AuthorTopic: Hi-res tree  (Read 7026 times)

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Hi-res tree

on: July 21, 2015, 02:36:27 am
Doing a bit of hi-res work atm this tree is in WIP.


This leaf clustering is pretty time consuming so next time I might look at ways to speed things up like maybe there's mostly less detailed areas with patches of detail.

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Re: Hi-res tree

Reply #1 on: July 21, 2015, 02:55:40 am
Hey man, this looks awesome  :y:

I always try to avoid patterns in low frequency detail ( the bigger stuff) because once you see it, you can never un-see it. Currently I cannot un-see the "C" ( :hehe:)





Of course, now there's a little bit of an "S" but you get the idea.

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Re: Hi-res tree

Reply #2 on: July 21, 2015, 05:27:49 am
Thanks didn't even see that.
I just added that clump to try to break it up a bit but the form is a bit crappy maybe if I break up the canopy into more clumps and separate them more it will look better

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Re: Hi-res tree

Reply #3 on: July 21, 2015, 11:30:18 pm
Good lookin' tree! Pretty realistic.
I have just one color edited cause I thought the two darkest shades of green looked too similar in value:


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Re: Hi-res tree

Reply #4 on: July 22, 2015, 07:43:28 am
Good lookin' tree! Pretty realistic.
I have just one color edited cause I thought the two darkest shades of green looked too similar in value:



Thankyou.
My monitor sucks ATM so that's appreciated.

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Re: Hi-res tree

Reply #5 on: July 22, 2015, 09:00:09 am
The reason we tend to get rid of obvious striping patterns is because they are obvious when there's multiple of the same tree on-screen. The easiest solution is to figure out a good workflow that lets you create several of these trees in short time. Then you spend the time making as much variations as possible. That or you create the perfect tiling tree, which is nearly impossible and even really REALLY good artists, like the ones that did the forests of, say, Chrono Trigger, just barely make it work. We tend to emulate older art and thus drag with us certain limitations that don't exist anymore. Keeping an indexed palette has a bunch of merits. Conserving tile space just stifles tile sets, even though it can be fun training exercise to maximize creativity within bounds. I don't recommend it for commercial projects, just like I wouldn't recommend making a NES-compatible game (versus one that looks and feels like it's NES-compatible).

This "tile sets lack variety for no good reason" nail is one I'll be hitting a lot, apologies in advance ;). It hurts my brain when people try to make the perfect tiling tile, when the solution is usually variety instead. Even very restricted SNES games have at least a few different grass tiles for example. Trees are a very good example, because it's such a daunting exercise to create a tree that handles on-screen copying well. By being so large, any small striping detail (like the dark horizontal band you have now) will look ridiculously obvious.

So how many trees do you need? A general average that I see a lot is 3 free-standing trees and some sort of tileset that allows one to create "thickets", aka dense forest, for use as impassible terrain. If I were to create a general purpose tileset, this is the list of assets I'd create:

- One basic tree, with extreme stripe removal
- One variation, with more character
- One with a different color to splash a secondary color
- One big tree, as a place-of-interest
- A set of tiles to create thickets, that mostly match the basic tree

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Re: Hi-res tree

Reply #6 on: July 22, 2015, 01:02:39 pm
The reason we tend to get rid of obvious striping patterns is because they are obvious when there's multiple of the same tree on-screen. The easiest solution is to figure out a good workflow that lets you create several of these trees in short time. Then you spend the time making as much variations as possible. That or you create the perfect tiling tree, which is nearly impossible and even really REALLY good artists, like the ones that did the forests of, say, Chrono Trigger, just barely make it work. We tend to emulate older art and thus drag with us certain limitations that don't exist anymore. Keeping an indexed palette has a bunch of merits. Conserving tile space just stifles tile sets, even though it can be fun training exercise to maximize creativity within bounds. I don't recommend it for commercial projects, just like I wouldn't recommend making a NES-compatible game (versus one that looks and feels like it's NES-compatible).

This "tile sets lack variety for no good reason" nail is one I'll be hitting a lot, apologies in advance ;). It hurts my brain when people try to make the perfect tiling tile, when the solution is usually variety instead. Even very restricted SNES games have at least a few different grass tiles for example. Trees are a very good example, because it's such a daunting exercise to create a tree that handles on-screen copying well. By being so large, any small striping detail (like the dark horizontal band you have now) will look ridiculously obvious.

So how many trees do you need? A general average that I see a lot is 3 free-standing trees and some sort of tileset that allows one to create "thickets", aka dense forest, for use as impassible terrain. If I were to create a general purpose tileset, this is the list of assets I'd create:

- One basic tree, with extreme stripe removal
- One variation, with more character
- One with a different color to splash a secondary color
- One big tree, as a place-of-interest
- A set of tiles to create thickets, that mostly match the basic tree
Pertinent post in line with my thoughts  :y:
Anyone getting into tiling should be aware of these points IMO.
For example, right at the start I asked questions like "are there were any tiling tree walls"instead of just running off and drawing the what I thought should be done.

Although its worth mentioning this tree is more of a sprite that is placed arbitrarily than a tile, it still suffered from the obvious pattern problem when repeated.
So I smoothed it out...

It seems to repeat quite well now I think in this test.
Although its lost some character, this was never intended to be a feature tree.
Any glaring issues before I go in for the kill?


I also have budget for 2 more trees at this point.
Second tree I'm thinking to do a younger one with less on it.
For the 3rd one I haven't decided on a variation of this type of tree or something different like a fur that can be used in a different area of the city.

Offline Gil

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Re: Hi-res tree

Reply #7 on: July 22, 2015, 01:41:01 pm
Yeah, "tile" in this context is more of a "unit of placement", or "thing that repeats itself visually".

That newest edit is perfect for what I described as being a "basic tree". It repeats fairly well (even the small branch holds up pretty well in repetition), good job :)

Although its lost some character, this was never intended to be a feature tree.
Yeah, this is important to note. Making a tree that repeats well almost always equals less character.

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Re: Hi-res tree

Reply #8 on: July 22, 2015, 09:50:24 pm
Yeah, this is important to note. Making a tree that repeats well almost always equals less character.
Yep. I notice this seems to apply to pretty much any tile that repeats.
Gotta have the plain ones with less character and a few variations to spice things up.

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Re: Hi-res tree

Reply #9 on: July 22, 2015, 11:38:06 pm
There's probably a cool article / open license tileset opportunity there about creating tilesets. If only I wasn't such a lazy bum.