Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Nov 7, 2015 16:56:39 GMT -9
Not sure I'm happy that the side stones are directional. That is, if I were to rotate that tile 90° then they'd obviously not line up well. I might be able to work them such that they are square, rather than rectangular. That might be enough to have them blend better.
In any case, I've got the 16 basic tile shapes done, and I will probably include the grass and mud textures from the first set. Being able to toggle both the road texture and the side texture means you've really got 32 different tile patterns in the set. I am thinking I'll do some debris layers, some puddles, grates and trap doors. That should do it for the first pass.
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Apr 3, 2016 16:10:34 GMT -9
Been pretty demoralized lately. Just can't seem to create anything, and the state of Massachusetts is giving me fits over this whole small business thing. After a couple of lousy nights of making little progress on some ideas, I decided to circle back on these street tiles. Not sure how well this attached image will come through (click it, and the larger version is a little clearer). I slapped 16 tiles together without a whole lot of attempts to vary the layered goo on each tile. I just wanted to try them out so I could see how they'll fit together. The splotches - they're supposed to be puddles. I'm going to tinker with them more, perhaps adding some highlights. They might be fine as-is once I actually test print something. Certainly shrunk down from 1800x1800 to 300x300, they look like splotches.
Since the textures are updated and seem to align OK, I'm going to revisit the brown cobblestone texture, and look at reusing the mud, grass and grassy mud layers from my other tile set.
There's two layers to add some leaves to the ground. If I can remember, I'll think about maybe adding a trap door, grate or some other ground feature to each tile. Then, I'll try to get back into making some more buildings for a city.
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Apr 4, 2016 11:54:58 GMT -9
Continuing on the theme... playing around with integrating the textures from the first tile set. Not sure if it's necessary to have nine different textures (18 layers just for the streets) plus seven more layers to add things like leaves, puddles, grime, and the stone edging, but if it's not all that much work to lay out the PDFs, then so be it!
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Oct 17, 2016 15:27:44 GMT -9
Good lord. This was supposed to be finished months ago. Better late than never! I'm working on cleaning up all of the files I created for this set, and I'm re-evaluating the leaves, puddles and drains for layers. So many mistakes to clean up!
Post by Vermin King on Oct 17, 2016 15:44:33 GMT -9
It seems like every time I look at something I find something else that needs fixed. Usually something I'm just not quite happy with, but doing the test build on my little project, I was doing eaves as tabs (sounded good at the time) and they are off, and I'm never satisfied with doors.
Can leaves, puddles and drains really have errors? Everything I have seen on this has looked great so far
There are no strangers in this world,only people I haven't embarrassed ... yet!
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Oct 17, 2016 16:17:25 GMT -9
It's the little things... I have 16 files - one for each tile. The layer masks were off on all of them, somehow. The grids weren't lining up. The !%@! stone edging around the streets were way off... Then, I decided that it looks better (to me) to not have the same drop-shadow on both sides of the stone edging. That means to support inverting the tile textures and get 2x the tile layouts, I need to have 2x the edging layers. Nothing major. I've just been away from it for months, so it's slow to get back into things. But, I'm gonna try to get to the point that even if I only have 20 minutes to work on something, I can be productive. You know that feeling of *ugh* when you sit down in front of a daunting workload that you technically don't even need to do? I've almost fought past that!
Pulling the hoards together has really helped pull me out of a slump!
Post by Vermin King on Oct 17, 2016 16:19:56 GMT -9
Got my taxes done (yeah, I filed an extension) and been working on 16 hours of continuing education, so tonight I decided it is time to get back to Building 3, but I'm dawdling...
There are no strangers in this world,only people I haven't embarrassed ... yet!
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Oct 20, 2016 16:25:08 GMT -9
This is kicking my butt so badly right now. I swear a ghost comes in every night and fiddles with the layers in my files so that they're off by a couple pixels each time I come back.
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Oct 20, 2016 16:40:18 GMT -9
Ok... I think I double-checked everything... now I have to go back and do the extra layers. I question the value in them... Each tile can be "inverted" so the streets become the sidewalks and vice-versa. Doubles the number of tile types you can have. I was going to do a layer of leaves, puddles and drains. I'm wondering though, realistically, would someone really want to print with leaves? Does it really add that much to the tile to be able to add some leaves? I mean, if you add leaves, you'd need trees around. If you put trees around, would you really care if there are little leaves on the tile texture? The drains? Sure. That kinda makes sense. You can turn them on or off as you see fit. Puddles? I suppose - they can be on or off and maybe break up the tiles a little (have some with puddles, some without. So, maybe I'll just do puddles and drains, and leave the leaves out. Each tile has a water layer you can apply, which kinda makes canals of a sort.
Post by Vermin King on Oct 20, 2016 17:10:59 GMT -9
Do you have a deadline you have set yourself? You sound like someone who could use a break. Tonight I made a couple paper bats to decompress. Sometimes it is best to walk away and come back with a fresh set of eyes
There are no strangers in this world,only people I haven't embarrassed ... yet!
Do you like the leaves? Customers are often fickle and contrary, make the model that makes you happy and your happiness will be evident in the beauty if the final product.
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Oct 21, 2016 10:09:25 GMT -9
I have committed to certain layers and will drop some others. I am not really liking the puddles, but I'll continue to play with the idea. I like the drains, and you can easily have some with and some without. I am not liking the leaves, and will not bother including them. I got a little more done today, and I continue to plug away.
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Oct 23, 2016 16:05:27 GMT -9
Love em or hate em, the Pats won again today! And, I've gotten my 15 minutes of work in to finish the drains. I'm going to start laying out the PDFs. I think I'm going to opt for additional tiles rather than more layers. I hope that is more useful.
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Oct 24, 2016 3:50:09 GMT -9
I started exporting PDFs, and finally came up with a system that only takes a few minutes to get things exported. I did some cleanup and built 2 pdfs this morning while waiting for a conference call. Tonight, I hope to get the remaining tiles exported. I may redo the water layer so that the water tiles a little better...
Vermin King - to make the street, I think what I did (searching my memory) was to take a street texture with the rounded cobblestone pattern, and I created four layers, rotating each layer by 90 degrees. I created a triangular layer mask on three of the layers to expose 1/4 of the tile on top of the lowest layer. That left some harsh edges, so I went along and tried to work with the layer masks to avoid having any stones harshly sliced in half, or obviously mirrored. In some cases, when I was done, I went back with the clone tool to put better edges back along the stones. I did this so that they tile together pretty nicely, no matter their orientation. And, that's kinda what I need from the water now.
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Oct 24, 2016 15:10:13 GMT -9
Chugging through the PDFs... Haven't redone the water yet, but if I do, it'll be quick to re-export everything. Just getting the other layers in place is a win. I'm through the first seven tiles, but I've decided on a couple variations that has brought the total to 23 tiles. Since the layers allow for reversing the textures, that's 46 different ground tiles to mess around with for layouts.
Post by Vermin King on Oct 24, 2016 15:27:06 GMT -9
You deserve a break. I think your pattern on the cobblestones is wonderful, and I can sort of see how you did it, but water flows. Don't the tiles have to be directional? Unless you can mirror the water layer in a different layer. I'm just having a hard time visualizing the process for the canals.
I hope you and the dog had a great walk
BTW, Lincoln says 'Hello'
Last Edit: Oct 24, 2016 15:44:11 GMT -9 by Vermin King
There are no strangers in this world,only people I haven't embarrassed ... yet!
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Oct 24, 2016 15:49:18 GMT -9
I posted a picture earlier with what the water currently looks like. Maybe it's less "canal" and more "large, decorative pools" Once all the packaging is complete, and the busy work of exporting a gazillion layers is done, I'll play more, and post some in-progress pictures.
The basic process was going to be to get a directional water flow texture going somehow. I'll create a single layer where that's essentially mirrored for the four sides. In the center, I'll have another layer with the directional water flow "bent" in different ways. Then, for more open tiles, I'll add in some of the less flowy water. It'll either be totally brilliant, or a hot mess. Either way, I'll learn something from it.
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Nov 6, 2016 7:10:04 GMT -9
Spent some tinkering on a different water layer. Here's a comparison of the old (left) and new (right) where I'm at.
It tiles pretty well, so now I'm going to play with adding a little foam to the texture, or some extra distorts on different tiles. I'm hoping it's a quiet day today...
Spent some tinkering on a different water layer. Here's a comparison of the old (left) and new (right) where I'm at.
It tiles pretty well, so now I'm going to play with adding a little foam to the texture, or some extra distorts on different tiles. I'm hoping it's a quiet day today...
I agree that the one on the right looks more like slow-moving or standing canal water, so I'd go with that for the city tile set. However, for what it's worth, it looks a bit clean for a city canal--more like a chlorinated and filtered swimming pool than natural canal water that probably also serves as the city's sewage system (Yuck!). Would it be possible to shift the hue of the water from bright blue to a more natural green-brown? It could probably be done simply by manipulating the curves or the Hue-Saturation-Lightness, without having to actually tinker with the artwork.
Visit my new blog, printandplaygamer.com, featuring free downloads, product recommendations, and maker tutorials for papercrafting gamers.
Post by Vermin King on Nov 6, 2016 12:14:19 GMT -9
regarding the pattern comment, the one on the right looks like the pattern you would see on a puddle in a moderately strong breeze. If the pattern was expanded (more flat water), I think it would be more canal-like
There are no strangers in this world,only people I haven't embarrassed ... yet!
Post by mproteau (Paper Realms) on Nov 7, 2016 5:28:16 GMT -9
Thanks for the comments, guys. I agree with both of you. I'll try to scale up the texture - it'll mean making it tile all over again. I was planning on trying to tone down the blue, but I wanted to focus on the texture first. Who knows when my next available time to work on it will be - this week I've got to drag my new boyscout son through some badge requirements that require effort *every night*, and I expect I'll be completely drained by the process.
Vermin King: Happy birthday, lightning. Hope it was a good one
Mar 21, 2024 16:37:15 GMT -9
Vermin King: Thank you, sir
Mar 9, 2024 5:59:22 GMT -9
alloydog: You can copy/paste the images into the forum and this shout box - 😁 but there isn't the Thumb Up... 🤔
Mar 8, 2024 23:39:35 GMT -9
alloydog: OK, update! Goto the Wikipedia page for the List of emoticons link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons
Mar 8, 2024 23:36:50 GMT -9
alloydog: You can even copy/paste it to Notepad (or any other text editor, I guess - I use Gedit)
Mar 8, 2024 21:47:44 GMT -9
alloydog: From the post I linked to below, if you select it, then right-click on it, you will even get an option to search for the Thumb Up character, so I think it is part of the standard ASCII character set: https://i.p
Mar 8, 2024 21:46:33 GMT -9
alloydog: If you look at script of the post, it looks like this:
Mar 8, 2024 21:41:05 GMT -9
alloydog: Actually, I can't remember where it came from, might be from Proboards emoticon own library. It is literally a character that can be copy/pasted. If you go to my post cardboard-warriors.proboards.com/post/100330/ you can copy the thumbs up there.
Mar 8, 2024 21:40:22 GMT -9
Vermin King: alloydog, did you do it by inserting with PostImage? I did not see it in the smileys
Mar 8, 2024 12:25:10 GMT -9
okumarts: Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing until everyone is sitting down at the table.
Mar 1, 2024 16:43:01 GMT -9
Vermin King: How far in advance do you decide what to play? Prep time has to be factored in
Feb 28, 2024 5:52:54 GMT -9
okumarts: We ended up playing Cepheus Engine Supers (I modded some stuff from Cepheus Modern and Zaibatsu).
Feb 27, 2024 18:28:58 GMT -9
Vermin King: I really wish the Shoutbox had a thumbs up button.
Feb 26, 2024 5:14:00 GMT -9
okumarts: I think we might play some Mork Borg Star Wars this week... we'll see.
Feb 25, 2024 14:51:43 GMT -9
okumarts: We wrapped it up last Monday and we will take one of the characters and flesh them out into first level characters.
Feb 25, 2024 14:51:26 GMT -9
Vermin King: okumarts, when do you get together again?
Feb 24, 2024 5:57:15 GMT -9
okumarts: It was a real mob of adventurers in the dungeon.
Feb 13, 2024 14:01:06 GMT -9