Tiles...

[Darien]

...are not a strong point of mine.  Help me make them one?



I was going to post this when I finished the tree, but I broke down.  I'm not sure about the direction I'm going with the foliage; a friend of mine said that the leaves might be too much on the eyes, and I think I may be getting what he meant... what do you guys think?  I was thinking about trying a more symbolic representation rather than drawing each leaf like that but I'm not exactly sure how to go about doing that.

I'd like a lot of the critique centered around the house, however.  I think it's all right, but it's not specatular.  It seems... lackluster.

Any other critiques are welcome, though. 

Oh yeah, the sprite there is NOT mine.  It's only there to show what style and size the tiles are supposed to fit.

[Evil-Ville]

The roof tiles look flat and plasticy. (atleast the ones on top of the roof) I don't know how you could make them look better, just mentioning it. Otherwise it's fine.

[GOODNIGHTdestroyer]

For the roof, I suggest putting some windows in to break it up a bit. Maybe adding some weatheredness to it too.

I like the direction you're going with the tree right now, the leaves look good.

[neverest]

I'd say the top of the tree doesnt look near big enough for the size of the trunk.
I do really like the render of the face of the building though, but maybe deepen the shadows in/under windows and doors and the roof overhang to tie in with the shadow cast on the ground.

[Darien]

Thanks for the comments guys.  Just a little update, mostly so you can see how the tree will probably look.  I shortened the tree, because I don't know if I have the energy or time to expand the foliage that much.  Hopefully it won't be necessary...




Goodnight, I'm not ignoring your suggestions, I'm still thinking about windows and how to imply weatheredness.

As for my own issues with the house, I guess I have issues with how it feels as a whole.  Like... color unification.  Am I the only one who the blue door looks out of place to?

[neverest]

I quite like the blue doors, but thinking about the buildings design as a whole, I'd have to ask - what era are you going with, if any?
Because as it stands the roof in particular makes it look very modern. if you're going for the typical rpg style then I'd suggest googling some tudor architecture. And I agree some window bays in the roof would help.
Oh yeah and the tree looks a lot better, I like how the leaves are going.

[Andy Tran]

Most of the tiles lack detail. Grass Tiles should be flat  (low contrasted) to look correct. When tiling, to avoid a grid look, disperse everything. If you have like one small red dot on the tile anywere, it'll make a grid look. I hope that helps.

[ndchristie]

i think the important thing with tiles is to, above all, create tiles that can be used over and over in different ways to create different looks and shapes.  you could probably do that with this set, but at least the way you have it shown, it seems like you have a large amount of individual tiles and not much reusage.  What this needs is variation.  heres a very old tileset i did, posted as an example of how to use a low number of tiles effectively
http://www.geocities.com/donteatbadgers/ExampleNight.PNG
and the tileset for daytime:
http://www.geocities.com/donteatbadgers/Tileset02SlumsDay.bmp

what you need i think here is ways to break up the terrain better, and also a much more customizeable house face.

what you have done here is pretty nice, i like the style.  i think some smoothing could be used especially on the stones, but besides that this is a nicely rendered set

[Xion]

If you wanna make it look interesting/weathered, I'd say remove a few shingles here and there and maybe making sections of the door look like wood, to suggest missing paint. The plaster(?) on the outside could have some cracks going through it here and there...The windows could be cracked or have a kind of frostiness around the edges.

If you don't want to make it look old, maybe you could increase the size of the shingles by a little bit so that the top isn't too crowded, and offset them from one another a bit. As they are, they look more like bricks than roofing. Make the edges where the roof comes to the sides overhang a bit more, or stagger the shingles there. As the others said, some roof-windows would be nice.

The grass, as Andy said, should be less contrasty and have more compact patches.
The tree's looking cool.

[Darien]

Oof.  Looks like I might have to do some pretty drastic changes to the house.  Here's an update of the tree:



This house is supposed to be standard fantasy stuff.  I can't find any good close up Tudor shots, but I guess they should be vertically lain instead of horizontal?  As for making them a little bigger... that would make it so they wouldn't tile well, I would think.

The house took me an incredibly long time to make, because I was always keeping in the reusage and stuff down.  It really was a mess for me.  I'm disappointed I still haven't gotten it to a good level    But I'll look into ways to cut down on tiles some more.... I see some spots where I can cut down on tiles.  Adarias, were there any particular ones you were thinking of?

I'm thinking I should redo the rocky base tile stuff too.  It's kinda just blobby stuff right now.  I'm thinking it should use the same colors, either...?

Thanks guys.