Improving default tilesets, maybe a CTP project?

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Thank you very much, Bannor!  If I said I could really encompass that all on one reading, I'd be lying.  Bookmarked to hammer into my skull over time.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Michael DarkAngel]

               If I may add something to this that might possibly help.

Bare minimums needed for tileset creation:

• Single Terrain -- 2 tiles (1 terrain, 1 edge) Tile #1 from the image below will serve both purposes.
• Single Terrain w/Raise-Lower -- 6 tiles (4 terrain, 2 edge) Tiles #1 thru #4 with #1 and #4 dual-purposing as edge tiles.
• Single Terrain w/Crosser -- 5 tiles (1 terrain, 2 crosser, 2 edge) Tiles #1, #5 and #6 with #1 and #5 dual-purposing as edge tiles.
• Single Terrain w/Crosser and Raise-Lower -- 13 Tiles (4 terrain, 6 crosser, 3 edge) Tiles #1 thru #10 with #1, #4 and #5 dual-purposing as edge tiles.

To this, feel free to add as many variations, tile features, tile groups as you see fit.  As you add more terrains or crossers, you add exponentially to the amount of minimum tiles required.
[EDIT] Find a better tile representation of the above image -->> Gallery  -->> Discussion

 MDA
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Michael DarkAngel, 12 juillet 2012 - 02:25 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy__six]

               MDA, tile 9 is exactly the same as tile 10, at least from the perspective of a .set entry. However you are missing the r T and X shaped crosser junctions from your diagram, which the vast majority of crossers will always have. 
It also doesn't consider placing a crosser across a raise edge (which admittedly is a fairly specialist use but can be seen done quite effectively in TNO or Worms' sets). 

Of course, the absolute bare minimum to place a crosser is just tile 6 alone, so I'm just trying to point that crossers (and to a lesser extent terrains) always depend on precisely what they're intended to be used for, for what is necessary in terms of tiles. Ergo it's rather academic and misleading to try and throw numbers out there for what's needed without knowing precisely what is being implemented.

Two terrains and one crosser might warrant 30 tiles to implement if you require the crosser to paint around all possible orientations of the terrains with just a couple of those tiles having variations. But if its just a straight bridge across a pit, you might only need 3 tiles.



A slightly more on-topic point... I'm not entirely sure there's a huge amount of point these days to adding to the base tilesets more than has already been done so. It sounds the OP is talking about cherry picking existing add-ons to the tilesets, which to be honest seems more pointless to me, as you'd be making new areas anyway so why not just use new 'instances' of the tilesets like the CTP did? I'd be more interested in improvements to whats already there, a la what neverroofers did with the caves tileset override.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par _six, 11 juillet 2012 - 07:18 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Nice, thanks!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_NWN_baba yaga]

               I dont think it´s wise to improve the default tilesets anymore and the time could be spent into newer ones instead. The sewer (now we have the PQ/_six tileset or DLA anyway), demonic dungeon (ugh) and especially the city exterior just looks so dull to me. If we create an alternative tileset list for the default ones and add/ enhance these I´m in.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               Well...what do we have for replacement tilesets out there.

1. Rural = Castle Exterior Rural (with Q mods)
2. Forest = Baba's Project or Tom Banjo's Forest or Six's Wildwoods
3. Dungeon = Maxam's classic Dungeon or Versatile Dungeon, Six's Catacombs
4. City = Zwerkules Medieval City or Six's Wildlands
5. City Interior = Project Q City Interior or City Interior 2 (with Q mods)
6. Castle Interior = Project Q Castle Interior or Castle Interior 2 (with Q mods)
7. Underdark = Baba's Underdark or Sen's Underdark
8. Mines = Never Roofer's Mines

And that's just the ones I use. In reality I don't think we need a project either that refurbishes the default Bioware tilesets. The Community has already replaced most of them with much better sets. What would be better IMO is if someone started a project that looked at all these high quality tilesets and what was needed to make them work nice together.Basically you'd be looking at a tophak project that merged conflicting 2das.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Krevett]

               Indeed a tophak merging all those fantastic sets would be sooooo nice!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy__six]

               We'd have to make sure every time someone updates a tileset hakpak, we'd be able to update the merger. Wait, I have an idea that makes lexical sense...

*hollers* ROLO!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <collecting...>

And the sticking point continues to be embedded data in the mod and intelligent parsing/modification thereof.

Specifically, the tiles referenced in the mod *must* be correctly defined in the set.

However, I still think we can create a wrapper that assembles mod resources at *run-time* (skipping if it's already built) and enable asynchronous content generation. It is simply absurd that you have to massage an entire tileset when you add a single tile or even a feature that re-uses already present tiles.

The rules for .set files are known. We *can* automate this.

*sigh*

I guess I really should move my Ruby lessons up a burner or two... We really do need this :-/

Edit: In the meantime, Bannor, MDA... who owns the Community Tileset Project now?
What challenges would we have to revive the organization with a slightly different mission - to coordinate the existing, 3rd party tilesets (and new *cough* Babayaga *cough* ones that come along) into, as Paul points out, a comprehensive replacement superset?

<...a few more gems>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 11 juillet 2012 - 03:29 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_NWN_baba yaga]

               My offer is to create requested or specific features/ groups to these tilesets and make sure that my own ones work with all the other sets listed above. 2da and itp editing is realy not my thing guys:D
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               Project Q has revised its loadscreens.2da to include the lines from the CTP, Maxam's classic Dungeon, Maxam's Versatile Dungeon, Six's Wildwoods, and The CCC City.

The following lines are no longer reserved - they are LOCKED as an integral part of Q: 

CTP - lines 210-249, 260-294
classic Dungeon - line 330 (moved here from line 130 - conflict with Bioware change)
Versatile Dungeon - line 580
CCC City - lines 1000-1009
Wildwoods - lines 1010-1018

Users of these tilesets will NOT have to modify loadscreens.2da to use these tilesets with Project Q. Note that we have only added the 2da lines, not the images. The loadscreens will only appear if the tileset hak is included.

As work progresses on v1.5 I will look at the other 2da files and areag.ini included in some of these packages and see what is required to resolve any lingering compatibility issues with Project Q. As of this writing the following tilesets can be used with Project Q v1.5 simply by dropping them into your module BELOW the Project Q haks:

CTP (ALL)
Maxam's classic Dungeon v0.9.1
Maxam's Versatile Dungeon v0.9.3
Six's Wildlands v0.5.5
Six's Winter Wildlands v0.5.5
Six's Wildwoods v0.7

More information is available on the Project Q Forums at http://www.qnwn.net/...hp?topic=1562.0
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Pstemarie, 11 juillet 2012 - 10:31 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               The list of compatible tilesets has grown pretty extensive:

CTP Releases by CTP Team
CTP Babylon by CTP Team
Catacombs v0.2 by Six
classic Dungeon v0.9.1 by Maxam
Cypress Swamp v2 Beta by LoW
Deep Dungeon v0.2 by Six
DLA Canopied Forest v1.03 (Replacing) by DLA Team
Dwarven Chasms v0.2 by Six
Fantasy Interiors v3 by LoW
Forest Expansion by Tom Banjo
Icy Caverns v0.9 by Senemenelas
Mirkwood Swamp v16 by LoW
Ravencast Forest by NWN_baba yaga
Scorched Earth v1 by LoW
Seasonal Forest v10 by LoW
Underdark v0.69 by Senemenelas
Undersea v4 by LoW
Versatile Dungeon v0.9.3 by Maxam
Wildlands v0.5.5 by Six
Wildwoods v0.7 by Six
Winter Wildlands v0.5.5 by Six

Community Music Pack by Tiberius Morguhn

Note: If using multiple tilesets from the list above, it does not matter what order the haks are placed in as long as they are ALL placed below the Project Q haks. Furthermore, it is advised that all CTP haks be grouped together and the CTP's hierarchy adhered to.

Yes, I know the CMP isn't a tileset, but I wasn't creating a thread for a one-item list.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Pstemarie, 14 juillet 2012 - 07:16 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               Also, my humblest apologies for shamelessly hi-jacking this thread to promote Project Q...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Pstemarie, 14 juillet 2012 - 07:17 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               

Rolo Kipp wrote...

<collecting...>
<snipping for brevity>

Edit: In the meantime, Bannor, MDA... who owns the Community Tileset Project now?

I do specifically.  However, a large section of the orgiinal source files are missing... no, let me re-phrase... a large section of the MODIFICATIONS made by CTP are missing.  The originals I have burned on CD, and may have some of the modifications too, but I can't check while I am in the nursing home.

What challenges would we have to revive the organization with a slightly different mission - to coordinate the existing, 3rd party tilesets (and new *cough* Babayaga *cough* ones that come along) into, as Paul points out, a comprehensive replacement superset?

<...a few more gems>

files needing to be checked./modified etc.
1) areg.ini ... not necessary, but if setup correctly, makes using the various tilesets easier for builders.
2) doortypes.2da --  This one is ABSOLUTELY necessary since many/most tilesets add/change doors for specific groups etc.
3) various texture names.  This becomes very problematic.  Many tileset authors direclty replace a specific bioware texture with a different texture of the exact same name.  IE, badly named/re-skinned tiles.  May or may not be an issue, but is something the CTP handled by renaming every texture we used.  No way to interfere if all of our textures are prefixed by "ctp_" etc... many authors don't make that special effort.  By not having tileset specific named textures, you can totally trash OTHER tilesets when you override their textures with your modified ones.,

I think there may be some other files that should have attention payed to them, but I can't remember without reviewing the various CTP resource lists I have at home.


Some other notes... CTP's original plans were for a 40 tileset release.  That got changed as the team was reduced in size etc... our tilesets were built as single haks per tileset to allow builders to choose specific tilesets without wasting space/time with tilesets they may not use.  Folks now seem to not mind having large downloads, but a huge hak containing multiple tilesets vastly increases loadtime for ANY area using ANY of the various tilesets in a specific hak.  IE a huge hak containing 15 different tileset with all the resulting files, will kill a server qand likely kill the client as well.

We have a 50 hak limit.  This vastly reduces the total number of tilesets we can use, most especially when talking about having these along with various other hak combos...(IE Project Q, CEP) or anything that is adding placeables etc.

CTP tilesets NEVER add placeables.  Too many groups/authors etc, were adding to and editing plaeables to make it worthwhile to attempt to have CTP specific placeable additions.  Too many files to track/merge etc...

Anyway, general BUMP to keep topic going.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_AndarianTD]

               On the original thread topic: What kinds of improvements to the default tilesets are under consideration? I've used NWNCQ for the last two years to upgrade the default tilesets in my modules. Except for a few minor glitches that could stand fixing, I generally consider it to fulfill the needs of a "default tileset improvement" project.

On Bannor's comment regarding texture reuse: that is one of the sometimes unfortunate consequences of combining tilesets. In Sanctum 3 I decided to use both NWNCQ and Seasonal Forest (among others). I used mostly the spring variant of SF, which does use some of the default textures, and which NWNCQ replaces. The result is that the SF forests look noticeably different with NWNCQ installed. I was fortunate in that I ended up liking the end result and keeping it, but it could easily have gone the other way. So I definitely approve of the CTP approach to keeping its texture names distinct -- it saves builders like me a lot of potential hassle.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par AndarianTD, 25 août 2012 - 12:14 .