TMW facelift

[Len]

This is an idea that’s been festering in me for some time now. I believe a lot of the old tilesets/maps could use some improvements.




In the first pic water tile could be replaced also; a transition from water to land might be needed (at the very least we could make it look less geometric(actually a few of the older ground tiles look too geometric)

The interior of the woodland village buildings seems to consist of brown within a very short tonal range; it also suffers from a lack of contrast.



The snow land suffers from a lack of anything... just look at the snow areas from SD3 (its not an empty waste land)

I’m about to fall asleep I’ll elaborate on this tomorrow, if anyone sees any problems with the maps that they would like to add or would like to disagree with me on anything go right ahead.

[AxlTrozz]

We've been talking about this for a while now, and little by little we are getting to the point of start doing something about it, Pretty much all the existing areas need improvements, in fact, I'm afraid the release of the new maps, including the forest, the temple and the caves depends on the work in the existing areas, so they don't look too different.

Is true, the water, snow village needs attention but also caves, the city itself so I completely agree with you we need to work a lot trying to move the graphics of the game to the next version, count with me

[Crush]

Sure, both of you can do much for TMW. But you can't do everything at the same time. It is much more efficient to do one thing, finish it, and then do the next.

That's why I would rather like you to finish the current projects first (desert temple, port town) before you start the next (improving existing tilesets). I am afraid that when you work on too many different things you will end up finishing nothing.

[AxlTrozz]

Sure, both of you can do much for TMW. But you can't do everything at the same time. It is much more efficient to do one thing, finish it, and then do the next.

That's why I would rather like you to finish the current projects first (desert temple, port town) before you start the next (improving existing tilesets). I am afraid that when you work on too many different things you will end up finishing nothing.

Crush, I agree with you, what I think we can do is do a plan or some sort of main project, start with concepts, then maps that fits the current Argaes maps, then take piece by piece up to the end, and obviously Len and I cannot do such project alone we need more people working on this.

My point is get a team work and focused on something specific and no throwing ideas and graphics because there is no guides or specific requirements to create something for the game.

I went to the wiki and couldn't find anything like that, except for the geographic development that is starting to show some needs but nothing specific

Don't take me wrong I'm not trying to do all myself, and I don't think is Len's intention either, but the idea is create a main guideline that anyone that wants to pixeling something for the game can go check and do it.

[Dave]

Len, this is the same feeling I get when people talk as if we're just going to move the current Tulimshar and use it as is. I've always felt that the existing tilesets needed to be refined and because we've shifted our attention to a new area, I figured that's what would happen. That's the direction the "Trade City" thread in this forum was taking, when it was last touched; the topic of breaking from the insanely reusable 32x32 style came up. The question is, do we apply simultaneous attention to the new area's graphical development and the old area's graphical refinement.. or should we focus on one, then the other?

I'd like to say that I think we can manage both simultaneously, but let's try to manage getting workflow going on one first.
http://forums.themanaworld.org/viewtopi ... 9&start=15

If the tilesets for the new area are vastly superior, the old areas will have to be raised to their graphical standard.

[Len]

Sure, both of you can do much for TMW. But you can't do everything at the same time. It is much more efficient to do one thing, finish it, and then do the next.

That's why I would rather like you to finish the current projects first (desert temple, port town) before you start the next (improving existing tilesets). I am afraid that when you work on too many different things you will end up finishing nothing.

Crush, I agree with you, what I think we can do is do a plan or some sort of main project, start with concepts, then maps that fits the current Argaes maps, then take piece by piece up to the end, and obviously Len and I cannot do such project alone we need more people working on this.

My point is get a team work and focused on something specific and no throwing ideas and graphics because there is no guides or specific requirements to create something for the game.

I went to the wiki and couldn't find anything like that, except for the geographic development that is starting to show some needs but nothing specific

Don't take me wrong I'm not trying to do all myself, and I don't think is Len's intention either, but the idea is create a main guideline that anyone that wants to pixeling something for the game can go check and do it.

I don’t see the harm in at least discussing it, and start gathering ideas about how to improve the maps/tilesets. And believe me I had no intention of doing all this by myself.

As Dade has brought up tile patterns/objects don’t necessarily need to be just 32x32 (doing so makes the grid painfully obvious).

(Screenshot of Unknown game using the RPG maker tileset) I think we can all agree we don’t want a landscape that looks like a bunch of 32x32 squares (even if it technically is)

Also I would like to point out that just because a tile looks great (in and of its self), doesn’t mean it’s going to fit with a given map. A map can actually look great using relatively simple objects just as long as they work nicely together. I believe we should start looking at maps as compositions rather than a bunch of stand alone objects.


(This Screenshot from Secrets of Evermore shows how simple tiles can work together)

We can also start thinking about adding ecological niches (places for certain monsters to spawn) such as a crude tent settlement for a demi human monster (an example being orcs). Or a very large dead dragon (giant, whatever…) that maggots and large maggots can hang around.

[Rotonen]

I'd like for the facelift movement to exist as an artistic escape: whenever someone has a creative block or is just plain old frustrated about pixel hunting the last bit right, they could just pick a random tile or concept they don't like and try to improve it.