Working on some new terrain...

[King Flevance]

I have some new terrain I have been working on but have hit a roadblock. I mostly am posting in hopes someone will show me a new 'trick' or maybe just share an idea that perhaps I can't think of. Right now I am soley modding plains and grasslands. Here is a preview of the new stuff atm.

Spoiler :

My problem is I don't like how the new plains and grasslands 'blend'. Anyone have any ideas on how to make this blend better? It looks funky IMO. I want to keep the grass and plains textures, but I can't seem to get them to blend good. I can tone down the plains a bit, one of the problems is the plains have alot of dark in them. compared to the grasslands. Anyways, any input is welcome.

 

[Yoda Power]

Looks cool, but I see your problem.

How is your editing process? Maybe that will help people give you better advice.

 

[King Flevance]

Well, I have gimp, but not too familiar with it. Right now I am just using mspaint to apply the textures. I haven't had much time to learn gimp yet but really need to.

What I do is import the tiles to paint, then I edit out any grass/plains I want to retexture by just painting it white. Then I select and drag the 'erased' tile over the new texture and it fills it in. This is like my 5th version of blends. lol. This is the one that actually looks 'best', but now I am just simply out of ideas. Well, I have came up with a new idea but doubt it will look good. And that the part I described above about using the 'natural blend' of the tile to blend it.

EDIT: Nvm, I guess I didn't previously mention my idea about that. Basically I was thinking of using the 'blended section' of the original tiles and keeping it the same. Then applying my texture once past the blended section. But because of the large difference in color of my plains texture, and the original games, I am afraid it will still have a 'river' effect. I am able to do this with the grassland though.

If you look in the picture, the tile in the 2nd row, 3rd tile down has not had any plains modification done yet. So I was thinking of using it's blend, but my plains are really dark compared to original plains color is why I am doubtful.

In my current 'blend' I am attempting a dirt texture in between, but it has the effect of a river of dirt. lol.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Basically I was thinking of using the 'blended section' of the original tiles and keeping it the same. Then applying my texture once past the blended section. But because of the large difference in color of my plains texture, and the original games, I am afraid it will still have a 'river' effect.

It's a lot of pixel by pixel work, but the only solution I can think of is to gradually change from the "original blend" palette to "your texture" so there's not a sudden color transition.

 

[King Flevance]

Here is a new version of me using the original blend.

Spoiler :

What do you guys think? It looks a little better IMO. I may need to try and smooth it out more.

 

[Blue Monkey]

That's definitely moving in the right direction. I'd make the transition a little more gradual in both directions; your plains texture definitely looks like long grass well into the dry season.

Interesting avatar, by the way.

 

[King Flevance]

I have narrowed down the blend a little more. It seems to be working out. It's a little tricky on the plains side. (I am trying to keep the dry grass appearance as much as I can.) The texture actually comes from a photo of a wheat field around harvest season. The grass is from a photo of... I think crabgrass in a shire. Might be something else though.

My avatar is from Guild Wars. It's a guild wars version of an old D&D charactor. I used his name for this site when I registered, (since its all I could think of and its never taken. ) so figured a picture would work best for my avatar. Your avatar & name work great together. I love that movie... the first one, the others didn't seem as good to me.

 

[Yoda Power]

That's defiently better.

I'm looking forward to seing more previews.

 

[King Flevance]

Updated the last preview. That's how far I got tonight. (Plus some tiles that have nothing to do with plains) It is looking better though I must say. I still need to align some edges and minor things but the blend is working much better. Hopefully, I can post an fully done ingame screenshot this before the end of this weekend.

 

[King Flevance]

Back, with an all new problem. As I said before, I am opening the pcx files in gimp then exporting to paint to modify. I couldn't resist and wanted to see the terrain in-game. So I went ahead and swapped the files and loaded up the editor. Now this is what I see. I am guessing the problem is happening when I import the image back into gimp. Like an alpha channel or something is what I am guessing.

Anyway, here is a picture of the problem.

Spoiler :

Please point me in the right direction if you can.

 

[Yoda Power]

Well it's obviously a palette problem. Make sure that the pink is the last colour in the palette. The last colour is the transparent one.

 

[King Flevance]

Ok, should I do that in paint - or in gimp? (Guessing paint ) The original .pcx opens in Gimp with the background pink, so I kept that. I really don't have much experience in gimp as far as layers and alphas and stuff go. I have just toyed with the imaging tools themselves alot.

If it is in Gimp that I need to change the last color, how do I do that? Sorry, for the noobiness. I should also ask ahead of time, If it is in ms paint that I must change the last color, will any non-tile sections be transparent automatically in gimp?

And thanks for the fast reply.

 

[Quinzy]

You need to do it in gimp yeah, as Paint doesn't "do" palettes. The pink should be the last colour on the palette, thus making it the transparency colour.

 

[Yoda Power]

I'm no Gimp expert either, but I think I know of one way to solve the problem.

Open the pcx.
Make a copy of the file in a new image, no need to save it.
Go to "dialogs" then "colormap" of the original pic.
Change the colours so only the last one is pink.
The pink should now change to whatever colour you change it too.
Paste the copied image on top of it.

Should work in theory, but there might be an easier solution.

edit: I just tried it, it defiently works.

 

[King Flevance]

That got it. Thanks guys. I am glad I prematurely loaded up the terrain into the game to get a look this early. I am going to have to change a couple of my original plans on the terrain as I am not too happy with how some of them work together in game. Thanks again though. This helped me out alot.

Now, I can really work with how the terrain will look as an end result as I work.

 

[Yoda Power]

As long as you supply previews, I'm happy to help.

 

[King Flevance]

I am happy to show my progress. Honestly, I am also happy someone is interested in seeing the progress. I should be able to post a preview of xpgc.pcx tonight in game, or as the file.

One problem I am having though is that the method I use to get the trasparency, using the colormap method you describe, is I lose some color through that method. I love the fact you could help me out Yoda and appreciate it. A small annoyance though is using that method, the color map tones down my color to the original colormap of the original pcx. I could use the eyedropper tool and manually go in and add colors to the color map off of the "negatives" of my version. But if someone could tell me a better way to make sure my original colors can be mapped out and applied in addition to the original pcx's color map that would be awesome. If that makes since.

I'll worry about that later though. First, I need to finish all these tiles.

 

[King Flevance]

Here is the latest update on it. I have 1 page of tiles finished. The grasslands are a little hard to make out right now, but I plan on increasing their color later. Possibly the same thing also with plains, but they don't look too bad. This picture with the elephants makes me thinkof Savannah Grass on Zoo Tycoon.

Spoiler :

EDIT: Bah, didn't notice the grid was on in the screens till now. Next one I post will have no grid lines.

EDIT2: New update with greener grasslands thrown in. Thanks again for the GIMP info Varlin. It really helps the grassland pop out against the plains.

 

[Varlin Saliptor]

Looks go so far. I am pretty good with GIMP, so if you have any questions, do not hesitate to PM me.

 

[King Flevance]

I am kind of torn between 2 styles now. I am curious to see what everyone else thinks. The grasslands are working now and look alot better. SO they are good to go, but the plains I am torn between a little. Comparing the plains in the screenshot posted 2 posts up, and the screenshot in this post, I am not sure which looks better. I may just release both in the end. Not sure yet.

Spoiler :

Comments?

EDIT: I know there are some weird lines connecting tiles, they will be cleaned up before this is all done.