AuthorTopic: Need help making grass tiles  (Read 6842 times)

Offline Andy Tran

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Need help making grass tiles

on: January 25, 2006, 08:11:22 am
 To be honest, I suck at making grass tiles. Heh, my tiles always end up looking like those stupid dotted green tiles. They don't look much like grass. Any crits on making it better?

Offline Opacus

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #1 on: January 25, 2006, 08:17:55 am
I had some troubles with grass tiles too....
But first of, add a green/yellowish colour to it.
Also, just make them a bit random, dont make
it look like a patern. I suggest you just take a look
at real grass and use it as inspiration.

\ \ /
.\|/

Something like that.
And then try to make it fit.

Choose a dark green background colour and
paint the grasses on it.

Hope that helps.

SW.

Offline Andy Tran

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #2 on: January 25, 2006, 08:27:06 am
 Thanks man. I haven't made any grass tiles in a long time for such games. This really made it easier.

Offline Dusty

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #3 on: January 25, 2006, 08:28:49 am
Way too much contrast first of all. Second of all you want to avoid making obvious patterns in what you're pixeling for the grass, as when tiled it becomes very ugly. The problem with the one you've shown is you're not really even attempting to give it a "grass-like" texture. You'll want to pixel it the way you'll think it looks. Draw the blades of grass growing upward. Also, for makign it tile nice, don't focus on the center, that leads to an obvious repeated look when tiled. Draw the blades and when you draw near the edge, make them "wrap" to the other side of the tile, so that when it tiles it tiles smoothly. Also, check the general section for a tutorial thread, I think there is one for grass.

Offline Andy Tran

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #4 on: January 26, 2006, 12:00:36 am
 Thanks, but what did you mean by wrap to the other side of the tile?

Offline Zolthorg

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #5 on: January 26, 2006, 04:11:10 am
The key i've found to making grass tiles, is to start with a recognizable shape, mess with it, and then tile it, preferrable making a few random variations, but few chanegs to the original shape

hopefully this image of me screwing with 2 shade-grass tiles in 16x16 tiles (i noticed that was the size you were using)
(you'll notice how the 1 tile grass is almost more effective than the 4 tile grass, though those were quick rotates.



of course, that's the plain 16x16 tile i've got to the left, a few touchups and it could tile seamlessly.

If i may say so myself, the tile is rather flat, but sometimes you can't care about a grass tile, they need to be flat (low contrasted, the majority of my highlight color is a hue shift, very little shift in luminoisty) to function correctly.

You want to, keep the majority of blades (if you draw a tile in this style), the exact same shape. The eye which spots where a tile grid happens, preys on little dark spots, so you need to even disperse inconsistencies, or have none.


edit: overall, you're not going to be able to be taught, you can take the principles of many, analyze them, and try to learn yourself. It's rather hard to explain a grass tile alone.
Though i hear they're pretty big, it's the only tile i've got my head wrapped around at all :P
« Last Edit: January 26, 2006, 04:17:23 am by Zolthorg »

Offline Andy Tran

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #6 on: January 26, 2006, 11:39:06 pm
 Thank you. I now got some good ideas on making grass tiles. I'll use that reference from ya  :)

Offline Zolthorg

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #7 on: January 26, 2006, 11:40:45 pm
I can't wait to see your next attempt.
Glad i got my message across, all i aim to do is help and give ideas, not to boss anyone around. (and i wrote that while pretty tired, so it seems bossy in some parts :P)

Offline Andy Tran

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #8 on: January 27, 2006, 07:21:15 am
 Here's my new attempt. The left one is tweaked to less contrast than the right.

 

Offline FireFly

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #9 on: January 27, 2006, 12:49:01 pm
Well okay, I personally think it's too dark on the right one, I would lighten it.
On the darker one, it also looks good side to side, you cant point out where the "grid" is.. Nice! :)
/ FireFly

Offline Dusty

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #10 on: January 27, 2006, 09:15:44 pm
What you also need to remember is when making grass tiles, what I meant about the wrapping of the tile is dispayed in your grass tile with highlights. You have a light green pixel in each corner of the tile, when you tile that out it's going to put the four corners of bright pixels together to form that big clump of light in your tile that's creating that grid look.

Offline Zolthorg

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #11 on: January 28, 2006, 05:25:23 am
you may also want to consider not giving a highlight to every 'blade'

i've retooled my example to show you what i mean
(3 types of highlighting)


top: Original tile with about 2 pixels changed to completely remove most signs of tiling
random blades highlighted and random blades without any highlights -> all blades highlighted -> selective highlights of differing sizes

Offline Andy Tran

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Re: Need help making grass tiles

Reply #12 on: January 28, 2006, 08:03:27 am
Dusty: Good important imformation there. I've gotten some pretty good results from your advice.

Shadow Wolf: Inspiration is a good idea for an artist on grass tiles. I am going to take that advice for making some different kinds of grass tiles also.

Zolthorg: Great tutorial you've shown there. Here are the new results with blades with no highlights and highlights.