AuthorTopic: [WIP][C&C] grass/hill tileset for heightmap generated levels  (Read 4356 times)

Offline startselect

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Hello Pixelation! I'm like everyone else and think I can make games and I've started by making a grassfloor/mudwall tileset just like everyone else :D

This is the first iteration and now that I'm finally done with at least that for each tile for the grass floor and mud/rock walls I'd thought I'd get some critique on it to help improve it.

Here is the tileset:


Here is a mockup made with some tiling tool:


I've run it in my level generator and it covers all possibilities that can arise in the heightmap->tilemap transformation (that I've seen :)).
The grass doesn't look that great in larger patches but I intend to break it up with patches of gravel and taller grass so I'm not that worried about that. The part I'm really disappointed about and would like your input on most of all is the mud/rock/turd walls. They are an obvious level worse than the grass tiles. I would love for them to look more natural but I can't really figure it out.

Also, because the whole worlds terrain will be generated I'm not sure I can add shadows to tiles, I might try to generate some full screen shadowing based on tile types and heightmap but I doubt I will draw specific shadow versions of the tiles I have. So everything is pretty bright which currently makes it look unnecessarily flat.

All critique will be greatly appreciated, thx!

Offline Ryumaru

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Hey there,

The first thing I noticed before even worrying about the technique of the mud walls is how close in value everything was. if you were to squint your eyes, you wouldn't be able to know what was going on in the image.

Here are some variations you could think about. one of them changes the value and hue of the mud ( might not be good for mud, better for rocks) and the other lightens the grass. The final lightens the grass and darkens the mud slightly, keeping all hue intact



good luck on your project  ;D

Offline startselect

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Thanks for the feedback Ryumaru! I tried changing the hue for the mud to make it brighter, even though it makes it look more like rocks. Might just become rocks :)
Also tried to do some gravel. Quite pleased with the edge to grass on the gravel, not so much with the gravel it self, so could use some pointers there too. I've put the tiles into a world generator and written some collision detection so now I need some stairs, they turned out quite weird sadly so any input is greatly appreciated. Also I can't figure out how stairs on a top edge would look, any ideas?

Test scene:


Tilemap:

Offline PypeBros

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possibly having grass tinted according to the height on the map could help reading the structure ?

Offline Phoenix849

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It's really hard for my eyes currently. Maybe you could add up some flora? Or otherwise tune down contrast a bit.
Art portfolio and social media links: olegklishin.com

Offline heyguy

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I feel that the grass needs a bit more contrast. Maybe you can add one more color, a dark green shade, to the grass. And this definitely needs shadows being cast by the elevated terrain so it doesn't look flat. I think you're onto something by making the grass on the elevated structure have higher values of light. I think that works. Flora can also help the scene too!

Offline Cyangmou

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consider the big planes over tiny detail to block out the general impression of form.

Made a really quick edit for this which should be more pleasent to look at - it still could get tweaked a lot more though.

"Because the beauty of the human body is that it hasn't a single muscle which doesn't serve its purpose; that there's not a line wasted; that every detail of it fits one idea, the idea of a man and the life of a man."

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