AuthorTopic: Terrain tiles  (Read 12307 times)

Offline Snippa

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Terrain tiles

on: October 13, 2006, 09:46:20 am
So, I suck with terrain tiles... especially grass... but just wanted some input on my latest attempt at some grass & dirt.


(2 seperate grass tiles, 2 seperate dirt tiles: tiles are 32x32)

Curious just how bad you guys think I am with this... I'm semi-satisfied with the dirt... I mean, it is just dirt right? maybe could use another shade of brown, but i dunno.
I'd like to get this down & get better if possible so I can get to work on more important & detailed art...
This IS all I have for tiles at the moment, haven't attempted sand, water, ice, snow, mountains, or any other misc terrain yet...

Anyways, have at it.

Offline ndchristie

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #1 on: October 13, 2006, 10:38:13 am
i think, in gerneal, your work needs less contrast.  the dirt texture is nice, but the shades are rather far appart.  if you were to lighten the field to be more of a mid-tone and work in some darker color as a shadow, you may find yourself with a much more pleasing textures and level of interest without being so harsh.

The grass, it is difficult to say what to do here, i cannot even really see what is going on.  try using only 2 shades first, and really gettign the shapes of grass, then adding either a highlight color for hard, dry grass or a shadow color for soft, moist grass and i think you will find yourself more pleased with the result.

here are some grass tiles ive done in the past:


a less-like tileset of mine, the grass here is very simple, allowing the few details te create a real texture without being overwhelming.  the drawbacks of this is that it is not completely convincing and looks like a field of needles

this tileset of mine came under harsh criticism for the grass tile's resemblance to the grass seen in Sword of Mana, a game which i was influenced by in terms of gameplay, and apparently also in terms of art (the similarities were unconscious but in the end undeniable).  It is simple and fairly pleasing, but unfortunately bears the stigma of looking like a squaresoft game.  it also, after a while, was not very fun to work with, because it lacks character.

not going to lie, this one is recent and SHITTY.  it has too much contrast, ugly texture, and no style or character to it.  I'm embarassed to post it as anything but a complete failure.

Isometric tiles are something tha i find difficult.  These grass tiles (only 2 so far, lit and shadowed) though are ones that i am quite satisfied with.  they are simple yet i think attractive, and so far as i know do not resemble any other specific game.  They are also fun to work with, which in the end is what really matters.

theres no two ways to say it - this is just boring.  nothing specfically wrong with it really, it's just incredibly boring.  it needs better colors, and better shapes; really it just needs to be redone.

an oldie, it looks a bit like yours actually. too many colors, too much contrast, and not enough style.  at least it tiles fairly well :P

well, thats all the work i can find in the few minutes i had, my furthur suggestion is to look at other people's work and stufy your pixel technique.  out.
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Offline .TakaM

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #2 on: October 13, 2006, 11:10:52 am
Quote
hehe, I have to say its nice to see you make something shitty for a change :P

and about your grass tiles Snippa, it looks like youre just drawin random shapes and then pillow shading them to one side, try spending a fair bit of time with each blade/clump of grass, although ofcourse there are other ways you can do grass.
in my rpg tiles I should really get back to working on, my grass tile (32x32 (sortof)) was relatively simple:

but I made some extra overlaying tiles that break up the repitition and add a bit of detail, also I always made my shadows add some texture to the grass, you can see the edges of the shadows give off the impression of a coule stray grass blades

I like to think my approach is kinda simple but has a nice effect, and take away from it what you will ;)
« Last Edit: October 13, 2006, 11:22:38 am by .TakaM »
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Offline Gil

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #3 on: October 13, 2006, 12:23:29 pm
Yeah, these are great examples guys! Rock on!

Offline Sherman Gill

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #4 on: October 13, 2006, 05:28:35 pm
I love the way your grass looks, TakaM. The subtle shapes in it make it look wonderfull. :sigh:
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Offline Snippa

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #5 on: October 13, 2006, 10:42:04 pm
Thanks for the examples guys, I'll see what I can do tonight...
TakaM, love your tiles, don't really care for the color choice, but they're interesting. Seems like alot of extra work though when it comes to shadows & objects on the grass, don't think thats something I'll be working towards personally.

Offline Snippa

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #6 on: October 13, 2006, 11:29:25 pm
This is what I have so far after looking at the examples and listening to the advice given, it's still a little random, but no more pillow shading... at least not as bad as it WAS... o.O


It could probably be a bit better... guess I have some fine tuning to do with it still...

Looks a little tiled, of course not what I want, but thats where most of my fine tuning will go...
Any thoughts on this one?

Offline BadMrBox

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #7 on: October 13, 2006, 11:35:50 pm
I looks good but as you say but tiled. Have you considered using more than one tile for your grass?
Quote
this tileset of mine came under harsh criticism for the grass tile's resemblance to the grass seen in Sword of Mana, a game which i was influenced by in terms of gameplay, and apparently also in terms of art (the similarities were unconscious but in the end undeniable).
Critism for looking like SoM? Eh... damn. Rough crowd or what?

Offline Snippa

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #8 on: October 13, 2006, 11:38:42 pm
Yeah, I'll definately be using multiple grass tiles, probably 3 or more... this is just the first one.

Offline BadMrBox

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #9 on: October 13, 2006, 11:41:59 pm
Yeah, that'll break down the tileness of it. You should also think about having border grass tiles for the connecting muddy tiles.

Offline Snippa

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #10 on: October 13, 2006, 11:43:38 pm
Thats probably what's going to get on my nerves the most, is making border tiles, especially with grass involved. :P

Offline Delgneith

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #11 on: October 13, 2006, 11:44:41 pm
Looks pretty good so far, though I do think where the tiles meet it looks a bit weird. Try to make it look a little smoother (the tiling) and as mentioned add one or two more grass tiles for variation.

I think the colors could use some work because as of now they look a bit bland. Kind of look like just a straight green. I would suggest added a bit of blue/purple to your darkest shade and maybe a bit of yellow to your highlight. I always try to aim a bit more towards a yellow-green for grass than just a straight green. Hope that helps  :)

Offline .TakaM

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #12 on: October 14, 2006, 01:00:44 am
a nice improvement snippa, it still doesnt tile too well and I dont think you'll really need more grass tiles to break up the repetition, since your grass tiles details are blades of grass it wont be too hard to hide the grid.

and the colours, at the moment there looks like a bit too much contrast and saturation to me, plus I changed the colours away from the.. 'default' green you used:

I thought it looked kinda cool, and I could easily picture main characters running round on it

keep it up :y:
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Offline Snippa

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #13 on: October 14, 2006, 02:15:19 am
Thanks,  editted it a little bit and made a second grass tile, I personally prefer the darker colors, just my taste I guess.
I put the tileset into Sphere to get a bit of a better look at them together, easier than copy & pasting them into a new image...



the left patch has a random mixture of both tiles, the right patch is just the first tile.
still need to work on the dirt :P
I really think adding the second tile helps it out quite a bit.

Offline Andy Tran

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #14 on: October 14, 2006, 02:31:08 am
 The tiles are ok. Make sure you always use low contrast on grass tiles. Lower contrast just makes it flat. Having it flat helps to keep it look more grass. I'd say, just make a mockup with your tiles. We can crit this much easier   by that. Good luck.

Offline Androk

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #15 on: October 14, 2006, 02:36:39 am
Yeah tone the grass down a bit =) Today in class I was working on some grass tiles and ran into same problem haha. Honestly you don't need high contrast/flashy rich colors on any ground tiles as it distracts from what's ON them!

TakaM's colors should give you a solid guideline. Also look over Adarias screenshots, and see how the dark grass usually looks worse then lighter one.

But aside from that looking good! Only problem to shape is if you stare at it you can see diagonal lines, which are formed by too much dark green in some areas, but lightening the colors will remove that as well hopefully!

[Edit] Figured might as well throw in the tiles here, maybe it'll help.

One made in class:


One made a few seconds ago (Pallete inspired by/kinda copied from TakaM and Adarias), a play on the original.

« Last Edit: October 14, 2006, 02:48:52 am by Androk »
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Offline Snippa

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #16 on: October 14, 2006, 03:42:21 am
Thought about it a bit and realized that I was using the darkest yellow-green colors I had... wouldn't be to good for shadows, so I lightened the grass up a bit, not as dull as you guys may think it should be, but im trying to work with somewhat limited colors. (I'm using between 6 - 10 shades for each color I want to use in my game):


Here's what I have at the moment, still working on the dirt :P

Offline Willows

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #17 on: October 14, 2006, 04:27:09 am
In my opinion (and it could very well be personal preference) you've got too much verticalness in your grass tiles.

I'm hopeless when it comes to dirt tiles, I'd suggest lookin' at how Adarias manages to make them look interesting, rather than the drab brown-with-rocks we seemed to try :)



Myeah. Not as high quality as the other resources, but perhaps it will help you, somehow. Yes, yes, I'm too lazy to just cut it down to grass tiles.

Offline Snippa

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #18 on: October 15, 2006, 07:54:49 am
So, after screwing around with my dirt tile for a while, i decided to do some looking around at dirt in other games (ultima online, diablo 2, world of warcraft, and some others)
...In my quest to find some decent looking dirt that I could slightly emulate, I journied to Hillsbrad Foothills in World of Warcraft (seeing as how the dirt I wanted to make pretty much has the same dark color as the dirt found there)...

ANYWAYS... while I was studying the boring dirt there, I noticed the grass as well, which seemed to look fairly decent.. So I decided to take another shot at making a grass tile, with a totally new approach... let me know what you guys think.



(I've taken a small poll from some friends & the few I've asked seem to like the other 2 grass tiles i made better... o.O)
Here's what I showed them & asked them which they thought looked more like grass:


/sigh

Offline Gil

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #19 on: October 15, 2006, 01:31:31 pm
I like the middle one better actually. Also, why are you using that horrible palette? It gives you a range of totally useless colours to work with...

Offline Willows

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #20 on: October 15, 2006, 05:30:31 pm
Basically, I just agree with what gil said, so that's two votes for the middle one, and two votes for a palette change.

Offline Snippa

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #21 on: October 15, 2006, 11:18:39 pm
thanks for the votes on the new tile lol
I don't get whats wrong with the palette though?
It's a hell of alot better and more organized than any of the default ps6 palettes for sure. o.O

Offline Crazy Asian Gamer

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #22 on: October 15, 2006, 11:31:59 pm
If you have a pixeling program with a good, manageable palette system, do noT create a predefined palette with a range of values that will likely turn boring.
Instead, the best approach is to define the palette as you go. This way, you get fresh, nice colors the way you want them. If you are concerned about using too many, just make sure you reuse the colors you've already defined.
I looks good but as you say but tiled. Have you considered using more than one tile for your grass? Critism for looking like SoM? Eh... damn. Rough crowd or what?
Yeah. Personally, I love SoM tilesets et al., but it's understandable why many people criticize it. It's not original. It's been done COUNTLESS of times before (no less thanks to the tut on zoggles...)
It's really nice looking, but we love originality here. And Secret of Mana is not original... anymore.

Offline ndchristie

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #23 on: October 17, 2006, 12:10:42 am
If you have a pixeling program with a good, manageable palette system, do noT create a predefined palette with a range of values that will likely turn boring.
Instead, the best approach is to define the palette as you go. This way, you get fresh, nice colors the way you want them. If you are concerned about using too many, just make sure you reuse the colors you've already defined.Yeah. Personally, I love SoM tilesets et al., but it's understandable why many people criticize it. It's not original. It's been done COUNTLESS of times before (no less thanks to the tut on zoggles...)
It's really nice looking, but we love originality here. And Secret of Mana is not original... anymore.

not really trying to defend the originality of the piece, but thats SWORD of mana, not secret

I also agree that the second grass tile is best

as far as the palette, i tend to work from a similar base palette for my stuff, but push the sliders around a bunch if i need something i dont have.  not the best way to go at all, but it does keep projects fairly unified without much thought


also, chances are, except for the gray rows, if a color section doesnt change, thats because i dont use it
« Last Edit: October 17, 2006, 12:16:31 am by Adarias »
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Offline Snippa

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #24 on: October 17, 2006, 02:34:35 pm
Just wanted to show a small example of what I have for tiles at the moment & what I'm able to do with them (which isn't near what I want to do with them).



Not really looking for too much crit. on this, I'll take some on the sand & sand/dirt combo tiles & the general look of the water though.
I can already see a few things I want to change in the sand & sand/dirt combo tiles, I'm content with how the dirt looks, but am open to suggestions on how to get it to look more like dirt :P
If you're at all curious about the grass/sand combo tiles, I thought about it alot before choosing to throw the dark dirt color in there, no it's not meant for shading.
I haven't done any water/sand, water/dirt, water/grass combo tiles yet... just decided to throw the tiles i had up there, I know it looks horrible. lol
That's pretty much all I have to say to defend the way the image looks, aside from the fact that I didn't use my extra grass, dirt, and sand tiles to break it up more.

What I'll be working on soon, after I get the basic tiles done, is another 1 or 2 sets for each combo tile to give the terrain more, uh... flavor o.O (such as having the grass stick out more into the sand or dirt & stuff like that.)
Anyways... back to work for me. :)

Offline artisan

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Re: Terrain tiles

Reply #25 on: October 17, 2006, 08:38:59 pm
looking much better then when it started, i feel that the dirt is too dark now though and the grass in the sand could use some work it just looks like a blob atm. also a sand to water tile wouldnt go amis
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