Development:Tilesets

Getting started

To get started on tileset development, please look into what kind of areas we plan to add to the game or what kind of changes we would still want to make to existing maps. See for example world development and concept art. Ideas of your own are welcome too!

GeneralSpecs

• Tile size: 32x32
• Tileset size: 512x512 (or 16x16 tiles), 512x256, 512x128, 512x64 or 512x32
• Color Depth: 24 or 32 bpp (alpha layer optional)
• File Format: PNG
• Current tilesets: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/themanaworld/tmw/data/graphics/tiles/

Tileset Engine

It would be nice if we had a better way to render things like grass and water, so that the player looks more integrated into his environment. Below an illustration of what would look nice for the grass, by Sull. The leftmost frame shows what it looks like now, the center frame what would look nice, and the rightmost frame shows the current problem.

To improve more the tile engine I already suggested in the mailing list to improve the fringe layer with a dynamic behaviour to allow such effects:

This way we can have objects you can stand in front and behind at the same time. In the specific example the base of the sign is non walkable and is a base layer tile, the top of the sign is on the fringe layer. We can achieve this effect in 2 possible ways:

• the tile engine draws all the lines of the fringe layers until the first being(npc, player or monster) let's say at y = 9, then all the beings with y = 9 are drawn. Again we draw all the lines of the fringe layer from line 9 to the next being and so on...
• the tile engine supports objects: objects are considered as being and ordinated the same way

Of course the first solution is limited, I mean you can't create objects that beings taller than 2 tiles can stand both in front and behind of.

I'd like to propose a different approach, which I thought I had mentioned on the mailing list: Allow tiles to be higher than the default tile height, and have them stick out at the top to overlap the previously drawn tiles and beings. This would mean that before drawing each row of tiles, we'd make sure that we have drawn all the beings on (and above) the previous row. The snowy_trees.tmx example map that comes with Tiled uses this approach for the trees. --Bjørn 21:59, 10 Sep 2005 (CEST)