30 réponses à ce sujet

[Eagles Talon]

I thought of posting this in the Community Content forums, but I really want the opinions of builders here.  Based on the quality of the work and the ease of working with the tilesets, what are your favorite ones and why?

[Shadooow]

default bioware tilesets except DLA Castle/Rural combo

Why? They are well suited for everything you might want, also they are fast and decent and there is ceilings for them (either NWNCQ or other hak packs) which most custom tileset have not. Plus now when there is NWNCQ, you can use it to enhance them, or you can just tell players to do that on their own. Which is maybe better solution as not everyone plays NWN on high HW computer.

Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 02 août 2010 - 10:38 .

[ChaosInTwilight]

Babylon.  'Nuff said? 

[Eagles Talon]

First thought - OoooOOooo. second thought: "Isn't that pretty!" And I almost never use the word pretty to describe inanimate unnatural objects.

[Builder_Anthony]

Worms mirkwood forest

[B_Harrison]

Assuming that we're talking about publically released ones:

This

There are some great tilesets around (many of _six's would fill out my top 10, for example), but none of them are quite so unlike a set of tiles as LR's mountains.

[Estelindis]

Assuming, like Ben, that we restrict the question to publically released tilesets, that is a very difficult question. And, of course, there are many different reasons for liking a tileset.

Difference from standard NWN geometry? JDA's Dwarven Halls are very striking, as are Chandigar's Aztec Exterior and Lord Rosenkrantz's Rocky Mountains. (That's before we even get near the wonderful new tilesets from Six - since they're in development, who knows how far they'll exceed NWN's initial visuals by the time Six is finished with them?)  Tilesets like these are great, because they hugely expand the environments that NWN is capable of portraying.  One can be as brilliant as builder as there ever was, but creative placeable use only goes so far.  After a while, one *needs* tilesets that use dramatically different geometry.

Huge amount of variety, with hundreds upon hundreds of tiles, including lots of terrains and crossers? I'd have said Tír na nÓg, but since that's been incorporated into the 1.69 patch as "Castle Exterior, Rural" I'd now have to say Seasonal Forest by Lord of Worms. As well as that, I have a soft spot for CTP Babylon, but since I worked on it myself it's hardly fair for me to name it as my favourite.   I will say, though, that when we developed Babylon a lot of work was put into ensuring that as many crossers and terrains played nicely together as could sanely be managed.  That's very handy for building.   Anyway, these sorts of tilesets are extremely versatile, allowing you to use them for a huge variety of areas, including "transition" areas (e.g. city walls).  That helps to keep a sense of immersion in your world, that the background environment stays constant in the immediate area.

Then again, there's a certain talent in creating a good reskin of a standard Bioware tileset. Personal favourite reskins of mine include Helvene's White Marble Castle and Six's TNO City and Winter City.  The handy thing about tilesets like these is that they take a well-known quantity (we all know how to use the standard Bioware tilesets like the backs of our hands) and give it a fresh look.  Particularly in the case of overriding reskins, this makes it easy to take a complex area that you've already built with quite a bit, and instantly transform it just with the addition of a hak or override.

Now, overall, I have to ask myself: which of these tilesets do I actually use in my module building?  And (TNO and Babylon excluded), the one I build with most and will never stop using is Dwarven Halls - although I use the CTP version, since it's highly bugfixed (and it's okay for me to name that, since I wasn't part of the CTP team when those bugs were fixed). The huge scale perfectly evokes famous dwarven cities like Khazad-dûm from LotR, or Orzammar from Dragon Age (even though it preceded the latter). And the textures are fabulous. So, although it is not the best of all tilesets from a technical point of view, nor the biggest in terms of variety, I have to name this old favourite as my favourite.

Modifié par Estelindis, 03 août 2010 - 12:31 .

[_six]

Apart from one of my own, the only custom tileset I currently use is maxam's Versatile Dungeon. Besides the obvious things the tileset has going for it, it's one of the very small number of tilesets, either custom or Bioware, that is almost entirely bug free, and impeccably built. While it lacks the wide range of features of the likes of community favourites such as Worms' fantasy dungeon, for instance, the actual quality of work and unprecedented technical competence puts it an entirely different league in my humble opinion.

Oh, and the City Interior 2 tiles we added in Q, which I've found coming
in very handy if I do say so myself. I hope it's not being too immodest to mention them, since Tom_Banjo made the better half of them [smilie]../../../images/forum/emoticons/wink.png[/smilie]

Estelindis wrote...

include Helvene's White Marble Castle

Hey I forgot about that reskin of Helvene's. I thought that was the bees knees when I first discovered it, was one of the main reasons I started making CC.

Modifié par _six, 03 août 2010 - 12:27 .

[Estelindis]

Oh, fudge, I forgot about Maxam's Versatile Dungeon! (I guess I don't build many dungeons.) But I have tested it and Six is absolutely right: it's a gem of a tileset.

Six: also, re. Marble Castle, I use that all the time in my building (though now I go for the expanded version by Tiggs, to which I have added some original tiles of my own in my module-specific hakpak).  But that's more a case of personal taste, I feel, than general building utility.  I find it wonderful to go beyond the standard Bioware castle look (Marble Castle is just gorgeous), but I don't know if everyone would.

Modifié par Estelindis, 03 août 2010 - 12:32 .

[Eagles Talon]

Question - Does Seasonal forest by Lord of Worms have any docks/ships/water tiles? None are pictured in the screenshots - or if they were, I missed them.

[Estelindis]

Yes: it has water, docks, and ships.

Modifié par Estelindis, 03 août 2010 - 02:19 .

[Eagles Talon]

Sigh...looks like another Hak for the world.

[Estelindis]

I don't think you'll regret it. :-)

[Sharona Curves]

I had loads of fun putting together a mini-module with a few others for an adventuring group last fall using the Rocky Mountains Tileset by Carlos Viegas
AKA Mondego.

And since tilesets usually include some new load screens, Mondego doesn't disappoint with his 900 Load Screen Artworks.
 
I'm a Fan! :innocent:

[AndarianTD]

Estelindis wrote...

Difference from standard NWN geometry? JDA's Dwarven Halls are very striking, as are Chandigar's Aztec Exterior and Lord Rosenkrantz's Rocky Mountains. (That's before we even get near the wonderful new tilesets from Six - since they're in development, who knows how far they'll exceed NWN's initial visuals by the time Six is finished with them?)

Agreed. Lord R's Rocky Mountains is a fantastic tileset that I'm using heavily in Sanctum 3. The Sanctum screenshots I've been posting recently were all made with it. I'll be using Six's Wild Woods as well.

Huge amount of variety, with hundreds upon hundreds of tiles, including lots of terrains and crossers? I'd have said Tír na nÓg, but since that's been incorporated into the 1.69 patch as "Castle Exterior, Rural" I'd now have to say Seasonal Forest by Lord of Worms. As well as that, I have a soft spot for CTP Babylon, but since I worked on it myself it's hardly fair for me to name it as my favourite.

All three of these are amazing as well. Seasonal Forest has a great deal of complexity (it actually comes with a short manual to explain how to use it) that gives you a lot of flexibility that you typically won't find in other tilesets. I just looked over CTP Babylon as well, and it made me practically weep that I don't have a desert setting for it in Sanctum 3.

Another excellent tileset is Rocky Mountains by BloodMonkey. It's not as artistically beautiful as some of the others we've been talking about, but it partly makes up for that in being extremely builder-friendly and builder-useful. You can make a lot of interesting areas with it, as SirOtus proved by using it for most of his visually brilliant mountain adventure and P&P Conversion, The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

Modifié par AndarianTD, 03 août 2010 - 05:56 .

[SuperFly_2000]

Well...I can't choose a particular tileset that is my favourite as they all have different uses...but in quality and consistency of course the Bioware default tilesets are unparellelled. That said I am of course gleering at other tilesets as well...



The thing is that I want ease of use and also that it preferable is part of a hak pak.



Can't wait to see how Chicos tilesets will look like when put into CEP. That could be a real game changer.



Worms tilesets looks nice of course...from what I have seen so far. Also Maxam's. Six's has some good ones.



I've been interested about hte Babylon tileset but think the download is a little complex. I am hoping for a miracle to put it in the CEP.

[Tyndrel]

I only get one? That’s just impossible!

Anything by Maxam, Six or Worm (in alphabetical order) they are true artists in every sense of the word.

The Dwarven Halls, Codi/crp Swamp, and City Alleys in the Community Expansion Pack

Castle exterior-Rural and Fort Interior from 1.69

 CTP’s Babylon

 But they’ve all been mentioned already so to add something new and different to the list try the GHI Aethyr Tileset, it is a visual feast and so unlike anything else.

Modifié par Tyndrel, 03 août 2010 - 05:21 .

[Fester Pot]

Sharona Curves wrote...

And since tilesets usually include some new load screens, Mondego doesn't disappoint with his 900 Load Screen Artworks.
 
I'm a Fan! :innocent:

I downloaded this to check them out. Some .tga files are upside down.

goolum_02.tga
ford_01.tga
ents_02.tga
elven_tower_01.tga
druadan_01.tga
roan_02.tga
raurus_falls_01.tga
pantanito1.tga
osgiliath_02.tga
shire_03.tga
swamp_02.tga
swamp_dragon_01.tga
tirion_01.tga
tn7.tga
underdark_04.tga
wether_top_01.tga

That's just a random check of the package and certainly there is A LOT more like those mentioned.

For 600 megs, it's a lot of work to fix so many upside down images.

FP!

Modifié par Fester Pot, 03 août 2010 - 08:19 .

[Estelindis]

SuperFly_2000 wrote...
I've been interested about hte Babylon tileset but think the download is a little complex. I am hoping for a miracle to put it in the CEP.

There is a single download for the whole CTP, or you can download just CTP Babylon and CTP Common (with CTP Loadscreens as optional but recommended).  I'd be happy to help you if anything about that confuses you.  (But it will not be put in the CEP, so please don't hold your breath for that.)

Modifié par Estelindis, 03 août 2010 - 09:41 .

[Khuzadrepa]

Maxam's Dungeons (classic and Versatile) are just SO useful. You can do so many different scenes with each. As Sixes mentioned, they are also wonderfully done.

Any of Sixes' tilesets are excellent; I appreciate their smaller size, technical improvement, and beauty.

Helvene does some fantastic work, with the White Marble Castle being my favorite, but I also use her Mines and Caverns expansion (a newer version than what is posted), Wooden Elven Interior, and Marble Elven Interior (with Lord Rosenkrantz.)

Lord of Worms does BEAUTIFUL fantasy tiles.

I also have to mention Tom Banjo's Cellar tileset. It's a great little miniset that works well for a lot of things.

Another pair that hasn't been mentioned are the Snow tileset by Xerx and the Barbaric North tileset done by s030363l. If you are doing any kind of arctic setting, these are fantastic. Alternatively, Helvene's new Winter Override certainly spruces the vanilla winter set quite a bit.

And of course, the CTP put so much hard work into fixing some of the best sets that have sprung up through the years. I don't think you can go wrong with any of them.

Modifié par Khuzadrepa, 04 août 2010 - 07:24 .

[Estelindis]

Khuzadrepa: how could I have failed to post about Barbaric North? It was in my mental list of tilesets to mention, but I must've gotten distracted while I was writing. I use this tileset for all the Rasheman areas of my module. The geometry is truly different in flavour from standard NWN (while the textures fit in with NWN style perfectly, at the same time). I particularly love the beautiful tree terrain.

[Tarot Redhand]

While I have no favourite tileset (I try to choose what I think best suits a particular area) I do have a soft spot for Dungeon LOK part of the ctp as it's so versatile for such a small download.



If we're going for honourable mentions then what about the tilesets by Plush Hyeana of Doom. Then there's Sen's Seasonal Workshop which is based off of Lord of Worms Seasonal. This latter one recommended by the Lord himself!



TR

[Sharona Curves]

Fester Pot wrote...

Sharona Curves wrote...

And since tilesets usually include some new load screens, Mondego doesn't disappoint with his 900 Load Screen Artworks.
 
I'm a Fan! [smilie]../../../../images/forum/emoticons/angel.png[/smilie]

I downloaded this to check them out. Some .tga files are upside down.

For 600 megs, it's a lot of work to fix so many upside down images.

FP!

It is quite some work.  Personally, I took a bunch of the loadscreens and
created my own loadscreen hak.  I did mirror image a couple of the ones I
found upside-down.  But the artwork alone and having it all in one
package to preview and use what you need is quite handy.  What impressed
me most was that Carlos did not limit himself to just fantasy loadscreens.  He also included a bunch of nice sci-fi ones for all the d20 modern module builders.

Modifié par Sharona Curves, 04 août 2010 - 04:16 .

[C Writer]

My favourite tileset would be the Seasonal Forest tileset from WoRm; it has a lot of beautiful tiles making it quite nice to use, even if it is a bit limiting in tile combinations at times. If you were asking about my favourite BioWare tileset on the other hand, it would be the Castle Exterior, Rural tileset for the amount of things you can do with it. Also, one of my largest and most game-related areas uses this tileset.

[DarkStormInc]

For the longest time I enjoyed DOA's Builder Base (yeah its a combo sue me). Never used it but I think the most unique and underused may be the oriental set by Coulisfu. There are a lot of sets though that are rather nice such as immersive swamps, codi swamps, rocky mountains, etc.