I've been working on adding some new tile types, and redesigning some old ones.
I've moved stairs up and down from door type tiles to overlay tiles. As I explained in an earlier post, overlay tiles types can be placed on exiting tile types, inheriting some of the qualities of that tile.
Some of the tile types have been successful, while others I'm not happy with. I wanted to add rounded corners to some rooms, but the result, because of the way the code works, just doesn't satisfy. I'll be dropping them for now, perhaps including them as the base wall type in another tileset. On the other hand, details and decorations are just what I was hoping for.
Details can be added to either the floor or a pit. They don't affect movement, and can be used to represent non blocking visual details, such as small pieces of trash, rugs, blood splashes, slime trails, spider's webs etc... on floors. On pits they can be used to represent spikes, large pieces of trash, rocks or boulders, skeletons, or anything else that will liven up an otherwise dull section of dungeon.
Decorations will be used to represent bookcases in a library, pipes in a sewer, fallen rock in a cave, or anything else which can block movement through part or all of the tile.
It might be a pile of bones, or some stacked coffins, anything to break up the space of a large room:
Decorations and details will be able to contain lights and perhaps object containers, so in a library you'll be able to search the bookshelves, or in a storeroom you can open some of the crates.
Some tilesets will work differently, so that the "walls" will be open space, while the "floor areas" will be raised areas like in a swamp, or in a crypt, In that case the "pit" areas may be handled like solid brick walls, blocking both sight and movement:
I'm going to be writing a simple helper script to quickly generate walkability data for any new tileset. Each tileset will use different rules for how it handles walkability. In some decorations may block sight, in others you'll be able to fly across to another room, or engage in an archery duel with a distant platform.
These other types of tileset will be reserved for later versions of the game. For now I'm just going to be making a single tile set with some visual variations.
I've also been tinkering with the idea of giving clothes to some of the beast men. At the moment they are just copies from another monster, but I'll retexture them properly if I decide to use them. It does help to define the beastmen better in to different roles, such as shaman or scout or whatever.
One thing I've noticed recently is that my old dungeon texture is too high contrast. If you look at the NWN1 tilesets above you'll seer there's not a lot of very dark or pure black lines or details on them. This helps to create a distinction between static geometry, the tiles and dynamic geometry, the monsters and other objects.
In all my screen shots so far it's been rather difficult to distinguish the monsters or players from the background. It's easier when they are moving, but still you can't see as much detail and their silhouette gets rather blurred in to the background.
Simply by reducing the contrast in my old textures I get a much better result:
It's not as atmospheric, but you can see what's going on much better. Hopefully when making the new tilesets I can find some middle ground where I get to keep some details, but don't lose the characters in the background.
I've moved stairs up and down from door type tiles to overlay tiles. As I explained in an earlier post, overlay tiles types can be placed on exiting tile types, inheriting some of the qualities of that tile.
 |
| A more detailed prefab. |
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| With descriptions. |
Some of the tile types have been successful, while others I'm not happy with. I wanted to add rounded corners to some rooms, but the result, because of the way the code works, just doesn't satisfy. I'll be dropping them for now, perhaps including them as the base wall type in another tileset. On the other hand, details and decorations are just what I was hoping for.
Details can be added to either the floor or a pit. They don't affect movement, and can be used to represent non blocking visual details, such as small pieces of trash, rugs, blood splashes, slime trails, spider's webs etc... on floors. On pits they can be used to represent spikes, large pieces of trash, rocks or boulders, skeletons, or anything else that will liven up an otherwise dull section of dungeon.
Decorations will be used to represent bookcases in a library, pipes in a sewer, fallen rock in a cave, or anything else which can block movement through part or all of the tile.
It might be a pile of bones, or some stacked coffins, anything to break up the space of a large room:
 |
| (modified NWN1 content, found online) |
Decorations and details will be able to contain lights and perhaps object containers, so in a library you'll be able to search the bookshelves, or in a storeroom you can open some of the crates.
Some tilesets will work differently, so that the "walls" will be open space, while the "floor areas" will be raised areas like in a swamp, or in a crypt, In that case the "pit" areas may be handled like solid brick walls, blocking both sight and movement:
 | |
| (modified NWN1 content, found online) |
These other types of tileset will be reserved for later versions of the game. For now I'm just going to be making a single tile set with some visual variations.
I've also been tinkering with the idea of giving clothes to some of the beast men. At the moment they are just copies from another monster, but I'll retexture them properly if I decide to use them. It does help to define the beastmen better in to different roles, such as shaman or scout or whatever.
One thing I've noticed recently is that my old dungeon texture is too high contrast. If you look at the NWN1 tilesets above you'll seer there's not a lot of very dark or pure black lines or details on them. This helps to create a distinction between static geometry, the tiles and dynamic geometry, the monsters and other objects.
In all my screen shots so far it's been rather difficult to distinguish the monsters or players from the background. It's easier when they are moving, but still you can't see as much detail and their silhouette gets rather blurred in to the background.
Simply by reducing the contrast in my old textures I get a much better result:
It's not as atmospheric, but you can see what's going on much better. Hopefully when making the new tilesets I can find some middle ground where I get to keep some details, but don't lose the characters in the background.
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