TILE TIEM
- CommanderSpleen
- Posts: 1017
- Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2003 12:11 pm
- Location: The Land of Sparkly Things
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TILE TIEM
Well, I've been working on some tiles lately, but it's pretty difficult without a clear idea of what each level needs to contain. So, that's the first thing we need to figure out: a list of all the platform types, scenery props and backgrounds each level theme requires.
To speed up level development, I propose we then create very simple black and white placeholders for all the objects, which can then be drawn in properly as the tilesets consolidate themselves.
The Map
Let's start with the slug territory.
Slug Outpost
Slug Village
Slug City
Slug River Crossing
Stream
I'll go through and list what we've already got later, unless someone ninjas me. In the meantime, suggest whatever you think will fit these level themes and I'll add them to this thread. Concept photos, drawings, or examples from other games would be handy.
To speed up level development, I propose we then create very simple black and white placeholders for all the objects, which can then be drawn in properly as the tilesets consolidate themselves.
The Map
Let's start with the slug territory.
Slug Outpost
Slug Village
Slug City
Slug River Crossing
Stream
I'll go through and list what we've already got later, unless someone ninjas me. In the meantime, suggest whatever you think will fit these level themes and I'll add them to this thread. Concept photos, drawings, or examples from other games would be handy.
creppy trees with eyes
torches for underground
various spikes
As for the slug village and city, I am imagining minimal stuff above ground, and a lot of stuff underground. If you ever saw the movie Antz, they had big open caverns...
(Sort of like this, minus the ant-ball)
Slug outpost:
Rickety wooden observation towers on comically tall stilt legs.
Various slug weaponry, maybe hanging on clothes lines?
Pikes sticking out of ground.
Slug city:
underground throne room for slug king complete with statues, stone gargoyles, pillars, that giant slug statue =), maybe a prison cell with a lick in it
Stream:
Parts of the level could be turned into a raft ride using wooden platform sprite for crossing water tiles
-moving water tiles
-rocks sticking out of stream with water splashing over them
-mini waterfall (viewed side on)
-trees/logs fallen across river
-various leafy shrubbery in the background (can also be reused for forest theme)
-the dirt underneath the river can have miniature "veins" of water drooling around the rocks; this effect was used at points in jazz jackrabbit
-ladders/piers
torches for underground
various spikes
As for the slug village and city, I am imagining minimal stuff above ground, and a lot of stuff underground. If you ever saw the movie Antz, they had big open caverns...
(Sort of like this, minus the ant-ball)
Slug outpost:
Rickety wooden observation towers on comically tall stilt legs.
Various slug weaponry, maybe hanging on clothes lines?
Pikes sticking out of ground.
Slug city:
underground throne room for slug king complete with statues, stone gargoyles, pillars, that giant slug statue =), maybe a prison cell with a lick in it
Stream:
Parts of the level could be turned into a raft ride using wooden platform sprite for crossing water tiles
-moving water tiles
-rocks sticking out of stream with water splashing over them
-mini waterfall (viewed side on)
-trees/logs fallen across river
-various leafy shrubbery in the background (can also be reused for forest theme)
-the dirt underneath the river can have miniature "veins" of water drooling around the rocks; this effect was used at points in jazz jackrabbit
-ladders/piers
Last edited by lemm on Fri Aug 13, 2010 6:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
- Deltamatic
- Posts: 163
- Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2009 5:33 am
They could hold things with their mouths, antannae, or put things onto their skin. Since their skin is coated with poisonous slime it's sticky.doomjedi wrote:Slugs don't have hands, so possible weaponry for them is very limited...and mostly connected to chestplates or helmets...
Yes, that would be too much work for one person. I know Ceilick and Paramultart can do graphics, but Ceilick is working on his own mods and Paramultart is also making a mod.doomjedi wrote:P.S. I really don't want to be the only art spriter for this mod...
tielset update
Been working on 1TIL0002.BMP, which is the "general daylight theme" containing many people's tiles, and will probably be used in slug areas. Most of the work has been trying to nail down a good layout allowing for both jump-from-beneath and galaxy style platform styles. There are still a few more odd slope pieces I need to make, so I'll keep updating this BMP... it could be a useful template for other tilesets. I just updated dropbox with the testmod, you can check out level 4 to see a small preview. (Yous till ahve to go to the slug bridge to get the pepper for entry to levle 4).
Some things that this tileset could use:
- more vegetaton, particularly that on which keen can stand; expanding on the trees would be a good start
- indoor theme for inside the stone houses.
- slug guard post tiles
- underground slug city elements
- hazards
- animated tiles
- retractable/extendable bridge blocks and switch (horizontal and vertical)
I think the checkerboard pattern used in tileset was a good "complexity level" for the main foreground texture. Given that there are so many slope combinations (even just including 1/1 and 1/2) and background combinations, anything more would probably be hell to make levels with.
Some things that this tileset could use:
- more vegetaton, particularly that on which keen can stand; expanding on the trees would be a good start
- indoor theme for inside the stone houses.
- slug guard post tiles
- underground slug city elements
- hazards
- animated tiles
- retractable/extendable bridge blocks and switch (horizontal and vertical)
I think the checkerboard pattern used in tileset was a good "complexity level" for the main foreground texture. Given that there are so many slope combinations (even just including 1/1 and 1/2) and background combinations, anything more would probably be hell to make levels with.
Well, I'm alright at taking existing stuff and fitting it to a tileset (i.e. mundane busy work), but I can't really draw anything beyond primitive geometric shapes. So if you have any really good textures, I could try to expand upon them (turn them into slopes, combine with backgrounds, etc). Just as long as I'm not actually making the original content :pdoomjedi wrote:P.S. I really don't want to be the only art spriter for this mod...
Last edited by lemm on Tue Sep 14, 2010 8:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: tielset update
It looks very nice, the mod is really getting shape artwise :)lemm wrote:Been working on 1TIL0002.BMP
Still, alot of art I saw here on the forum are yet not in this tileset...can give plenty of examples.
Yes, indeed.- more vegetaton, particularly that on which keen can stand; expanding on the trees would be a good start
- indoor theme for inside the stone houses.
What kind of things we can expect there? Kitchen tools, sofas and such urban look....or more primitive "cavemen"-style scenery?
Yes, that's a must. I'll see what I can do.- slug guard post tiles
Can you give examples, ideas?- underground slug city elements
Let's think about those. How they differ from enemies, coding-wis,, art-wise and animation-wise?- hazards
We can use some Keen 4 elements, like mud or poison pools?
Any other ideas? Avalanches? Sinking sands? Flesh-Eating plants?
Any more particular ideas? Plants with moving eyes?...?animated tiles
Can you make eyes to follow the player?
Sounds interesting :) Should we go for hi-tech or low-tech look? Any nice concepts?- retractable/extendable bridge blocks and switch (horizontal and vertical)
I think the checkerboard pattern used in tileset was a good "complexity
Sorry for noob question - but can you explain/show me that "checkboard pattern" means?
Ok, I get the situation. We'll see what we can do. What textures we might need? Any good ideas?Well, I'm alright at taking existing stuff and fitting it to a tileset (i.e. mundane busy work), but I can't really draw anything beyond primitive geometric shapes. So if you have any really good textures, I could try to expand upon them (turn them into slopes, combine with backgrounds, etc). Just as long as I'm not actually making the original content :p
Can you at least make IDEAS and CONCEPTS for textures?
Pretty much everything should have a primitive caveman feel, or at most, a middle-ages look. Certainly no urban themes in this episode.
Hazards:
MOST Hazard tiles have to be static, either animated or non-animated, like in keen vorticons. The game isn't built to have tiles that are hazardous part of the time and not hazardous for the other part.
Having said that, you can still make a few dynamic items like those keen4 shovels, or keen5 forcefields, that are based on tiles and are only hazardous part of the time. These elements will only be able to be used about 12 times per level though (similar to how many ice cube cannons you can place in keen1).
ideas for animated tiles and hazards:
-like you said, Avalanches would be good. Perhaps a 45 degree slope with rolling rocks could be set to slippery top.
-Carnivorous plants are always nice =)
-Floating logs on the water, can make them bob up and down
-Shadowlands trees with faces... I'll see if I can make their eyes follow keen; if not, they can just have an animation pattern where they look around.
-Pits of oil, slime, tar, water, lava, other deadly fluids
-Dripping water, or waterfalls, or water seeping over tiles
Textures:
-ideas
arch site bricks, sand, canyon rocks, moss covered rocks, caverns, inside stone houses, inside log houses...
What I meant by the checkerboard pattern was that there were only 2 types of tiles, and they repeat like:
ABABAB
BABABA
ABABAB
.. etc
on the other hand, if the pattern is something like:
ABABAB
CDCDCD
ABABAB
CDCDCD
or
ABCABCABC
DEFDEFDEF
then I would think that such a pattern might be hard to use, given all the possible slope combinations and backgrounds one could make; perhaps this is not the case though, it's just my speculation.
Hazards:
MOST Hazard tiles have to be static, either animated or non-animated, like in keen vorticons. The game isn't built to have tiles that are hazardous part of the time and not hazardous for the other part.
Having said that, you can still make a few dynamic items like those keen4 shovels, or keen5 forcefields, that are based on tiles and are only hazardous part of the time. These elements will only be able to be used about 12 times per level though (similar to how many ice cube cannons you can place in keen1).
ideas for animated tiles and hazards:
-like you said, Avalanches would be good. Perhaps a 45 degree slope with rolling rocks could be set to slippery top.
-Carnivorous plants are always nice =)
-Floating logs on the water, can make them bob up and down
-Shadowlands trees with faces... I'll see if I can make their eyes follow keen; if not, they can just have an animation pattern where they look around.
-Pits of oil, slime, tar, water, lava, other deadly fluids
-Dripping water, or waterfalls, or water seeping over tiles
Textures:
-ideas
arch site bricks, sand, canyon rocks, moss covered rocks, caverns, inside stone houses, inside log houses...
What I meant by the checkerboard pattern was that there were only 2 types of tiles, and they repeat like:
ABABAB
BABABA
ABABAB
.. etc
on the other hand, if the pattern is something like:
ABABAB
CDCDCD
ABABAB
CDCDCD
or
ABCABCABC
DEFDEFDEF
then I would think that such a pattern might be hard to use, given all the possible slope combinations and backgrounds one could make; perhaps this is not the case though, it's just my speculation.
...any feedback on the switches? Please feedback my art, so I will know if they fit, and if anything to fix in them.
What about simple wooden chairs and/or tables?
So you mean vases (maybe vases and pots filled with slug poison/slug poison storage items, candles, fireplaces (animated?), windows, candeleers, woodpiles....?...what are things that can specifically fit Slugs and their daily lifestyle? How their food-preparing/kitchen can look?
Should there be toilets?
Games maybe, board games, gaming items? - Not to get bored in the village?
Beds?
Yes, logs are great idea.
I do have plenty of free time next week though...
But It's hard to make trees that way, and almost totally impossable to make a tilable guard tower...as it uses height.
Another thing about the guard tower - it that I need to make them accessable to slugs to be able to climb in and out of guard tower. And that's challenging idea-wise and tile-wise.
Any ideas?
on the other hand, if the pattern is something like:
Should Trees have slopes BTW
Anyway - tilemaking is a whole other art-style, and I have to get used to making such art. It's challenging. I did tilesets before though....but that was long time ago.
lemm wrote:Pretty much everything should have a primitive caveman feel, or at most, a middle-ages look. Certainly no urban themes in this episode.
What about simple wooden chairs and/or tables?
So you mean vases (maybe vases and pots filled with slug poison/slug poison storage items, candles, fireplaces (animated?), windows, candeleers, woodpiles....?...what are things that can specifically fit Slugs and their daily lifestyle? How their food-preparing/kitchen can look?
Should there be toilets?
Games maybe, board games, gaming items? - Not to get bored in the village?
Beds?
Just to remind you - we already have a few "rolling" enemies, one of which is actually a "rock"...kinda...-like you said, Avalanches would be good. Perhaps a 45 degree slope with rolling rocks could be set to slippery top.
Again, too bad the jumping fish didn't make it in...-Floating logs on the water, can make them bob up and down
Yes, logs are great idea.
Ok, sounds fun to make :) Can they be animated?-Pits of oil, slime, tar, water, lava, other deadly fluids
Drawing/Coding-wise - should they be "tile specific", or can they use transparency and be more "general"?-Dripping water, or waterfalls, or water seeping over tiles
Wow, lot's of work...arch site bricks, sand, canyon rocks, moss covered rocks, caverns, inside stone houses, inside log houses...
I do have plenty of free time next week though...
Ahh...got it...What I meant by the checkerboard pattern was that there were only 2 types of tiles, and they repeat like:
ABABAB
BABABA
ABABAB
.. etc
But It's hard to make trees that way, and almost totally impossable to make a tilable guard tower...as it uses height.
Another thing about the guard tower - it that I need to make them accessable to slugs to be able to climb in and out of guard tower. And that's challenging idea-wise and tile-wise.
Any ideas?
on the other hand, if the pattern is something like:
Well, slopes shouldn't work on guard towers for example...then I would think that such a pattern might be hard to use, given all the possible slope combinations and backgrounds one could make; perhaps this is not the case though, it's just my speculation.
Should Trees have slopes BTW
Anyway - tilemaking is a whole other art-style, and I have to get used to making such art. It's challenging. I did tilesets before though....but that was long time ago.
Last edited by doomjedi on Mon Sep 13, 2010 9:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
Here's some more stuff to think about. Sorry in advance if you already know this or I am repeating myself.
Technical babble
There are three types of tiles: foreground, masked, background.
-Foreground tiles: Drawn completely in front of keen (and other sprites).
-Masked: Supplied with a black and white mask (which is the next tile in the tileset), only part of the tile is drawn in front of sprites; the rest is drawn behind. If the mask is not black and white, only certain colours will be masked, giving a sort of stained glass effect.
-Background tiles: completely behind keen... these include points items, keycards, doors, message tiles, rayguns, etc etc.
In the CKCM, ALL animated tiles will have an 8 frame animation pattern, but we don't need to have 8 separate graphics for each animated tile. For example, there could be a two frame graphic, which goes 1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2. Or you could have a 5 frame graphic, which goes 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2, etc etc. (Technically, a non-animating tile is just 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1.... but it still has 8 frames so to speak).
In additon, we can have masked animated tiles (which were not allowed in vorticons).
In the maps, there are two planes: one for tiles, one for sprites. This will be a very aggrivating limitation.
For slopes, we can have 1:1, 1:2, and 1:4. 1:1 and 1:2 will definietly be used often like in galaxy; 1:4, I am not so sure, maybe here and there, since it will take up a large number of tiles.
Comments/Opinion
I think all the ideas you suggested are good. Perhaps you could even make modern devices with ancient building materials, like Flintstones (eg, a stone television set; stone furniture). Just so long as it LOOKS old, using old building materials, in my opinion, is more important than realism. Spleen did say we're going for a cartoonish atmosphere rather than ultra-real.
Light comes from the top left. Also, tiles should have a bit of depth on the TOP, but not on the sides. (i.e., the top border is contained in the next tile above the tile that keen stands on, roughly 4 pixels up).
Yes, hazards should definitely be animated. Irregular animation patterns would be good too to make the background more interesting.
Trees should have slopes.
If you want the slugs to get up and down the guard post, there are two things we can do.
The First is to make a set of sloped tiles that they can walk up. This would be like a spiral staircase, where the slopes zig-zag back and forth, and the slugs turn around at the ends. One flight of stairs would be about (or at least) 4 tiles wide, the slugs would come to a "balcony" on each floor of two tiles wide or so, hit a railing, turn around, and continue up the next flight. I can frig with tile properties so that they will march in a loop, up one set of stairs, and down another set of stairs. (Check demo level 14 in the CKCM dropbox).
The second (and not my favorite) option would be just to use a platform that lifts the slugs up. But they will need slopes to get back down.
Finally, with regards to the checkerboard coment I made earlier, that is just a suggestion, and it was only for large land masses, not for things like trees, guard posts, etc. Basically, my point was that it would be a bad thing if there are 4 or 6 different types of 45-degree sloped tiles per direction, each on 4 different backgrounds, because that would spiral quickly out of control and be utterly confusing for making levels.
Technical babble
There are three types of tiles: foreground, masked, background.
-Foreground tiles: Drawn completely in front of keen (and other sprites).
-Masked: Supplied with a black and white mask (which is the next tile in the tileset), only part of the tile is drawn in front of sprites; the rest is drawn behind. If the mask is not black and white, only certain colours will be masked, giving a sort of stained glass effect.
-Background tiles: completely behind keen... these include points items, keycards, doors, message tiles, rayguns, etc etc.
In the CKCM, ALL animated tiles will have an 8 frame animation pattern, but we don't need to have 8 separate graphics for each animated tile. For example, there could be a two frame graphic, which goes 1-1-1-1-2-2-2-2. Or you could have a 5 frame graphic, which goes 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2, etc etc. (Technically, a non-animating tile is just 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1.... but it still has 8 frames so to speak).
In additon, we can have masked animated tiles (which were not allowed in vorticons).
In the maps, there are two planes: one for tiles, one for sprites. This will be a very aggrivating limitation.
For slopes, we can have 1:1, 1:2, and 1:4. 1:1 and 1:2 will definietly be used often like in galaxy; 1:4, I am not so sure, maybe here and there, since it will take up a large number of tiles.
Comments/Opinion
I think all the ideas you suggested are good. Perhaps you could even make modern devices with ancient building materials, like Flintstones (eg, a stone television set; stone furniture). Just so long as it LOOKS old, using old building materials, in my opinion, is more important than realism. Spleen did say we're going for a cartoonish atmosphere rather than ultra-real.
Light comes from the top left. Also, tiles should have a bit of depth on the TOP, but not on the sides. (i.e., the top border is contained in the next tile above the tile that keen stands on, roughly 4 pixels up).
Yes, hazards should definitely be animated. Irregular animation patterns would be good too to make the background more interesting.
This will be a tricky part. Definitely, we want them to be general so we can reuse elements. We only have one tile plane, however, so to make different combinations of platform and background elements, you could save your platform and foreground elements with transparency. Then, anyone can take those elements, combine them with background patterns in an image editor, and get the final tile to paste into the tileset. Not sure if that is what you meant...Drawing/Coding-wise - should they be "tile specific", or can they use transparency and be more "general"?
Trees should have slopes.
If you want the slugs to get up and down the guard post, there are two things we can do.
The First is to make a set of sloped tiles that they can walk up. This would be like a spiral staircase, where the slopes zig-zag back and forth, and the slugs turn around at the ends. One flight of stairs would be about (or at least) 4 tiles wide, the slugs would come to a "balcony" on each floor of two tiles wide or so, hit a railing, turn around, and continue up the next flight. I can frig with tile properties so that they will march in a loop, up one set of stairs, and down another set of stairs. (Check demo level 14 in the CKCM dropbox).
The second (and not my favorite) option would be just to use a platform that lifts the slugs up. But they will need slopes to get back down.
Finally, with regards to the checkerboard coment I made earlier, that is just a suggestion, and it was only for large land masses, not for things like trees, guard posts, etc. Basically, my point was that it would be a bad thing if there are 4 or 6 different types of 45-degree sloped tiles per direction, each on 4 different backgrounds, because that would spiral quickly out of control and be utterly confusing for making levels.
Thank you :)lemm wrote:Here's some more stuff to think about. Sorry in advance if you already know this or I am repeating myself.
I'm new to Keen modding, but not to Keen and/or Modding (of other games). So I indeed can ask some noob questions - but with my modding and gaming experience I have all the "tools" to easily understand what you're talking about.
Indeed, some things you said were known to me, but some were new, so thank you for your patience.
About drawing priority I understand, and for that they probably need to be blockable as well I guess.-Foreground tiles: Drawn completely in front of keen (and other sprites).
But can they use transparency?
Are those "platform tiles" in your terms?
You do the masks right? I don't have to worry?-Masked: Supplied with a black and white mask (which is the next tile in the tileset)
This is like upper edge of the platform, right?
Ok, drawing priority is clear, and illiminates question about possible transparency.-Background tiles: completely behind keen... these include points items, keycards, doors, message tiles, rayguns, etc etc.
This is an example of things I did know :)Light comes from the top left Also, tiles should have a bit of depth on the TOP, but not on the sides. (i.e., the top border is contained in the next tile above the tile that keen stands on, roughly 4 pixels up)..
Yes, that's what I meant...kinda.This will be a tricky part. Definitely, we want them to be general so we can reuse elements. We only have one tile plane, however, so to make different combinations of platform and background elements, you could save your platform and foreground elements with transparency. Then, anyone can take those elements, combine them with background patterns in an image editor, and get the final tile to paste into the tileset. Not sure if that is what you meant...
I was asking more artwise, to make artwise a way to have "logical" towers with entrance. But if you can make slugs to actually enter them - it can be top cool :)If you want the slugs to get up and down the guard post, there are two things we can do.
Great ideas! :DThe First is to make a set of sloped tiles that they can walk up. This would be like a spiral staircase, where the slopes zig-zag back and forth, and the slugs turn around at the ends. One flight of stairs would be about (or at least) 4 tiles wide, the slugs would come to a "balcony" on each floor of two tiles wide or so, hit a railing, turn around, and continue up the next flight. I can frig with tile properties so that they will march in a loop, up one set of stairs, and down another set of stairs. (Check demo level 14 in the CKCM dropbox).
Yes, I did think of that...but got the same conclusionThe second (and not my favorite) option would be just to use a platform that lifts the slugs up. But they will need slopes to get back down.
Cool, we can hide keys in those towers....very logical mapping wise, and challenge to get them :)lemm wrote: The First is to make a set of sloped tiles that they can walk up. This would be like a spiral staircase, where the slopes zig-zag back and forth, and the slugs turn around at the ends. One flight of stairs would be about (or at least) 4 tiles wide, the slugs would come to a "balcony" on each floor of two tiles wide or so, hit a railing, turn around, and continue up the next flight. I can frig with tile properties so that they will march in a loop, up one set of stairs, and down another set of stairs. (Check demo level 14 in the CKCM dropbox).
But I still have problems with your concept....can you draw it more clear?