Partisan - take two

[ndchristie]

Any reason that particular platform on the right doesn't have an outline?

the jaggedness is because it's a WIP (still figuring the overlap, which was dependant on tile-height (Fil and I have finally agreed on 6px per height measure, other options were 4, 8, and 12...actually it's kinda like 12 here since sixes can easily make twelves...)

the lack of a hard outline is because it's actually a ground-tile.  We'll (eventually) have a hard-lined tile for rocks hanging into space, and similarly a soft-lined rock pile (only a hard-lined one seen here) for when rocks lead into each other.  I'll be drawing those separately so they'll take a little bit of time...

[ndchristie]

This might be a premature update, but I started fiddling with the building pieces...:

[ptoing]

This looks really nice but imo has one big flaw atm. Height differences are not visible on a glance. This will probably be better once you have sprites on there, but it might be an issue gameplay wise.

[ndchristie]

Good point - working on it!



heavily WIP edges for raised tiles....again probably too early, but it shows where we're going .

[Gil]

Final Fantasy Tactics advance did it like that, which worked really well. They used pure black edges.

I love the new edges in terms of readability. It does improve the immediate visibility of height changes and looks aesthetically pleasing enough. On the other hand, the original looked very organic and natural, heightening immersion.

[ndchristie]

On the other hand, the original looked very organic and natural, heightening immersion.

I wonder if this is because of the design; in the second example i just threw several quick stacks together without rhyme or reason (just haste).

Here i've recreated the old swatch for the sake of an easy comparison:


still losing an organic quality, or not as much?
200% for two reasons - one is that i ended up with a blurry firefox and the other is that I'm going to argue for that (or higher) being the in-game res.

Here we also see the biggest frustration of isometric - like over like will always cause some confusion with height/placement of tiles.  We'll make every effort to see that tiles are generally floating over things of a different color/material to lessen this.
Even the best have trouble with this.  Here's an early level from FFTA:


the first time i played this level i thought that closest orange tree was actually a bush on the square diagonally up from it - i didn't see the trunk at all until i'd completely goofed my deployment.  luckily FFTA is an easy game!

[Gil]

The original still looks a little more organic, even with non-random placement, but I think it's worth it, because of the clearer difference. Looking good either way.