paved roads

Post by **yobbo** » October 7th, 2005, 4:26 am

I started messing around with a paved road tile, but I'm not really sure what direction to take it in.

As square cobblestones might look a bit funny in a hexagonal world I just went for a "take a bunch of flat-ish rocks and butt them up together" kind of road.

I wasn't even sure what perspective to draw it from - should it be flat, to tie in with map geography (as it is here), or viewed from an angle to tie in with map features (trees, houses, whatever)?

If anyone has an opinion on how I could improve / redo this, please speak up

.

GregorR · Post by **GregorR** » October 7th, 2005, 4:35 am

As a totally non-aesthetic observer, I think it looks quite nice.

However, I'll tell you one thing: You should do the same thing that they should do with the bridges, set the unit_height_adjust so they're actually standing on the road. Even if it makes them look like they're sort of off center, it will look far better than having them hang arbitrarily off the road.

Just my 2 cents.

EDIT: Also, I should point out that A) the crisper one on the right looks better, and B) having uneven stones is definitely better than all square.

Post by **Jetrel** » October 7th, 2005, 5:08 am

Shrink the tile(s) by about 30-50% vertically to account for perspective. In doing so, I suggest using Bicubic interpolation (or something better).

Otherwise, not bad, although I'm curious to see how well the existing tiles would fare under the effects of a "sharpen" filter. To be frank - I really like the existing tiles, although thanks for doing the work on this.

IIRC, though, frame, our master of terrain, is *not* fond of our existing tiles, and he's the guy making the decision.

Post by **yobbo** » October 7th, 2005, 5:56 am

I had tried sharpening the current tile, but it didn't quite look right to me. I just ran it through a couple unsharp masks and reduced the contrast a bit to compensate.

I originally drew the rocks double size. Here's a copy that I only shrunk vertically (by 50% for easy edge matching).

Post by **Jetrel** » October 7th, 2005, 6:20 am

yobbo wrote:I had tried sharpening the current tile, but it didn't quite look right to me. I just ran it through a couple unsharp masks and reduced the contrast a bit to compensate.

I originally drew the rocks double size. Here's a copy that I only shrunk vertically (by 50% for easy edge matching).

wow
that
looks
good

I kid you not. Keep working, but, by golly, I had no idea how potent of an effect that one little tweak would have.

Post by **ivanovic** » October 7th, 2005, 9:55 am

The "Lord of Terrain" is currently on holidays, but he will be back soon. I am sure he will like your work. It is great to see new people interested in improving the terrains. I really like your work. The new swamp you made looked already very good, and the new street is even getting better. So please do not stop with this

.

Elvish_Pillager · Post by **Elvish_Pillager** » October 7th, 2005, 9:59 am

Now the road is good enough that we can complain about the grass-road transition.

dtw · Post by **dtw** » October 7th, 2005, 5:04 pm

The first one I thought "Nahhhhhh", second one I was as impressed as Jetryl - which is pretty impresses - makes the hills look crap tho!

nonobots · Post by **nonobots** » October 7th, 2005, 5:57 pm

Amazing tiles.

Seems to be pretty close to perfect no?

It would be nice if we had a stone bridge that meshed well with this road... and if the ford too meshed well...

I can't wait to use those roads.

Post by **Zebulon** » October 7th, 2005, 6:58 pm

Looks very good.

-> What i might be working on · Post by **Eleazar** » October 7th, 2005, 9:33 pm

Quite nice with the vertical squash.
I'd also suggest varying the color of the stones from pure grey. (Tint some of them brownish, or whatever.) Wesnoth distinguishes how far a unit can move by turning out of bounds hexes grayscale. It's rather hard to see on the edge on neutral tiles like snow or keep.

Also it might be best to have the game draw the road tiles and transitions after the grass, that way it would normally be wider. A special grass-road transition shouldn't be neccessary.

Post by **irrevenant** » October 8th, 2005, 5:29 am

The right one looks awesome!

My only concern would be that it looks a bit flat. I don't get a sense that the stones are rounded, or that they jut out from the ground. It looks a little "painted on" to me.

That said, I can't put my finger on why it feels that way to me, or how to address the issue.

Loki · Post by **Loki** » October 8th, 2005, 9:02 am

irrevenant wrote:The right one looks awesome!

My only concern would be that it looks a bit flat. I don't get a sense that the stones are rounded, or that they jut out from the ground. It looks a little "painted on" to me.

That said, I can't put my finger on why it feels that way to me, or how to address the issue.

A bit of shading around the edges of the stones, suggesting an actual light source over the uneven cobbles, would complete the effect nicely. Photoshop's "Lighting Effects" filter might do the job.

Also, someone suggested more color variation, which I agree with. Some browns, yellows, the odd darker stone, etc.

Post by **freim** » October 8th, 2005, 10:32 am

Very nice. These already looks way better than the current ones.

I agree with the color variation comments, it would be int. to see how that turned out.

The perspective change is good, althought I'm thinking maybe the stones could be slightly smaller.

Have you done any transitions for these tiles yet?

ILikeProgramming · Post by **ILikeProgramming** » October 8th, 2005, 2:29 pm

I think you should post the tiles(not as a screenshot) and transitions(if you have them).