Ground Tiles & Transitions

[smallfly]

I finally created the ground tiles for P1SIM. From top to bottom: Snow, rock, jungle ground, grass, soil, sand, shallow water, deep water.

The transitions will be created by using alpha masks. I created edgy ones (i.e. grass <> jungle ground) and smooth ones (i.e. sand <> shallow water) as well as chamfered (i.e. i have no idea for what i created those^^) and rounded ones (for every corner transition).

Do you miss any ground type?

ground_tiles.png (81.26 KiB) Viewed 27122 times

[SwissFan91]

All I can think of is perhaps 'ice', which could be used for glaciers. This would add a certain amount of 'can't build there' to the game.

[oberhümer]

Different grass types too.

[Zainy521]

Maybe make the rock more rocky and less concrete-y.

[LocoMH]

Different grass types too.

I think it'd be fine to have only one more, maybe dried up grass tile for drier regions. Less is more in this case (in my opinion).

Maybe make the rock more rocky and less concrete-y.

Same here.

[SwissFan91]

Also - I think the 'jungle grass' tile looks like normal grass, and the 'grass' tile looks like savannah or something.

[smallfly]

Good points so far. I will implement your suggestions as soon as the alpha-channel based ground transition works fine.

[Zephyris]

They look good, and very fitting with the rest of the 2D style. Have you thought about transitions over multiple tiles though? Some transitions, e.g. grass to rock, might look better if there was a sharp (but irregularly shaped) transition rather than a smooth blend.

[smallfly]

They look good, and very fitting with the rest of the 2D style. Have you thought about transitions over multiple tiles though? Some transitions, e.g. grass to rock, might look better if there was a sharp (but irregularly shaped) transition rather than a smooth blend.

As soon as the transition works I will post all combinations of transitions and then you can rate the look. (But yeah, you are probably right with the sharp but irregularily shaped transitions. They are indeed needed, but technically they arent very challenging When the smooth transitions work, I can easily implement the sharp ones.

[Zephyris]

When the smooth transitions work, I can easily implement the sharp ones.

That's what I like to hear; modable and/or extensible already in mind

[smallfly]

About 90% of my coding time is spent on code optimization (simplifying). Only 10% is spent on new features. I want the game code to be as flexible as possible

[smallfly]

2012-05-17T21-54-05_preview.png (60.48 KiB) Viewed 27011 times

but its not the final look

//edit: a sharper version (also including water) is online on www.p1sim.org

[smallfly]

I implemented a realistic height map generator as well as transitions. The transitions work very different to the first transition implementation. The main benefit is a nicer look and much less memory consumption.

(By the way: I also implemented submenus and invested about 8 hours to rewrite major parts of the gui system.)

2012-05-20T23-52-07_preview.png (39.59 KiB) Viewed 26904 times

(larger version attached)

[Hazzard]

You have done a lot of great work in the last couple of days! Looks good

Hazzard

[FooBar]

I like the terrain itself, but it's not too clear to see what goes up and what goes down. I assume the desert is the lowest, but it could also be the highest...
Maybe you can do something with shading of the slopes, but either way it will be very difficult to make the slope direction clear from a top-view.

A different option could be this:
Say you have 10 height levels; generate sprites for each terrain type in a slightly darker colour for each height level, then high terrain can be lighter than low terrain. That way you have some sort of a heightmap, like the terrain view in Google Maps or indeed TTD's map window.

[smallfly]

I like the terrain itself, but it's not too clear to see what goes up and what goes down. I assume the desert is the lowest, but it could also be the highest...
Maybe you can do something with shading of the slopes, but either way it will be very difficult to make the slope direction clear from a top-view.

A different option could be this:
Say you have 10 height levels; generate sprites for each terrain type in a slightly darker colour for each height level, then high terrain can be lighter than low terrain. That way you have some sort of a heightmap, like the terrain view in Google Maps or indeed TTD's map window.

In the meantime I changed the terrain generation in a way that there is only one height level marked as grass. (see screenshot) There is also one for sand height level and one soil height level. Different brightness levels for water makes less sense. So your suggestion refers to rock and snow levels now (?). Using different brightness levels sounds interesting and simple. I think I will give it a try.

2012-05-23T18-30-28_preview.png (35.98 KiB) Viewed 26765 times

[Zephyris]

Is the top-down view game going to feature different height level? Or is this just eye candy?

If there is going to be a functional impact of slopes then it would make sense to shade the ground tile as if it were 3D (ie with directional lighting on it) rather than giving different height levels different textures or colours. For vehicle movement it is the slope rather than the height which impacts movement. It is much easier to estimate slope from the shading of a single tile (where the shading can be strong) than working it out from the textures of the neighbouring tiles where the dynamic range of shading is limited by the number of height levels.

[smallfly]

Is the top-down view game going to feature different height level? Or is this just eye candy?

If there is going to be a functional impact of slopes then it would make sense to shade the ground tile as if it were 3D (ie with directional lighting on it) rather than giving different height levels different textures or colours. For vehicle movement it is the slope rather than the height which impacts movement. It is much easier to estimate slope from the shading of a single tile (where the shading can be strong) than working it out from the textures of the neighbouring tiles where the dynamic range of shading is limited by the number of height levels.

Its not only eye-candy. But at the moment I'm not sure about allowing the user to build ramps and switch to higher/lower height levels. Since all grass tiles have the same height level now, I could think of restricting the user to build on grass only. Additionally I want to allow the user to build tunnels for crossing soil level. (rock and snow is always above the soil level) "In the tunnels" the user could build roads and rails (even crossings, switches, signals). But this point is not clear at the moment. I was planning an isometric game. Now I have to find solutions for a top-down game first...

[Loconoob]

maybe the tiles could be shaded by the level, IE four shades per level, although with this I think the soil level throws it off because of the darkness of brown

[smallfly]

maybe the tiles could be shaded by the level, IE four shades per level, although with this I think the soil level throws it off because of the darkness of brown

I will try to implement this.