649 réponses à ce sujet

[MerricksDad]

I went back to working on that tileset I started late 2013. 2014 was a messed up year, and I didn't get a lot done that I wanted. I feel horrible that I lost basically 2 years of modding time, but maybe lost isn't the right word.

 

Because here is 2015, and one of my new years resolutions (I have very few) was to finish something really big!

 

I've already been talking in PM to a few of you, either about my textures for plants and rocks and bark that I worked on last year (which was a huge project, and not even finished yet), or about a few mountain tileset ideas I have been working on, but here is the public first look at what I have been doing. Keep in mind that this is only the first week this year I have put into it, and last year I did so very little of this.

 

 

If you'd like to view the album, here is the album link. Be aware that I have overfilled my free imgur account, so I have been told that some of my photos may not show. I don't know how they determine which order they no longer show, but the older images might be first to go.

 

The textures are by no means finished. And the mountainous regions are not yet fleshed out. I still have a lot of work to go, especially in adding vegetation and decals. I'm thinking to use another type of mountain tile as a surround/edge, and also block most of the rock from being walked upon, give or take slope. Right now, just about everything is open for walking.

 

Still to do, water and streams, forest tiles, ledge crossers, doors/caves, chasms, and a mountaintop-mountaintop bridge system for use separately from the green ground areas (as in not mixable).

 

I'd like to thank Coffee for assisting me with this project this week.

 

 

 

Project hak file:

https://www.dropbox....khills.hak?dl=0

[Wall3T]

very cool. reminds me of a fantasy plain. i actually could use it as-is but look forward to seeing what else you have in store with it. ill be sticking around 

[Tarot Redhand]

From that one screenshot that tileset could double for a deep ocean one as well. I see potential black smokers everywhere.

 

Re. your storage problem - If any of the images in question relate to any tutorials on here how about doing a little editing to make the tutorial into a downloadable pdf to post on the new vault so that you can then 'lose' some of the images on the hosting service?

 

TR

[CaveGnome]

Fantastic! I love what i see... This is something i have been waiting for a long time ---> A tileset with the ability to show a more or less credible big sleeping volcano!!! (dreamed something like to upgrade an old non CC mod).

 

May i very humbly suggest you add some unusual rock groups. Tiles to depict big volcanos with calderas, meteorit craters, mesas, Monument Valley like rocks, big sea-looking cray cliffs, canyons, breathtaking granit rockfaces, organ pipe groups. This could be huge! <please, forgive an overentusiast gnome that just gulped a ton coffee >

 

CG

[MerricksDad]

I was going to do a frosted variety set, so I don't see any reason why I can't do a volcanic version too. The frosted variety would of course have to have an avalanche area, so the volcanic one will have to have special groups too.

 

I also wanted to do some matching arches/buttresses, either in-set, or as placeables which fit. You could just prop the arches up against any of the outcrops and just walk around it as normal with the pwk files. I already have planned to create a few more "spires" other than the stand alone one you see in the image. Having been through Cathedral Spires while climbers are about, I just can't resist modeling that area.

 

So my end goal, AFTER this one, is to do a red rocks/arches national park kinda deal. And then after that, I want to revisit this one and do some addons, like devil's post pile/devil's tower (unless I just do that now, which I should, since devil's tower is technically part of that black hills range).

 

I see absolutely no reason once I get this out, you guys can't do your underwater magic on it. I don't personally have use for it right now, but I am NEVER against people recoloring anything I make. Anything I put out is free as is -- take it and run with it!

 

And just so you know, I am taking a lot of cues from Skyrim right now, so if you find an image of something Skyrimmy that you think I have use for, please pop me a link to the picture, or just show the image. I spent about a week researching skyrim and oblivion before I started this tileset. But that doesn't mean I saw everything.

 

So right now, I am just going through the motions, making sure all the basic mixers are finished enough that I have one copy of each. I keep forgetting certain corner combinations. It just took me 4 hours to do a full set of mix between raised (my mountains are the raised in tileset) and greater elevation (grass+2). I don't see a reason to mix grass+1 with mountains, or grass+1 with grass+2, at the moment, but that doesn't mean we can't later. Contour variety does make for a great scene, and that is why I have these little non-compatible raised subtiles. Especially when one has flowing water. Flowing water loves elevation!

 

Speaking of variety, what I basically have planned out is this:

 

1. Mountain is the raise/lower feature. This is a 10 meter change in height.
2. Grass+1 is a visually raising type which goes up only one meter, and is always smooth.
3. Grass+2 is similar except it goes up two meters, and can be rough or smooth.
4. Grass+2 can merge with raised areas to reduce the angle that the mountain enters the current level. Basically that ramps up the edges around the angular mountains. Not so high as foot hills, but it reduces the look that the mountain suddenly comes out of the ground.
5. Grass+2 can be placed at raised levels, so you can actually make a mountain chunk slightly taller.
6. Carve crosser. This is like a corridor through mountain areas, but if used on the edges of a mountain tile, it makes the tile melt back, producing a sheer face. Normal mountain tiles are 45 degrees. The sheer face would be massively more steep.
7. Fluff crosser. By default the mountains are going to have a walkable ledge every 1000 meters up. Using the fluff crosser, you can erase that ledge. It will place jagged boulders, or cause the mountain tile to overstep its bounding box and flow into the adjacent tile, sealing off the ledge. This crosser can be packed with variety: Boulders, fallen logs, jagged rock, walkable cave mouths...
8. Water will be at base levels only, never grass+1 or grass+2, except as stream crossers. I expect a lot of waterfall variety.
9. Lots of tile groups will exist for the base level areas. Entrance type tile groups will exist in large variety for the mountain edges, especially caves and mines.
10. Grass+1 and Grass+2 might have just a few special tile groups, but for the most part, those are just tileset fluff. Expect a few dolmen or rune circles, maybe a tiny temple.
11. The entire tileset will have a set of dedicated plant species. The first release will have a combination of poplar and tall spruce (what people in Skyrim still refer to as Pines). Smaller trees will be made walk-through for ease of walkmesh use. Basically, if the trunk is as thin as a man, I am not going through the trouble of walkmesh holes, unless I plop down a rock for it to grow from. Somebody else can get picky with it later if they need to. I probably won't do a lot of large trees, if any. Mountains are known for destroying their plant population often.
12. I plan to do some forest tiles for use with the base levels. A burned off area is not out of the question. This is obviously a great place for worn path crossers.
13. Base levels will be fully stocked prairie as a default.
14. It seems important to make a treeline crosser. This could be a bunch of suffocated or gnarly trees at the edge of forest/mountain combo tiles. Anything above treeline crossers should just be painted prarie, or an optional ground, such as...
15. Tundra tiles! These could be an alternate tile above a treeline crosser. The prairie could give way to rounded, bald granite and lichens. Simple retexture will do, and just add to the tiles list. If you've ever been up on top of Harney Peak in SD, you'd probably also make use of the Grass+1 or Grass+2 varieties at this location too.
16. In addition to tundra tiles, maybe just a few glacier tiles, or a glacier tile group. Especially sitting in those concave areas of the mountain tiles.

I have no problems finishing only parts of this at a time, and then releasing upgraded versions as needed. So nobody is going to have to wait forever for me to finally finish. I will say, this Coffee is helping a lot, since I am getting one tile combo done per day. That won't take long to flesh out. Just the details will be time consuming. Detail can come over years for all I care. I've wasted enough time holding things back until detail was "finished". That's how I lost the last version of this tileset.

[Draygoth28]

Very cool.

[The Amethyst Dragon]

Nice looking already.

[MerricksDad]

Here's an example of the fluff crosser when used on a single height mountain. It rounds the hill over, creating a sharp drop off, similar to those you would see where granite has weathered by rain and snow only, and is very old. This reminds me very much of the outcrops in the Black Hills.

 

[MerricksDad]

So I am thinking to make some breakable placeables. Think about this for a sec and tell me if you think it might work. Ok, say you have this invisible object, targetable and damageable. It starts play with X number of visual effects applied to it. These visual effects place a model at the location of the placeable. As each effect wears off (based on damage taken), the effect plays its finishing up animation, causing the placable layer to crumble to the ground before disappearing after a time (really long finishing up cycle). After all hp are gone, there should be nothing but a pile of rubble on the ground which decays over time. Alternately, a placeable matching each stage of rubble could be substituted into the location while the crumbling animation plays. That way, even the rubble could be interacted with.

 

I'd like to make some breakable arches, and maybe some pillars, or statues, which would be specific to this tileset.

 

If you haven't gotten what I am talking about, check out how this year's versions of lane towers work in league of legends.

 

Edit:

 

Strange question...

 

Do VFX models cast shadows?

[Hekatoncheires]

Its an old wish of mine to see something like this:

http://polarfield.wp.../toolik-013.jpg

http://wot-news.com/...72013/tun_4.jpg

http://upload.wikime...t_tundra_-c.jpg

The floors of Baba Yaga's mountain forest have a texture a lot like this, but it doesnt have the capacity to create rolling tundra like this.

[Jedijax]

Looks very good from afar. I actually thought it was a NWN2 tileset rather than one for the original game. However, when  something looks that good from afar it usually doesn't hold much detail or definition upon closer range. Hope such isn't the case here, for I would think many play NWN on a more 3rd person camera, rather than an isometric view.

Close

[Jedijax]

 

 

 

Its an old wish of mine to see something like this:

http://polarfield.wp.../toolik-013.jpg

http://wot-news.com/...72013/tun_4.jpg

http://upload.wikime...t_tundra_-c.jpg

The floors of Baba Yaga's mountain forest have a texture a lot like this, but it doesnt have the capacity to create rolling tundra like this.

 

Very modded-skyrimish!

Close

[MerricksDad]

Its an old wish of mine to see something like this:

http://polarfield.wp.../toolik-013.jpg

http://wot-news.com/...72013/tun_4.jpg

http://upload.wikime...t_tundra_-c.jpg

The floors of Baba Yaga's mountain forest have a texture a lot like this, but it doesnt have the capacity to create rolling tundra like this.

 

Yes the third picture is more like what I was going to do for the tundra tiles. I was going to model them off my pictures from Rocky Mountain National Park, and up on top of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming. Both are similar, but different.

 

Have you ever been to a mountain tundra? There are formations of ice crystals in the permafrost. If they exist for long enough, they push up stone in patterns of hexagons. I have seen only a few in Rocky Mountain NP. I have read that in some places they are everywhere. Very similar to how devil's post pile looks, but with permafrost instead.

[MerricksDad]

 

Looks very good from afar. I actually thought it was a NWN2 tileset rather than one for the original game. However, when  something looks that good from afar it usually doesn't hold much detail or definition upon closer range. Hope such isn't the case here, for I would think many play NWN on a more 3rd person camera, rather than an isometric view.

Close

 

 

I'm currently using a texture which is only 512 square. And yes it does look good from a distance, and not as good close up, which is why it needs to be extruded a lot and those extruded parts need more detail. Once all the parts are mixed together in a scene, like the plants and loose stones (which aren't in the scene at all yet), the background texture isn't as important. Like with the grass, which is terribly undetailed close up. It will be replaced with multiple layers of textures which fit the specific needs of the tileset.

 

It also isn't my intent to go completely 100% photo realistic like they are doing with Skyrim. If that was my intent, I would be modding for Skyrim. But I'm also not going completely cartoony like WoW. My goal is somewhere in between.

 

Actually, what I'd really like is a dark and high contrasting world like one might come up with if art from this image was taken to a world scale...and I typed that before I found the image, so I will come back and put it in after...

 

 

In the meantime, imagine these art styles all mixed together and you can get the general idea:

 

Thomas Cole

 

flytraps

 

not sure who did this one

 

Noah Bradley

 

Still can't find that image I was looking for, guess I will have to dig out my dragon and dungeon magazines...

[Tarot Redhand]

Re. the breaking up models... If you can get it to work it would look awesome at the edge (aka nose) of a glacier.

 

TR

[MerricksDad]

I was going to at least supply these two types of glaciers

 

Here is a flowing glacier coming down a basic slope. Not much mountain showing, but you can see a few new hogbacks starting to form.

 

And here is a screen capture of Grinnell Glacier in Edit: [Glacier NP] (not RMNP) near where we camped. It is heavily receded, but makes a nice location to hang out, or maybe a boss fight, or maybe just a special treasure or dungeon entrance buried under ice for tens of thousands of years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shadguy]

Pretty cool project and results so far, MD!  Enjoy - your passion is evident!  

 

-Dave

[Fester Pot]

Looking great, MerricksDad! I like the tall spires of rock out in the grass region, very nice touch.

Will the grass to mountain edging become more blended in? Currently, in your screens, the grass is a line where it meets the mountain/hill portion of the tile.

 

Example: http://i.imgur.com/o78aGli.png

FP!

[MerricksDad]

I have decals to overlay in many places, yes. Right now, the main texture of the tile is all you are seeing anywhere the mountain converts to ground. In the last iteration of this tileset, I had specifically created a bunch of corner fitting textures which were precombined with their adjacent textures. That was good back in 2000's, but this is the 2010's. We can do better than that, and we have more stronger graphics cards, so I can just use more decals and transparency. And vegetation!

 

 

Just a few examples of what could go in these places:

 

 

 

Lots of decals are already lined up. My texture library is back in peak shape. I had to do a lot of work after I rescued a bunch of it from my old hard drive. This time, I have duplicates Getting smarter!

 

But this time, since I am giving the set to the public, it has to work easily, and intuitively. The previous version was not intuitive, and you had to use my external GFF manipulation software to set up certain tile heights. I know I've mentioned this before, but the previous iteration used I think 8 levels of height transitions, and you could go from 0 to 8 in one jump. You can't do that with the toolset. But with GFF manipulation, you can make any tile fit anywhere, and it WILL load in the toolset just fine. You just can't edit it, or all hell breaks loose. So with that other tileset, I didn't need a bunch of duplicate tiles for each flat level. All I had to do was edit the index in the area GFF and tell it that the tile position Z was different. The toolset then draws it higher, matching up the walkmesh accurately. I really wish they had allowed that in the toolset. Simply putting any tile at any position would have saved a lot of time for users like myself.

[MerricksDad]

House stuff to attend to tomorrow, but after that, back to work on this!

[rjshae]

It looks like a good tileset for old mines, gaping pits, and chasms.

[MerricksDad]

Today seems like a good day to mix in basic water, as well as do some mountain variety, such as this:

 

From what I understand, this is made possible by the total makeup of the rock. In this case, black hills granite is high feldspar, and breaks at near 90 and 60 degrees, giving both vertical lines in two directions, as well as 60 degree cuts up through the other face. I've noticed while rock hounding in the black hills that most of the stuff I thought was Quartz was actually Perthite, a group of feldspar, which in this case are as clear and light as quartz, and often intermixed with quartz, and so take on the same color tones as local quartz, such as Rose Quartz. I have some wonderful specimens of pink and slightly purple-hued near-completely transparent Perthite.

Other mountains break in 90 degrees in two directions without the other 60 degree cut, because they are topped with dolomite and calcite (limestone). Further still, sandstone has a distinct break appearance, as does crystalline basalt, such as the devil's tower feature (devil's postpile, giant's causeway, etc.) we have many specimens in Michigan of limestone and sandstone outcrops. Fitzgerald park is actually one place you can see both. On the east side of the river, sandstone is immediately available for viewing and climbing. On the west side, limestone, covered in lichen and fern, is just for looking at. The limestone layers are also mixed with flats of anthracite coal.

 

Any of this stuff that I can eventually incorporate into future upgrades will be useful to somebody, and fun for me to make.

[MerricksDad]

I've incorporated at least the vertical breaks on the x and y axis. I've determined that doing a 60 degree break up from the x/y plane will be very time consuming, and may not carry over from tile to tile, so I am simply omitting that one.

This shot shows about 50% of the tiles required for full carve crossers when used on mountain terrain. The other 50% (not yet complete) will allow full cross cuts in all mountain terrain. You'll be able to divide larger chunky mountains into thinner spiky mountains. Alternately, you can just do a couple cuts here and there, making it look like it was weathered only in that spot.

 

[MerricksDad]

Well, I think the carve crosser is completely fleshed out. No details yet, but here is a shot of what you can do with it.

 

 

The first image shows basic useage through a raised section, cutting the raised section into canyons. The second image shows a three corner trick, turning two diagonal raised tiles into three adjacent mountain peaks. The third image shows that I forgot you could use 0 and level 1 stuff on the base level, so this is what it does if you carve the ground level. And the fourth image shows what a few piles of mountain with carvings looks like in front of each other. Nothing special.

 

So just to be clear, I was going to do a different chasm appearance than what is shown in image 3. I wanted a very sudden chasm which goes out of sight range almost instantly. So if I get around to that soon, that chasm will be in addition to the carving of the ground layer with the carve tool. Take that as a bonus. True chasm tiles will be corner-based, not crossing-based.

 

So about the carved canyons through raised terrain: They aren't flat or walkable by any means, but I do have them currently set to full walk and pathtype A. This lets me test the shadows and go wherever I want to for debugging purposes. I do not intend to make all the canyons and nooks and crannies walkable. They're just for scene texture. That being said, I do have plans for a number of walkable groups which do make use of the nooks and crannies. It's just that the amount of walkable room in these canyons isn't enough to supply a flat space for any monsters. They'll simply get hung up in the cracks. So when I do the groups for the carved areas, what you'll see is areas with obvious walkable space. I'll make room for various sizes of creatures to walk through by carving manually even further, and also taking back some of the mountain space above by disallowing higher Z-level characters from walking on them. It should work out well in the end.

 

You can see by the next image, I kid you not, you can carve 'til you are crazy from carving.

 

[Frith5]

Looking very nice. You know, one mountainous effect I've often long for is ledged cliff faces. This is similar to what you've discussed above, in that the ledges aren't useful for monsters to roam about on. What they could be useful for would be a climbing system. So, starting at the 'bottom' of a cliff face, every 10' up there'd be a small ledge that is neither wide nor long, but just enough as a 'resting point' to stop the climbing animation and jump the PC there, so they could then climb farther 'up' or 'down', all with a risk of failing the climb check and falling all the way to the base.  Could place a few mountain goats up there on the sides of mountains too.

lol.

 

Carry on.

 

-JFK