Unofficialization: tiles

The Commander Keen Community Mod!
levellass
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Unofficialization: tiles

Post by levellass »

I say we embrace the concept of LeMADTA (Lets make a damn tileset already) via the age old process of people posting tiles and there being a 'master tileset' they're added to. I'd be glad to host said tileset and add tiles if anyone can think up some.

We have a good storyline (Though not enough art) What say we start tiling and *really* get things moving?
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CommanderSpleen
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

My own focus is still on the framework I outlined in 'Bounderies', but feel free to start compiling some art. It may inspire some new ideas elsewhere.
levellass
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Post by levellass »

Right! I have been gifted some tiles and made one or two, just to get the ball rolling. All are open to editing, criticism or adding. We've got a big tileset to fill!

Image
Last edited by levellass on Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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XkyRauh
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Post by XkyRauh »

Are you volunteering to compile contributed tiles to the overall set, Levelass? I'll work on something during my long shift this afternoon. :)

Edit: I emailed you, Levelass.

Edit2: Man, get rid of my 'original' ground tiles, and just keep those awesome changes you made. :) Exactly what I wanted to happen--improvement!
Last edited by XkyRauh on Tue Jan 23, 2007 5:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
levellass
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Post by levellass »

Received and updated. (Both Xky's original tiles and a slightly edited version of them.)

Do note at some time we'll have to decide whether or not to get rid of some superfluous tiles.
EricMushroomWilson
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Post by EricMushroomWilson »

Looking good. Keen 4-ish without looking exactly the same, I think.

I think the ground tiles (the more detailed ones) could use a little bit of editing in regard to the repeating part. It doesn't tile all too neatly, I don't think.

I don't think I'm part of this project, so I guess I can't contribute tiles?
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XkyRauh
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Post by XkyRauh »

Not true at all, Eric! It's titled The "Keen Community Mod," and since you are a posting member of the community, you are more than welcome to contribute! :) We're happy to have you.
EricMushroomWilson
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Post by EricMushroomWilson »

Ah, that's good. I'll see if I can throw together some tiles sometime. Should I post them in an image myself or do I have to send them to levellass first?
levellass
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Post by levellass »

Do whatever you prefer; I personally am just collecting tiles into a tilesheet that others can examine, critique, edit and add to. If you wish to modify old tiles or add new ones, feel free to do so, the more that contribute, the faster we get our tiles done!
EricMushroomWilson
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Post by EricMushroomWilson »

OK. I'm not promising anything, but I'll try to overcome my laziness and create some tiles.

Edit: I've recently started a mod, so I'm going to be focusing on that for now. I won't be doing any tiles right now, but I'd still like to contribute something to the project if possible. I'm interested in possibly doing level design...
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XkyRauh
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Post by XkyRauh »

Alright, here's a port from the Story thread:
Early progress is blocked by a river village, whose slug inhabitants demand the retrieval of a stolen artifact hidden in another location. [Who stole it, what and where is it?] Gotta be more to the story than just this, though.
This means we need tiles for a village--should the buildings look like traditional Keen4 buildings, (grey stone,) or would a village of Slugs be more nature-y somehow? Clearly the grey structures weren't built by the Slugs themselves... so what do the Slugs live in? That's something to make tiles for.
Objectives involve activation of some kind of ancient technology. Statues were suggested. Steering well clear of the typical 'collect four items' mentality.
This means we need statues! What are the statues of? Council members? Slugs? Generic obelisks? They're ancient technology--runes? Wires? Stone? How can we construct these? :)
Possible game finale finds Keen entering a mine shaft, which collapses behind him, preventing his return. The only option is to forge ahead.
More tiles! We can do rocks, cliffs, maybe minecarts and/or track.

Furthermore, we should decide whether we want to try and hold to the "slanted" view seen in later Keens, or if we want to try and translate it to a K:V-friendly square-tile system. The angled floors look nice, but they eat up a LOT of space, and they slow down production because of consistency and possibly masking issues.

We've already got -some- tiles that are angled--can we mix perspectives? Should we abandon the 18 tiles we already have in favor of something simpler? :) The advantage would be ease of incorporation--it's very easy to add more and more single-tiles than it is to fashion functionally compatible prefabs.
Scizor CT
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Post by Scizor CT »

The statue bit is out of date by now, I just haven't posted the recent revisions yet, pending further development on the rest of Ep. 1's outline.

For the buildings, I was thinking that they should be made out of wood. Partially because it'd be easier for the slugs to use, and partially to differentiate them from the Shadowlands population, though still retaining some of the feel.

As far as perspective, isometric would *look* nice, but it isn't really practical given the tileset limitations. And I think we'd be better off not trying something that could result in a lot of extra work. This has been delayed enough already.
levellass
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Post by levellass »

Eh, the tiles can be made 2D easily enough.

Let's see some additions!
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CommanderSpleen
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

Here's a quick adaptation of the ground tiles into the style I'm using for CKMB. It shaves off about 7 tiles and makes things simpler to manage. The one on the right is an attempt at addressing the masking issue to minimise the amount of repeat tiles for different backgrounds. I'm not sure it'll work that well, but something may evolve from it.

If we abandon the outlines around the outer tiles, it's possible to take the tile count down by another five, but it might not look that good.

Image

I've always been a fan of the wood hut theme, so I say we go with that for the slug village, based on Scizor's concept art.
levellass
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Post by levellass »

I don't know, I've always liked the simplicity of stone. Stone i can draw, I wouldn't know where to start with wood.
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