Tile Magic

[Legacy_henesua]

               I am playing with tile magic lately and have begun to fill out my visualeffects.2da with different tiles. I'd like to hear from others how they have used tilemagic to generate cool effects.

For posterity here's some links to TileMagic related things:
An Introduction to TileMagic
Sunjammer's TileMagic System 
Help with Tile Magic
Tile Magic


I am also looking for additional tile models to use

• Water: does anyone know of tilesets or tile models out there that will work well as tilemagic'd water? I'm looking for a better sewer water than the default sewer tileset. Q has some nice sewer tilesets but they are all roofed. Essentially I want dirty water. Tom Banjo's Swamp (also in Q) looks good, but I want more options. Other fluids would be great as well: lava, blood, acid.
• Sand: I am interested in some 
  
  tilesets or tile models that have a sand tile in an underwater environment. Any good ones?

What about ceilings? Are there any good tilemagic effects for things over head like spider webs or more importantly water that you can see when looking up. Worms underwater tileset is very nice but its focused on undersea stuff, and so doesn't work well for lakes, rivers, flooded pits etc.... I'd like to have a VFX for water overhead.

Also scripts:
has anyone pulled off a convincing flood effect? I'd like to try to create a rising water level, but haven't attempted it yet.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 03 septembre 2012 - 06:07 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               Just want to double check that as far as stuff overhead is concerned, that you have checked out skyboxes as I am sure that there is at least one that deals with it.

TR
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               I have checked those, but don't like the water skybox. Nevertheless, point taken. I suppose I should hang on to it as a back up.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               I just wanted to reiterate, while tilemagic is very powerful for transforming the appearance of a tileset or adding dynamic effects. The main drawback is how it responds to fog.

Nevertheless, I am using this to some advantage in making a low lying fog effect in a forest. The steamworks has a transparent steam plane. This combined with 1.69 mist emitter placeable makes a great effect. The white mist appears luminescent as it does not fade with fog and everything else is misty. It actually looks good.

Minimal Fog with Mist Effect (tilemagic+placeables)


Fog Cranked Up

               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 09 septembre 2012 - 04:16 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               Nice fogginess.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               I wanted to add that I had an idea to use some of worms underwater tileset tiles to get the overhead water plane. I think this will work very well.

I'll post screen shots when I get this as I wanted.

The reason for this is that while I like worms underwater tileset... it is really a seawater tileset. So I am thinking that some other tilesets may work better in conjunction with some of his tiles overlayed on top as tilemagic. My goal is to make an underwater lake environment to which some hostile water fey can drag an unsuspecting adventurer after charming them. I really like creatures like Kelpies and Jenny Greeneth etc... and want to get these kind of encounters in Arnheim.

Anyway... I'll post screenshots when I get a look that I like.

And that said... if anyone would like to help me with submerged freshwater placeables. Drowned trees that had fallen over into a lake and lost their leaves. Undulating streams of bright green algae colonies. Truly water sculpted boulders. I'd be ecstatic!

Also... no one commented, but that tileset above is Zwerkules forest override. Its a beautiful tileset.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 12 septembre 2012 - 02:10 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Just a ghost]

               You could also try making those 1x1 and 4x4 placeables out of them, like that dude with the water stuff did. Then you don't need to bother with tilemagic.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Just a ghost, 12 septembre 2012 - 11:09 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Tile magic is less work since the tiles already exist, and the scripting frameworks are well developed.

Of course placeables would be great too, but for me this is the low hanging fruit.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               If you happen to run into issues with doing the water plane as tile magic, like maybe visible seams on the individual tiles or the model cache manager making the planes disappear at a certain distance, I just want to second the suggestion for looking at doing a water plane as a placeable. 

Specifically, a single enormous (or however big) placeable set to static.  Static models are loaded on level load (so they don't have a visible "hit" from disk access) and they're never unloaded by the model cache manager.  So it'll still be visible even if the model is over 50m away.  I made a test water plane which was square and 64,000cm on a side, set it to static, and placed it in the upper right hand corner of a 32x32 area and placed my start location in the diagonally opposite corner.  Showed up just fine.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Well, if these placeables are available, I'll be happy to use them. But I haven't found any on the vault.

Otherwise I'm looking at what I do have available.

I've made a choice with NWN not to step into making new graphic assets. This is so that I can actually finish an ambitious project.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Borden Haelven]

               

henesua wrote...
<Snip>
I've made a choice with NWN not to step into making new graphic assets. This is so that I can actually finish an ambitious project.

Ooo! You teaser...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Fester Pot]

               There's a mist placeable because I found one in a package on the vault.



It also changes colour based on the ambient light of the area. In the above shot, my ambient moon colour is blue, so the mist changes to that colour.

In the below image, the ambient sun colour is a shade of orange.



I'll look for the package that included it, but if I can't find it, I'll send it up.

EDIT: HAK here!

5)  Placeable Area Mist

   A large placeable mist sufficient to cover a 5X5 area...this will tint based on area lighting.

FP!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Fester Pot, 12 septembre 2012 - 06:14 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Thank you FP!

Borden, you are so funny. I am working on Arnheim. We've been playing it small groups since the end of last year in play testing, and then in an actual release beginning in March or April. Now I am taking a break from running sessions, and polishing it up. A few players are pushing me to release it as a PW. I may do so.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               Love tile magic, esp if you forget to enter a value, (or use 0) as it gives you ultima-style Ether! (pulsing stars)



(The Dark Path, from Ultima 7 Part 2 Serpent Isle)

// _area_tilemagic_ for use OnEnter

/*
for LocalInt TILE_MAGIC_AREA_GROUND use #'s

   For Ether = 0;
   const int X2_TL_GROUNDTILE_ICE = 426;
   const int X2_TL_GROUNDTILE_WATER = 401;
   const int X2_TL_GROUNDTILE_GRASS = 402;
   const int X2_TL_GROUNDTILE_LAVA_FOUNTAIN = 349; // ugly
   const int X2_TL_GROUNDTILE_LAVA = 350;
   const int X2_TL_GROUNDTILE_CAVEFLOOR = 406;
   const int X2_TL_GROUNDTILE_SEWER_WATER = 461;
   // Ring Vision Area = 506

for LocalFloat TILE_MAGIC_AREA_Z use +/- z axis values equal to placable locations
   below ground lake/ocean etc = -0.5
   flooded areas = 0.25
*/

#include "x2_inc_toollib"

void main()
{
   object aHere = GetArea(OBJECT_SELF);

// Tile Magic

   if (GetLocalInt(aHere,"TILE_MAGIC_AREA_LOADED")) return;
   int nGround = GetLocalInt(aHere, "TILE_MAGIC_AREA_GROUND");
   int nX = GetAreaSize(AREA_WIDTH,aHere);
   int nY = GetAreaSize(AREA_HEIGHT,aHere);
   float fZ = GetLocalFloat(aHere,"TILE_MAGIC_AREA_Z");
   TLChangeAreaGroundTiles(aHere,nGround,nX,nY,fZ);
   SetLocalInt(aHere,"TILE_MAGIC_AREA_LOADED",TRUE);
}

               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 12 septembre 2012 - 10:52 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Carverian, that started some wheels turning. I hadn't even considering overlaying other kinds of visual effects with tilemagic.

Very cool!