've been trying to optimize the background tiles and have had to cut down on the shutter texture, road and pavement (if there's space left I'll add them back in). It's around 84 tiles(8x16) for this screen and takes up around 1/3 of a 160x200 sheet:



Next screen will have a sign, lampost, door(re-usable) and a non re-usable poster. These should probably take 2 rows of tile space. I've never done tiling before and I only have one sheet to play with for backgrounds and I'm not to sure how well optimized these are.

[Mathias]

In your creation document, you are at least drawing with a visible grid overlay, right? This'll keep you tile oriented while drawing and take less time when it comes to converting a flat image to feasible tiles. Just a thought. Sure you're already doing it.

Things are looking great. Getting better with each update. Keep at it.

[Stickman]

In your creation document, you are at least drawing with a visible grid overlay, right? This'll keep you tile oriented while drawing and take less time when it comes to converting a flat image to feasible tiles. Just a thought. Sure you're already doing it.

Things are looking great. Getting better with each update. Keep at it.

Yes. I am using a grid overlay with the squares(rectangles) at 8X16.

Sketched out the rest of the level which is another 7 screens and I also put back some of the damage tiles. I think it's going to get a bit easier for the next screen but it will always be that crazy fight between RAM space and CPU power!

[yrizoud]

About the tile space, the screen you showed was 80x200, not 160x200. You would have 2x more space available than you think.
However, you should make sure if you have that much space for *each* level, or if it's common scenery for the whole game.
In the former case there will be disk loading on level change, in the latter case you'd better re-use some tiles from former levels.

Do you have the necessary tools for good tile work ? I made my own "map to tiles+map" converter, but even a standard tool like the Mappy tile map editor can read a map image and count the unique tiles. It's handy if you have a modification to perform on one tile and want to propagate everywhere the tile was used.

[Stickman]

About the tile space, the screen you showed was 80x200, not 160x200. You would have 2x more space available than you think.
However, you should make sure if you have that much space for *each* level, or if it's common scenery for the whole game.
In the former case there will be disk loading on level change, in the latter case you'd better re-use some tiles from former levels.

Do you have the necessary tools for good tile work ? I made my own "map to tiles+map" converter, but even a standard tool like the Mappy tile map editor can read a map image and count the unique tiles. It's handy if you have a modification to perform on one tile and want to propagate everywhere the tile was used.

The last picture I posted has an area of 160x200. What do you mean by the screen showing 80x200? I'm sure that picture is not that thin or is there something that I have may have missed? Each tile is 8x16.
I will download mappy tools. At the moment the bricks, pavement and road are as is and will never change on this level. I'm trying to do 20 unique tiles for each new screen which may be new type of door, window, drain pipe, fence dustbin etc: This will fill up the 160x200 sheet.

[yrizoud]

I think you missed one point: in CPC "mode 0", pixels are wider, the resolution drops from 320x200 to 160x200 while still occupying the same surface. When the programmer gave you 160x200 to work with, he intended the native pixels - so for example the 8x16 tiles are squares, visually.
If your painting program doesn't allow you to paint in native wide pixels, you double the widths - but it's up to you to remember that you need to double them everywhere : 160*2x200 canvas,  8*2x16 grid, etc.

[Stickman]

I think you missed one point: in CPC "mode 0", pixels are wider, the resolution drops from 320x200 to 160x200 while still occupying the same surface. When the programmer gave you 160x200 to work with, he intended the native pixels - so for example the 8x16 tiles are squares, visually.
If your painting program doesn't allow you to paint in native wide pixels, you double the widths - but it's up to you to remember that you need to double them everywhere : 160*2x200 canvas,  8*2x16 grid, etc.

I already know that mode 0 (16 colours)and mode 1(4 colours) are both wide pixels. Mode 0 160x200 pixels(wide pixels) which is 16kb (as with mode 1 which is 320x200 wide pixels which is also 16kb). So I'm not to sure why you think my sheet is 80x200?

[ptoing]

It is 80x200 (wide)pixels.

[Stickman]

It is 80x200 (wide)pixels.

 ???Okay - now that is just weird. I'm working on this as we speak and it's not single pixels so maybe there maybe something wrong with how things are being displayed. The last post of the tile set displays as 160x200 on my screen and I haven't been working in single pixels EVER!!!

Anyway rest assured - everything is in wide pixels as I've been working with CPC pixels far too long to make an error like that 

[ptoing]

A widepixel technically is a singlepixel as far as storage is concerned.
You get 160 WIDEpixels, but your sheets is 80 widepixels wide. Not 160. Which is I think where the confusion came from.
Or if your sheet is the max then you only get 80 widepixels. I would not know, but I am sure this is what yrizoud was talking about.

[Stickman]

A widepixel technically is a singlepixel as far as storage is concerned.
You get 160 WIDEpixels, but your sheets is 80 widepixels wide. Not 160. Which is I think where the confusion came from.
Or if your sheet is the max then you only get 80 widepixels. I would not know, but I am sure this is what yrizoud was talking about.

Okay. I'll do some double checking as that would mean yrizoud was right about me having double the amount of space available. This would be pretty fantastic news!



Edit: Regarding tile tools, I imported this into Mappy and it's looking as is it should be.

[Stickman]

Haven't been able to work on this as much due to family difficulties as well as working. Started again today as it's one way to keep my mind occupied and also need to get back to my physical activities.

Here's the story so far - 4 more screens to do for a full complete level. Due to my misunderstanding of the sheet/kb sizes, I have more area to play with than I had expected which has been good news for me.

[Decroded]

FUCKING HELL, stop quoting shit that is RIGHT ABOVE YOUR POST (this goes to everyone)

...I know the feeling.
Anyway dude I think it looks really great what you have been doing keep it up! :-)

In case you need some other ideas...sewer manhole/lid (animated steam?), puddles, drains, street lights etc.
And its always fun to have stuff to smash up like parked cars (can jump on top) and or parking meters, telephone booths, newspaper stands etc.
Hot dog stand would be cool to smash with hot dogs that give your health back lol.
An electrical store could be fun to have in the background with a big glass windows full of animated tv's...lots of stuff to break hehe.