Reply With QuoteNice, I'm sure I can find a use for these somewhere.
Ceraus's Tiles (formerly Slope tileset)
EDIT (May 10): This thread is no longer restrained to slopes. It now covers tileable terrain in general.
(Follow-up to this thread: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=4655)
My D&D campaign being full of wilderness encounters (in plains), I was tired of having only rocks, bushes and trees to show. Unfortunately, I've never seen a well-done slope, so I started experimenting (see the above thread).
Now that I'm satisfied with the way I can get slopes to look like, I started producing a slope tileset. The first useable result is joined to this post in a zip file along with pictures of what it looks like. There's only 2-square long slopes for now, but I'm working on more.
Each tile of the set covers multiple squares, with squares 64 pixels wide. They're designed so that a small set of tiles can be rotated every which way and fit together seamlessly to make slopes as wide as desired. To save memory, gain versatility and have more variety, they have no texture of their own and must be added on top of a background texture (generic "plain" will do, as will a few others). This allows for really, really big maps, and scenarios (chase, exploration, string of fights) which would not be possible with a single, stand-alone map. Gametable crashes with 15-square by 15-square images and hardly handles their splitting in smaller images (hard limit of 10 MB of usable images). Maptool won't handle 30-square by 30-square pictures and slows down considerably as cumulative image size increases (it is, however, crazily efficient with textures and tiles). Thus the tileset.
While I had realism in mind at first, my priority is usability. Each square must show clearly what kind of terrain it is. If I indicate a slope (using up precious memory), it's a steep one that affects the players. Otherwise it's not shown. Seen from above, real-life slopes are only visible if the sun is low, and even then, not if the light hits them sideway. I show them by making their top lighter than their bottom (easily seen in the leftmost picture) and adding a subtle gradient shadow (even though the slope should make none). I also reinforce them with a pale grass/earth/rock texture; the combination of texture and lighting make the slope obvious no matter the zoom levels and clearly delimits which squares are part of it.
The complete tileset will have edges (denivellations between two squares), 1-square, 2-square and 4-square slopes and the necessary transitioning tiles. I will surely make a matching cliff tileset, and maybe combinations between the two (if the cliff gets higher, surely there's a slope somewhere...).
Last edited by Ceraus; 05-10-2009 at 05:59 AM. Reason: broadened the topic
Nice, I'm sure I can find a use for these somewhere.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
I've pretty much completed the base tileset, so here's a demo of a few elements. The whole (current) tileset can be seen at the left.
I'm working on texture transitions right now, so that going from earthy to grassy looks like the third image rather than the second. It's just a universal texture that's superimposed on the seams and fades out in both directions. Hopefully it's universal enough for many terrain types.
I'll also collect good-looking vegetation and rocks.
EDIT: Oh, and I'll make rivers too. And paths.
Last edited by Ceraus; 05-02-2009 at 12:33 AM.
Lookin pretty good.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
A sample map I've made using the current (unreleased) tileset. Again, the whole tileset is visible on the left. I used two 8x8 textures, a few rocks I made and some vegetation I stole.
I estimate that this map would take about 10 MB if it was stand-alone. Using tiles, it takes 4 MB instead... not much smaller, admittedly, but I can continue expanding it without increasing memory usage.
Great work...
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Nice, I could put that to use pretty quickly.
Joining the tileset. It includes the following:
- Slopes 1-, 2- and 4-square long
- Cliffs and "steps"
- Transitions: 0-1, 0-step, 1-step, 1-2, 1-4, 2-4, step-cliff
- Appropriate ground textures: grassy, grass-earthy, sand
- Rocky texture designed to fit with the cliffs
- Details: rocks, trees, assorted vegetation
All elements are designed to snap to a 64-pixel-squares grid... I hope the low resolution is not a problem. The tileset is much more flexible than it appears at first; while there are many limitations to what exact shapes can be formed with the slopes and cliffs, the global result should not suffer (see sample picture above). The base textures and most of the vegetation are "stolen", but the rest is mine.
Although functional, the tileset is still WIP, but the current elements are pretty much set in stone. I'll continue adding to it -- paths, water and texture change come to mind, and urban environments eventually -- but I'm taking a break for now.
Last edited by Ceraus; 05-02-2009 at 06:17 PM.
Bleargh! 64px? That's a weird size. I run everything at a 100px grid in MapTool.
...
I knew it.I was so focused on the results that I forgot to consider other resolutions.
I've always used 64px because one, that was the only Gametable resolution, and two, I base my player and NPC tokens on World of Warcraft icons (with remade borders), which are incidentally 64px.
So I wonder: is there a "standard" virtual tabletop resolution? What would be the ideal tileset resolution? I should adapt before I make too much stuff.
(Note: I confirm, slopy terrain is very much more fun than featureless plains.)
