Iso tiles(wip)

[vierbit]

As I never done any iso stuff I experimented a bit with that perspective the last days.
I used 16x16 tiles as a base, although nearly all the cliffs are basically 32x16. For now it isnīt possible to build all kind of geometric forms, a few tile combinations are missing, especially the slopes are really tricky and need quit a lot of tiles.

I plan to add a few details, as currently it looks a bit boring and empty.



fancy wire frame

[Red_Mist]

Not sure if you were looking for critz or comments but.. I cant just sit here and not say anthing, your work, iso or not, is f#@ing amazing.
I see potential for either a tactics style game or some type of turned based strategy.

Are you planning on making the plain flat green tiles a bit more textured? I think it would benefit considering the amount of detail you have added to the rest of the tiles.

I find the shadows on the slanted tiles very appealing. oh, and outstanding rock work as usual. sorry I couldn't crit on anything.

btw. I think I may have drooled on my keyboard a bit apon gazing at these tiles... anyone who has a dislike for isometric pixeling needs to soak in some vierbit
pixels.

[EyeCraft]

Oh damn, this is so sweet!

Absolutely loving the style here. The grass is just ace. I think the flat green is great, but you should add small detail tiles that are just very basic dots or small blade clusters (sort of like Zelda 3). The ramps are absolute pure sex because they already have this carefully balanced amount of detail.

The cliffs are beautiful, but I think they are suffering from a bit of skimming at the moment. The eye doesn't come away from them with a strong sense of the shape of the wireframe. I think this is due to how much you've mixed shadow into the light-side tiles, and highlight into the shadow-side tiles. I think also getting a different hue into the shadow side could help, a cool one to help really differentiate it from their light side counterparts.

Aside from that, my god, make more! I'd love to see some plants, rocks, water and trees 

[Zoggles]

Very beautiful looking tileset scene, however the rock walls still seem to feel a bit 'flat' and painted on. Somehow the jaggedness of the surface feels like more of an optical illusion. I think this is not helped by some of the 'top surfaces' of the rocks not really being at a true isometric angle but seem to always slope outward from the tile surface. While I love the colours of the rock and grass, the rock highlight does strike me as a bit too orange.

Also.. why use square/rectangle tiles for a triangle/diamond grid? I'm pretty sure you will end up needing to make far more combinations of tiles merging one tile to the next. (http://www.miniwizardstudios.com/iso-tiles.asp)

As for slopes, while the current inclination you have is neater mathematically it can pose certain visibility issues of lower tiles 'behind' higher tiles. You have a 1, 1, 1 slope there and the natural iso metric is of course 2, 2, 2 (number pixels across with each 1px raise). A 1, 1, 2 (although harder to hide the jaggedness) is half as steep and allows better terrain visibility (4, 4, 4 on the reverse slopes instead of a flat line)


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Edit:

Quick edit/example of using triangular based tiles for constructing the image with the 'iso-blocks'.



Note: the first two (split) blocks would have their side face covered - unless you only show a fixed area instead of bleeding offscreen. I haven't bothered to show a soil cut-through, but just blocked in very roughly to show the shape mostly.

Whether this method or your square tile method is better would be an interesting debate. The obvious advantage to your method being no 'wasted space' in a tile sheet.

-Z-

[Gil]

Whether this method or your square tile method is better would be an interesting debate. The obvious advantage to your method being no 'wasted space' in a tile sheet.

Most isometric console games (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for example) use squares for even more obvious reasons. A triangular tilesheet forces you to have 2 tilelayers instead of one. It effectively doubles the amount of tiles on screen, needed video memory, etc.

It's just better to go the squares if you're able to draw them

The squares are very hard to use in a mixed environment though, as you'd need a LOT of transition tiles. This can be fixed though by only transitioning the scenery (from grass to snow for example) on the flat parts.

I always wanted to try to make square iso tiles myself, but I never really got into iso.

[Zoggles]

Most isometric console games (Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for example) use squares for even more obvious reasons. A triangular tilesheet forces you to have 2 tilelayers instead of one. It effectively doubles the amount of tiles on screen, needed video memory, etc.

Well.. given the size difference between the small rectangles and the large triangles.. I should say that the number of drawn tiles is similar in total... if not in favour of the triangles. Video memory to hold the tilesheet I will concur with. However, I have made numerous phone games using diamond tiles no problem

-Z-

[Dusty]

I think my only crit is that the rock faces have very obvious lines where they tile, otherwise quite beautiful.

[ptoing]

Very nice stuff. Actually FFTA uses at least 2 layers for their tiles. Of course they have to use square 8x8 tiles (what with GBA and all) but they use full ones for stuff that is not cut off and all things which are ledges are partly transparent and on top. Which imo is the best solution as you save a lot of mix tiles.

[Monochrome]

Beautiful tileset, I must say. Are you using for something bigger or is it just a simple experiment?

[Dex]

I must agree with Dusty; great great work, but the tiling of the darker rocks is fairly obvious. The tiling works very well otherwise. I really enjoy the depth you gave to where each slope is.

The grass texture is also very neat! It feels a bit bear, though. Add some flowers, rocks, maybe even a tree?

Hope to see more!