The Mana World Forums

About trees there's this interesting tutorial, I know you can't read, but images are pretty self explanatory.

http://www.enterbrain.co.jp/digifami/di ... /3_04.html

here a different approach. it's not finished yet but i would like to know what you think about it.

the idea is to make many single tiles which can be mixed in any combination without worrying about which tiles belong together.

That's what I had in mind though shading could be improved and some grass should grow around the rocks. If you want to go that way you will need to create a lot of variations or all the paths will seem too similar

Crush wrote:here a different approach. it's not finished yet but i would like to know what you think about it.

I think it looks too much like a direct top down overview instead of at a slight angle like all the other tiles are... but it still looks pretty good...

Sorry to change the subject but why can't I change my avatar? It keeps saying it can't connect to the URL I gave... and an error comes up if I try to upload it from my computer...

Crush wrote:the German localizers had the goal of making the game as funny as possible. so they replaced every serious npc text which was not story critical (and some which were) by some lame jokes. all characters are portraied completely different in the dialogues. the most extreme case is the sprite which turned from a sad character into a funny character which takes nothing serious and - became a girl.

Haha... i never heard much about those censorships. Sounds hilariously awful though.

On the new path... try combining the two methods? Also the grid needs eliminated.

Ultim wrote:On the new path... try combining the two methods?

how do you suppose me to do that?

Crush wrote:the most extreme case is the sprite which turned from a sad character into a funny character which takes nothing serious and - became a girl.

we seem to get a lot of sex-changed characters here... i believe one of the first was the ant eater in the "pink panther" series.
and many vg translations simply suck, and/or are heavily censored (what use is censoring the unit's pictures in the manual to command & conquer?). well, at least thanks to copiers and imports, you don't *have* to put up with such crap.

Ultim wrote: Haha... i never heard much about those censorships. Sounds hilariously awful though.

yeah, and you should see the names in the monster gallery... probably the worst thing done to any game since zero wing :agony:

okay, back to the topic at hand (roads): my suggestions would be
- smaller gaps (1st try was fine imho, just too much grass - maybe try to find the middle?)
- bigger stone slabs (right now they look only about foot-sized, which noone would do in the real world - way too much work to build a road like that (modern factory "stones" don't count, since they're made to fit perfectly))
- about the top-down perspective, maybe just omitting the shading at the top border would suffice the correct it?

Nice tiles, Crush.
I think the rocks could be a bit lighter, and they could use some texture; they're sooo smooth.
And what ElvenProgrammer said: Some more grass growing over the edge of the rocks... and maybe some moss.

Those are alright -- except i much rather the grass tiles which Sull created (sorry Crush, but imo, those tiles dont really "fit in" ). Sull's tiles were inspired by Secret of Mana, you know, that other game. The one that The Mana World was supposed to be similar to. You know.

Ok, enough being a smart ass, i have taken the libery of uploading Sull's tiles (its incomplete tileset, but the tiles which exist are very high quality. And no, they _arent_ stolen from Secret of Mana. They are completely original, although they do share the same style; because Sull used Secret of Mana tiles as reference and tryed to see if he could do tiles like that).










These tiles will fit in alot better when the new player tileset is used (if ever?). Sull hasn't been around for a while, but im sure he wont mind us using the tiles (as they _were_ made originally for TMW).

Wow...i can feel the spirit of the SoM...

@nym: what do you think was my inspiration? i used screenshots from SoM as a reference, too.

wow, after ONE WEEK OF HARD WORK you came up with those tiles. couldn't someone mention these tiles before i made my own grass tile and worked it into everything?

but if the majority really prefers these grass tiles, then i could still try to replace my grass with it. although i think it is too large-scaled (don't forget that the original SoM uses much larger character sprites then we do. som uses 2x2 tiles for a character, we use 1x2 tiles and that while we have much more tiles per screen). so what do other people think about that?

Yeah Sull has not been around for a while but I talk to him sometimes using MSN. His tiles were great, and really got the spirit of SoM. The problem is that they're almost identical to SoM ones. I know they are original artwork and hand made but we need something different, innovative, with the same style of course, but not just a recreation in high res of their tiles. Sull understood it, but he wasn't able to create other tiles.

Crush: I suggest you continue your great work, but feel free to get inspiration or edit those ones made by Sull.

allright, then i will stick to my grass.

here is another road concept.the perspective looks better now and the gaps are sized between the two earlier concepts.

do you like it better than the other ones? if yes i'll create edge and bend tiles.


oh, and by the way, here is how the whole tileset looks at the moment. as you can see i'm close to the 512x256 mark.

there isn't much you haven't seen yet. you may wonder why one of the crappy first small trees is still in there. i left it in because it reminds me how much i improved the last week. and about that large tree: i just couldn't throw it out because i like the trunk so much. i tried to rescue the tree top with some blur and shading filters but i'm still not statisfied with it.

I like the previous version better, at least the rocks looked a bit better even though I like them to be more far one from each other.
The trunk is nice even it could use some improvements, first of all I'd make the roots a bit longer and the leaves should go over the trunk a bit not end up on that horizontal line.
I'd like also to see the mud path improved. Place it between grass and add some lighter texture to it and I think it will look great.

Matt wrote:Wow...i can feel the spirit of the SoM...

Well... what you are SEEING actually ARE SoM 3 tiles, yet enhanced by redrawing it from scratch in a higher resolution. Some people seem to call this original art, but I can't approve of it.