Terrain tiling [Dirt for a change]

[hyperactivething]

Those tiles look really good. I like them Now we just need more units that do well on sand to really get the most out of them


About the 'vegetated desert' idea, there are at least two sides, I guess. The game mechanics side, and the real life association side.

When looking at it from the game mechanics point of view, you gotta consider what terrain approximates this new type in terms of defense and movement cost. How hard is it to cross this type of terrain, and how much cover does it provide? I'd say the cover is nothing to write home about. It might make terrain a bit more difficult to cross for mounted units, maybe?

From the real life side, I'm not sure. Desert and forest are kind of opposite, the way I see it. I'd say file it under the same as oasis. Oases tend to have vegetation for obvious reasons. This could be the terrain around oases. They would not heal units, of course.

There. But, as I read around here, don't trust me, I'm just a normal player.

[mogech]

The plants looks good,good job.
To me the tiles looks too dense, I think you could create a lot more tiles if you use the bones and plants sparsely.

[Cernunnos]

For a rapid answer as i have not much time,

each plant and each bone is drawn separately so it's easy to change the final disposition and number of things per tile.
Plants are drawn on a different layer than the sand in the file i'm working in (.xcf, .png is just to show), so it will be an overlay and would go on sand and on desert if wanted.
I will do dead or decomposing plants as beetlenaut proposed since it's a good idea.
I'm just drawing, deciding if it should be another type of desert is not of my resort (and balancing not my problem ), but if i can make a point, i would be quite disappointed as a player if one of my unit get ambushed by a wose on one of those.

!!!Cactus Ambushed!!!

And last but not least, Sangel wrote :

While portrait art may be where Wesnoth gets its glamour, and sprite art may be where Wesnoth gets its zest, it's the terrain art that's so crucial to Wesnoth's polish - it's the canvas that the rest goes on

It almost made me cry, this sentence is really beautiful, i'm considering to take it as a signature

Thanks, bye.

[Sleepwalker]

I just want to say that your tiles are awesome!

Good job.

[Cernunnos]

Hi all,

Ok, here is my thought about those tiles considering all you've said so far :



Right and bottom parts represent 8 completed tiles, a little more "empty" than just before.
However, this is an approximative representation of those tiles, since i don't know how to WML this (as overlay) to see how it really goes (so 72*72 pixel tiles could be different even if not much).

The top right part represent each plant/bone/thing used to make the definitive tiles, and are given in the following box as an .xcf file (along with each tile separately, as an overlay).

publish-box.zip

(690.93 KiB) Downloaded 204 times

This way you're able to modify the tiles or make new ones if you want. (or make standalone cactus as some people suggested for example).
Just for details, i named the tiles from 4 to 11 if you wanna keep the "old" ones, but more important, i think the recognizable tiles (as the one with the skull) should have a smaller probability than others (like 1 out of 10 to 15 or so) whereas the others could go with a bigger frequency.
Well this is just my opinion, and of course only relevant if you want them in game...

Well, hope this is all for me with cacti!

Thanks, bye.

[thespaceinvader]

I'd suggest leaving each one as an individual overlay, then they can be combined as needed. I think WML can do that.

[Cernunnos]

thespaceinvader, I'm not sure about what you propose,

Should i make each cactus on a different 72*72 file or should i make them on a file which match their own particular size? (with transparent background, i understood this part =) )
And what i don't understand is why?

Cause i think it would take longer for devs to create each tile from separated cacti than for me to make them right in the first place, isn't it?

[Jequ]

Cause i think it would take longer for devs to create each tile from separated cacti than for me to make them right in the first place, isn't it?

New editor supports transparent overlays. F ex bridges can be used on top of any terrain.

[Cernunnos]

Oh, ok then, thanks for telling!

The tiles are as overlays, but not each cactus, should i make them as items then? (72*72 pixels?)

As for a screenshot :


I used this :

Code: Select all

{TERRAIN_OVERLAY_PROB Dd^ overlay 2 desert-plant}
{TERRAIN_OVERLAY_PROB Dd^ overlay 2 desert-plant2}
{TERRAIN_OVERLAY_PROB Dd^ overlay 2 desert-plant3}
{TERRAIN_OVERLAY_PROB Dd^ overlay 3 desert-plant4}
{TERRAIN_OVERLAY_PROB Dd^ overlay 1 desert-plant5}
{TERRAIN_OVERLAY_PROB Dd^ overlay 3 desert-plant6}
{TERRAIN_OVERLAY_PROB Dd^ overlay 1 desert-plant7}
{TERRAIN_OVERLAY_PROB Dd^ overlay 1 desert-plant8}
{TERRAIN_OVERLAY_PROB Dd^ overlay 1 desert-plant9}
{TERRAIN_OVERLAY_PROB Dd^ overlay 3 desert-plant10}
{TERRAIN_OVERLAY_PROB Dd^ overlay 3 desert-plant11}

But i'm no coder so the probability should be changed, well, that's not much i think.
So, considering your remarks, i will edit soon with each cactus as an item too in a box, (+ i will change the name of the tiles, since i gave them with the name "desert_plant" instead of "desert-plant"... =°, but that's nothing eheh)

edit: tell me that i don't have too for the little plants... please... ...
edit 2: i also noticed that some tiles are cut, since i made cacti in all a 72*72 square, it's to say outside of some hexes, but there, they're cut, maybe something can be done in WML too?

[thespaceinvader]

What you've done there looks like what I was suggesting =)

But i'd lower the probabilities somewhat. That looks like a very busy desert at the moment.

[Cernunnos]

Oh, well then i don't have to make items!! fiuu, that was close!

Well, thespaceinvader, i think the part about probability should be let to developers, a i pointed a second problem in my second edit => some tiles get cut, and i'm not able to deal with this.

bonus :

desert-plants.zip

(260.03 KiB) Downloaded 198 times

I made only 4 items, the 2 bones and the 2 gray trees, i renamed the tiles to match the existing ones and i let the xcf file if you want to do more, all in the box.

[thespaceinvader]

These look great. Fantastic work.

[Cernunnos]

Eheh, thanks,

Waiting for my orders!

[thespaceinvader]

On what to do next? Take on whatever holds your interest best, really. But if you want some ideas in terms of terrain, something we've needed for a LONG time is a deciduous forest (that is to say, broad-leaved trees which lose their leaves in the winter). Making a fully-leaved variant, an autumnal variant and a leafless winter variant (with snow optional) would be even better, if you felt up to that.

Other than that, variation for water terrain (seaweed, for instance, possibly shoals of fish) would also be cool.

But really, do what you feel like doing, if it needs doing - as an artist, that's the best course I've found - if you're not interested in what you're doing, doing it for free becomes a chore. And there's enough that needs doing on the project for pretty much anything that holds your interest to need doing.

=D keep up the great work.

[zookeeper]

On what to do next? Take on whatever holds your interest best, really. But if you want some ideas in terms of terrain, something we've needed for a LONG time is a deciduous forest (that is to say, broad-leaved trees which lose their leaves in the winter). Making a fully-leaved variant, an autumnal variant and a leafless winter variant (with snow optional) would be even better, if you felt up to that.

Other than that, variation for water terrain (seaweed, for instance, possibly shoals of fish) would also be cool.

But really, do what you feel like doing, if it needs doing - as an artist, that's the best course I've found - if you're not interested in what you're doing, doing it for free becomes a chore. And there's enough that needs doing on the project for pretty much anything that holds your interest to need doing.

=D keep up the great work.

Things that I can immediately think of which would need doing:

1. Dirt transitions, and maybe the basic tile itself too should be improved with variations.
2. Farmland could look much better, I think.
3. Finishing the cliffs. Quite a big task.
4. The water<->chasm transitions, for which there are threads already.