Tolkien Style Tileset

[maubp]

Some of you may have read this thread where I have been working on a high resolution version of the trident tileset.

Rather than doing anything on the units, I instead spent some time on a Tolkien Style isometric tileset - see the screenshot on this post.

While this probably wouldn't be to most peoples tastes for normal games, this would be good for some mod packs...

So, is it worth my while pursuing this? And if so, any suggestions for

• Plains and grassland. As you can see, I have done one as solid colour, and one with a few dots.
• Artic - how do you draw snow?
• Tunra - Again, how do you draw tundra?
• Desert - How do you draw a dune? Or should I just do the odd little cactus and prickly pear?
• Ocean - Looking at tolkien's maps he usually does the sea with lines following the coast line - a bit dificult to descibe - but this will not be possible due to the way the tilesets work. Stylisted waves?
• Jungle - I guess I need to draw little palm trees...

Any finally, specials, improvements and units and cities.

I plan to leave cities and units in colour for the moment - they stand out well. Although, for mod pack use, tolkein style cities would be fun, likewise units.

Having the specials in colour on this tileset does make them easy to see. I have also tried using small specials in the bottom right corner of easy tile as well.

Peter

[CapTVK]

So if I understand correctly the map tiles will be done in the style of Tolkien's handdrawn maps and units cities etc...in colour? I have to say it does add a unique style to your modpack. I've never seen a modpack done this way.

I like it!

[paulz]

I haven't been working on it lately, but have you seen the Tolkien modpack I have started?

www.dunedain.net/modpack

It is of a very different style, but perhaps we could work together?

[maubp]

Hi paulz,

I knew there was at least one Tolkien based mod on freeciv, which is partly why I started playing with this.

Do you have a predefined map? In which case, which terrain types do you use? See my points in the first post - I'm at a loss for how to draw some tiles.

CapTVK - the main reason that the Units (and cities etc) are in colour was because it was easier. When/if I finish the terrain, I would be in a position to start on them. In the meantime, I kind of like the way the units and cities standout against the simple background.

Incidentally, I was wondering about a more complicated setup. Terrain that you have seen yourself is done in colour as at the moment. Terrain that you only know about from your allies/swaping maps would be shown using a different tileset - something representing an actual map, possibly like the Tolkien tiles. Crazy? Maybe, and it would need some serious code changes!

[CapTVK]

Maubp,

That Tolkien style has struck a chord with me. It kind of reminds of Mike Singleton's Lords of Midnight and Doomdarks Revenge done for the ZX Spectrum. But that's ancient 8-bit history left for another time....

I'll try a few doodle attempts to come up with a few map squares. For the units I would advice some sort of a color coded system: Elves -green; Gondor- Blue; Mordor -Black etc...

The complicated setup I would leave for a later stage.

[Per]

maubp, that looks very promising. I can't think of any slightly modern game which has tried to look that way. Could turn out to be very cool. Keep it up, and let me know if a Tolkien ruleset requires any (hopefully trivial) code changes, and I'll see what I can do.

[maubp]

Per said:

... let me know if a Tolkien ruleset requires any (hopefully trivial) code changes, and I'll see what I can do.

Would it be easy to add code for four new railway tiles and four new road tiles as discuessed in this thread ? This is a more general request for any high resolution tileset. Might apply to isometric tiles as well.

I have had a go doing the ocean in Tolkien's style:-

[MarkG]

awsome idea

[CapTVK]

This is starting to look the part... Now we need some nice terrain specials.

[maubp]

Given the positive feedback, I have done the mountains properly (16 tiles instead the one I was using). This is better than the trident tileset (and others like it) that only use four tiles - their mountains only join up east-west!

These should look good for any middle earth maps, the mountain ring arround Mordor is quite important

For the hills, given the style I have chosen, using just the four tiles which join up east-west seems to be good enough.

I might do the forests next weekend (i.e. do the extra tiles to make them join up north-south as well as east-west).

But before that, I really think the other terrain types need doing.

For swamp I have a plan - based on the marshes on a few of Tolkein's maps.

I still want suggestions for:

• Desert - maybe a couple of "sand dunes"
• Artic - how do you "draw" ice?
• Tundra - ?
• Jungle - palm trees?

Rivers are also on my todo list - but I think I can cope with them. What about roads and railways?

Anyway, as mentioned at the start of this post, mountains that join up:-

[maubp]

I have now done the rivers.

[Bart Coppens]

Very nice! But could you make the lines of the sea fit in a bit more? So they're a bit vaguer, like the rest of the terrain types.

[maubp]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

I'm not sure what you mean Bart. Doing them in a slight range of colours? Or a softer/browner colour than the grey I picked?

As to what I am trying to mimic, have a look here at some scanned in Tolkien maps:

http://www.jrrtolkien.org.uk/lotrmaps.htm

This image is quite a good example:

http://www.jrrtolkien.org.uk/Images/lotrmap1.jpg

You can see how he does his ocean? The "coastal wave lines" echo the landscape - with the lines closer together nearer land, repeating out into the ocean.

Now at the moment this would be impossible in freeciv without code changes. It also has a major drawback from a gameplay point of view - the lines tell you about coast locations which you may not be able to see.

I realised that without some major code changes (and the problem about information mentioned above), I could only have the coastal "wave lines" to a distance of about half a tile.

This is what I have done, and I choose to have three wavey lines. The deap ocean will have to be "blank" or have a simple repeating pattern.

Alternatively, we could abandon this style for ocean totally - and go for some stylised waves instead...

Anyone care to post some pictures of their ideas? I've still got a few problem terrain types to do - the my earlier postings.

Peter

[Bart Coppens]

Originally posted by maubp
Thanks for the feedback everyone.

I'm not sure what you mean Bart. Doing them in a slight range of colours? Or a softer/browner colour than the grey I picked?

To see what I mean, zoom in on the image on the section where the river flows into the ocean. As you can see, the river is actually a mixture of different hues of green, red and brown, giving an impression of a pencil-made drawing. (also notice the slight antialiasing these different hues make).
Now look at the wavy lines: they have all the same grey colour, and are not antialiased. Because of these two things, these lines do look a bit 'misplaced' in the image.

[maubp]

OK Bart, good point, thanks for clarifying that.

I think you're right, that would be better. Any graphics expects care to suggest a quick/easy way to do this?

The current waves were all done in the very primative Microsoft Paint Brush (a little app included with Windows), almost pixel by pixel. The reason I did the wavy lines all the same colour was because it was easier and quicker!

I wasn't confident that the wavy line look would "work" at all. I'm reasonably happy with how it turned out.

Right now I think the remaining land terrain is more important, but I'll put tweaking the coast line on my mental to do list.