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Post by cariboucowboy on May 6, 2015 0:24:49 GMT -9
Working title, I suppose. Expanding on the buildings I submitted for this past month's hoard. Many, many new iterations of building textures and more complicated designs now that we've worked out many of the kinks. Now, starting in on things like fortifications, and as seen here, ground textures, water, roads, hills and bridges.
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Post by cariboucowboy on May 6, 2015 22:17:20 GMT -9
Tower take one. As well as a test of a knight-sprite. Haha! Comments, feedback or requests welcome.
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Post by cowboyleland on May 7, 2015 3:53:33 GMT -9
The parapet wall seems a little low for the size of the figure. The figure looks great, can you show us a better picture of him, please.
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Post by cariboucowboy on May 11, 2015 16:25:50 GMT -9
Been having issues of late... my project laptop with Photoshop on it died hard last week. Adjusting to Gimp in the interim has been interesting and not terrible, but adjusting to windows 8 has been much less enjoyable. Finally figured out how to maintain print settings the way I want to, so updates coming soon. The crenelated wall topper on the tower was off by a half inch in this build. I spaced adding an extra row of bricks because of the fold, but it's been fixed since. All of the crenels are a half inch deep on top of a 1 inch wall. Accounting for a 28-32 mm sized figure with a standard slotta-style base, this puts head and shoulders at proper firing height. When I finish up my current fort test build I'll post some pics with minis on for scale. The figure on the roof in the tower pic is designed in pixel-art style, with the same sizing convention used for all of our terrain (a literal 32 pixels per inch and limited color palette to maintain retro video-game styling). Here's some of the preliminary designs for figure flats. These guys are designed to fit in with the terrain we're working on, and the bases are of the same texture as the ground/road/roofing tiles.
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Post by cowboyleland on May 11, 2015 18:24:59 GMT -9
You might want to try using some black to outline the various parts of the figures. Jim used to do that with all the onemonk figures, it makes them "pop" a bit. Maybe you don't have any pixels to spare.
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Post by cariboucowboy on May 29, 2015 16:59:46 GMT -9
Indeed so, good sir! At the point of my last post I hadn't yet decided on A. doing outlines with black pixels or B. doing smooth outlines after resizing for print (kinda like how my forum hoard buildings last month had fold lines added after resizing).
I've decided to keep things cleaner I'm going to break off into another topic for the 8-bit warriors, and leave this particular thread to focus on terrain. I've got a test build of a small 12" x 12" fort I'm in the process of building that will go here as soon as I finish cutting out the dang crenels >_>
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Post by cariboucowboy on May 31, 2015 11:36:18 GMT -9
Small fort build. I'll post some better pics (with minis) when camera gets back from a con. Simpler build design than the previous tower, but updated graphics for more detail. Crenel/merlon height adjusted to fit wargame models and my standees. Outside dimensions are 12 inch square. Still got a few kinks to work out, in no small part due to trying to adjusting to gimp while fixing primary computer. Corner bracing bricks are almost completely compatible between all sections, but the colors don't line up perfectly on one or two areas. Next version will have a 3 inch front gate instead of two inch. Overall pretty harpy with it, though. Cheers, Mick
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Post by squirmydad on Jun 1, 2015 8:39:32 GMT -9
The forts looking good! Those short wall sections look like they'd be troublesome for minis and fingers, but I'll wait and see on that. Just wanted to let you know, in case you hadn't noticed, that I modified the layouts of the buildings you submitted to the April Hoard so that they would fit into the cutting area for automated cutters. Also, I suggest detaching the roofs on all of the buildings and having roof line tabs so that you have the option of that nice looking overhang effect all around. Cheers!
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Post by niksantsurvivedendor on Jun 3, 2015 1:45:43 GMT -9
Are there any chibi Mystic Quest-like Miniatures planned?
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Post by cariboucowboy on Jun 3, 2015 10:05:59 GMT -9
squirmydad: Thanks! The short walls are an inch wide by two inches deep. Most regular fantasy infantry can fit on them okay (20mm bases) and my pixel archers fit perfectly. Buuuut... the 1" sections are probably not going to be a thing in later builds. This was a first test run and while I like the way it turned out overall, I'm currently trying to decide how exactly I'm going to size things to be useful for tablettop, RPGs, and also the simple wargame we've got in the works. I had seen that you'd reformatted the building for the hoard. I've never worked with a automated cutter because I'm either poor or a Luddite, so that wasn't something I worked into my design constraints. For quick reference, what is the area for that/is there anything else I should be aware of? Again, I'm past basic test building and into actual design now, and I want to make sure everything is useable for as many people as possible. Also, the detached roof option is a good idea, and one I've played around with a bit. The shacks wound up the way they did this time around for speed of assembly, but eventually I'm planning to have two versions of them; one with a roof that is perfectly sized to the top of the walls (in case you want a lot of buildings butted up against each other) and one option that has separate roof sections so you can choose your desired texture and have overhangs on all sides. and niksantsurvivedendor, while it's not quite chibi, one of the big projects we're working on after we get this one up and running is kind of a cross between classic Zelda games and tabletop things like Descent or the classic Warhammer Quest. Kinda like THIS: In-depth discussion of sizing for upcoming terrain coming soon. Cheers, Mick
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Post by squirmydad on Jun 3, 2015 12:00:16 GMT -9
The Silhouette cutting software is free if you want download and play with it. Silhouette StudioThe cutting area looks like this, the whitespace is the safe area; Feel free to use the files in here as reference and guides; Forum Horde Helpers
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Post by cariboucowboy on Jun 3, 2015 12:43:31 GMT -9
Ah-ha! .psd files. No wonder I didn't remember them, I haven't had a computer with working photoshop since the last time I scoured the forums for design aids. Thanks for posting this up, it'll make formatting much smoother.
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Post by squirmydad on Jun 3, 2015 14:10:51 GMT -9
Ah-ha! .psd files. No wonder I didn't remember them, I haven't had a computer with working photoshop since the last time I scoured the forums for design aids. Thanks for posting this up, it'll make formatting much smoother. Would you like that in a different format? I have Gimp but haven't used it very much.
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Post by cariboucowboy on Jun 3, 2015 14:21:29 GMT -9
If you could either do gimp format (.xcf) or, even better, a 300dpi .png, that'd be awesome! I have the sizes for the cut area now so I can format my files to fit, but if I had a sized .png I could drop it as background layer and save you the trouble of formatting all the Hoard submissions I finish.
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Post by squirmydad on Jun 5, 2015 15:14:11 GMT -9
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Post by cariboucowboy on Jun 7, 2015 16:33:21 GMT -9
Thanks for that!
Now, on to hearty discussions. Huzzah!
So, we've been working on miniatures, game, maps and terrain for our 8-Bit Battlefields project. Everything we've done up is designed to be modular, and based on 32 pixels per inch squares for the most part. That means I can design our terrain to fit a lot of different design parameters.
The game I've been working up is along the lines of Battlelore, Dust Tactics and the like. So, lightweight rules to go along with basic infantry types (like the minis we're doing up), played on a large grid to speed up play. However, I need to design the maps and terrain, and I want to make sure that what I'm making will be easy to use in-game as well as for other tabletop and RPG stuff. So I want to go over some design pros and cons..
Some basic thoughts on bases, map sizes and such:
First off, our regular minis are based on 1” square bases. Other base styles (round etc.) could work, but square looks best with the pixel art design. So units will be comprised of a number of models on 1” squares. This means that whatever size squares our units are on will have to accommodate a number of guys on 1” square bases.
Next, because of the size of our models, including outlines, and tabs, and including the border for robo-cutting, the max number of guys I can fit on a page is 8, with less for some poses. Most basic infantry poses are 8 to a page. So, printing would be easiest built around 4-man units. Assuming hero/champion models can be attached or lead a normal unit, we're looking at four to five models per area on a map max.
Now, 4-5 man-sized minis on 1” square bases can fit in a 3” square area without having too overlap bases or the standees themselves. However, if any standees are instead on a 30mm base or larger, or if someone is standing in regular models on plastic bases that are more than 1”, things get hairy. Dust Tactics had 30mm round bases and 90mm square areas, so an area of 3.5 or 4 inches would be safer for dealing with bigger standees or 3D models.
So, assuming the type of gameplay I'm leaning towards and the size of the models, we have 3”, 3.5”, or 4” squares as options. But:
- 3” works for standees and is easy to print (could do 2x3 squares or 6”x9” per page), but doesn't give as much room for other types of minis. - 3.5” would probably be perfect for standees and minis, would still fit in robo-cutter cut area with 2x2 squares per page, BUT works more poorly with terrain. For example, 1” crenels on a castle would be a pit to deal with (though this could be fudged with 3” towers and 4” walls, for example). Dealing in half inches also doesn't work as well for RPGs and some other tabletop games. - 4” gives plenty of room for gaming, works great with terrain since it's a nice whole number, but can only be printed 2x1 areas if folks want to use an automatic cutter, and only 2x2 areas at the absolute maximum for cutting by hand (and never mind any kind tabs on that!)
So what does everybody think? Given the constraints of printing within cut lines or not, given how much easier working in whole inches is with the art style, and given the size of minis and the number that can be printed, what do you all think is the best option? Normally I'd just toss it all out the window and go with inches or inch squares, but the style of play I'm gunning for needs to be quick, easy and abstract enough to allow for some more interesting gameplay details to be layered over top later. While inches work, that generally lends itself to a more granular style of gameplay, so I'm avoidign it for this project.
Thoughts, opinions, comments?
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