AuthorTopic: How long does an RPG world map tileset take?  (Read 12176 times)

Offline Ai

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Re: How long does an RPG world map tileset take?

Reply #10 on: September 06, 2013, 12:05:14 am
Though a good coder could probably code some autotiling rules which would allow for very quick map making and even auto generation.
If you look at doing that, you might be better off just using the Terrain tool in tiled -- or on a more sophisticated level, automapping, which does basically everything you might code for tile/tile group placement, short of procedurally generating whole landforms.
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Offline Cyangmou

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Re: How long does an RPG world map tileset take?

Reply #11 on: September 06, 2013, 12:52:19 am
I suppose the opener is talking about something like this:



Just to bring up the named reference.
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Offline Arne

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Re: How long does an RPG world map tileset take?

Reply #12 on: September 06, 2013, 01:09:47 am
Perhaps the proper question to answer is "how to go about estimating how much time is needed"...

That Ogre Battle tileset does look like quite a bit of work. Different climate zones * night and sunset versions :o Sure, a lot of it is copied and color tweaked, but I don't think I could churn out a full set like this in say, 12 hours, at least not if I had to figure out the structure/system from scratch, test tiling, run into dead ends, etc.

Offline ptoing

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Re: How long does an RPG world map tileset take?

Reply #13 on: September 06, 2013, 11:44:37 am
That tileset is a lot smaller than it looks in Cyangmou's post. All the the daytime variants can be discounted, that is at best 30 minutes of work as it is nothing but palette swaps which do not take long with decent software, esp if the artist is experienced. First of there are a lot of dupes in this tileset.

Then there are a lot of tiles which are essentially the same just with a different colour as well, like the roads. The snow and grass base tile are the same, just different colours and slightly different offset of the pattern, so just copy pasting a bunch of roads or rocks around and then adjusting the palette where it needs to be adjusted (shadows/aa) does not take long either. Same goes for the coastlines, the mountains, a whole bunch of the buildings and so on.

I think that an experienced artist who knows what will be needed and has some technical understanding as well as close communication with the programmer will be able to do this in 1 or 2 days.
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Offline Arne

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Re: How long does an RPG world map tileset take?

Reply #14 on: September 06, 2013, 01:56:13 pm
I'm not disagreeing with 2 days, but then there can't be too many features, things have to go according to a decent plan or the client has to be happy with what sort of came out, and there has to be shortcuts taken like cloning and palette swaps (they did take the time to light up the windows here though). I suggested 1-3 days (close to a thousand bucks with my rate at least) as "lower end" in my original post. I don't know what other people charge though.

If a middle sized developer contacted me wanting a decent looking world map, I'd expect to put a week's time into it though. They might even have concept art for area specific buildings and landmarks which needs to be followed and they probably won't be happy with something looking like Ogre Battle.

Offline ptoing

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Re: How long does an RPG world map tileset take?

Reply #15 on: September 06, 2013, 02:06:44 pm
Yeah totally agree.

About the windows being lit up, I think that is palette swaps as well from looking a bit closer, just clever use of palettes really. And of course in this instance it was all inhouse work so the artist and the coder are likely in the same building if not same room which from experience makes for a faster workflow because you can easily check stuff quickly and see what needs adjusting.

But yeah, I would reckon that I would do allot a week for something like this as well if I was to do it freelance.
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Offline Arne

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Re: How long does an RPG world map tileset take?

Reply #16 on: September 06, 2013, 03:15:23 pm
I'm thinking they did the daytime graphics first, then implemented nighttime later, at which point the artist had to paint in the index for window light anyways. Seems unlikely they painted the nighttime graphics first, or had the foresight to paint in a special index for daytime windows from the start, so it was still extra work, so to speak.

Edit: The best money saving approach for them would probably be to do a complete sheet with "programmer art" and then hire a guy to paint over that.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2013, 08:52:39 pm by Arne »

Offline ptoing

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Re: How long does an RPG world map tileset take?

Reply #17 on: September 06, 2013, 08:58:04 pm
I am fairly sure that in the case of Tactics Ogre the stuff was planned out. Also you have to take into account that you have 16 colour palettes for your tiles, so you can't really go and just do some shit and then hope to later have some free colours. You have to plan ahead for something like this either way, or cut back, which I doubt happened.

And also somewhat agree about the complete programmer art sheet. Though the question is if a programmer would account for all the little variants and extra bits and bobs which make a map like this feel more alive.
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Offline Tau Programmer

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Re: How long does an RPG world map tileset take?

Reply #18 on: September 07, 2013, 06:20:15 am
I guess that was the point I was concerned about.

We have a programmer art tileset, so we have some idea of how many tiles we have to have.
That's quite a bit different from how many tiles we should have, meaning how many tiles strikes a good balance between quality and efficiency.


In any case, any tips on how I should go about finding an artist who might be a good fit? Should I post an ad? Or start cold contacting artists? Or both?