Merricksdad's Middledark Tileset

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Instead of forest tiles, I have a good sized variety of single and clump mushroom placeables. One of the larger types has two varieties which are 7.5m and 10m tall. Other mushrooms are about 2m tall. All together, there are patches of tiny glowing mushrooms about the size of your finger, on up to the 10m varieties, and the intended shapes include:

 

• Capped Tree (sickly green)


• Capped Tree (sickly rust orange)


• Medium Capped Tree (spooky blue)


• Medium Capped Tree (lavender)


• Man Sized Brown Oyster


• Man Sized Gray Button


• Man Sized Spotted Amanitas


• Man Sized Cave Mushroom (clusters of bone white stalks with brown-gray caps)


• Man Sized Blue Jellyfish (disc top with tentacles hanging down from gills)


• Something similar to the Shrieker from Baldur's Gate (or was it IWD2?)


• Halfling sized multi-capped yellow things


• Halfling sized orange speckled puffy buttons


• Halfling sized black and purple stinkhorn


• Halfling sized yellow glowing tube worm things (like sea creatures)


• Halfling sized orange glowing tube worms with claws (also like sea creatures)


• Halfling sized blue-green tube worms with a trumpet shape at the end


• Hand-sized glowing blue discs


• Hand-sized glowing lavender discs


• Hand-sized glowing yellow buttons


• Hand-sized white button clusters


• Hand-sized mottled gray clusters


• Hand-sized red gnome caps (looks like a yard gnome hat on a stick)


• Biscuits of yellow honeycomb mushrooms


• Biscuits of blue honeycomb mushrooms

It would be easy for somebody to create a single tile mushroom-tree-house for this set too.

 

The problem with the placeable mushrooms should be solved with these, as I intend for them to be created in a scale which allows their base region to fit within the confines of a buffer zone. The buffer zones on the tile are either 1m wide, or 2m wide when two zones are adjacent, such as on a slope. The walkable region can still accept single mushrooms, but I'd suggest keeping the clusters out of the walkable region, unless you put them in the middle of the tile.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

If you liked the Dwarven Forge "Watery Passage" tiles, you'll like these, designed heavily from images of their game tiles. Ive modified the color to fit my specific needs so that my floor colors match. The tile also has a three plane animated texture (all done with animesh).

 

http://imgur.com/Xrpk4Dp

 

I still need to fine tune the edges, but they look pretty good so far. So far there are 15 tiles, but some of the corners are interchangeable, so I can make more varieties from these by slicing and mixing them up.

 

In this image, you can see some of the higher poly contouring I'm working into all the tiles.

 

 

The lighter colored things are dogtooth calcite clusters growing under the water. Depending on the color of the water plane, you can see them better, or even tint them. The rest is a murky darkness which prevents you from telling how deep the water actually is. The raised section is all walkable out to the drop off. The step stone growths are to be re-textured to a lighter layered stone appearance, and possibly reduced in height. Right now they are 5 cm of the walk plane. I'm trying to find the right combination of height which still gives the impression of a raised area, without actually causing a visual clipping nightmare.

 

The animated water is a series of three planes, all set to "rotate texture" so they line up from tile to tile. The first plane is whatever color you want the water. Changing that texture changes everything. The next plane "up" is a simple ocean texture, which scrolls right over 4 seconds. The third plane is a copy of the previous but scrolls left. Changing the uvw rotation on the second moving water plane makes a world of difference. If they flow 15-45 degrees of each other, they look like flowing water. If they flow 180 to each other, they look like slightly wavy water in a light breeze. This is one of the water methods in Drakensang Online, and makes up a larger portion of the water in Sword Coast Legends.

 

By adding a color tint to the underwater crystal clusters, you can make quite a fantastic alien display. I originally modeled them in bright green, and that set against the darkness of the water depth was definitely something out of a fantasy world.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Here's another shot of the water features. This one has improve underwater calcite clusters. Instead of using weird columns, I went with the biscuit approach, giving them a nice rounded look, as you would see in the caves. Expect this biscuit look for most of my placeables I have coming with this tileset. I've got tons to build, and they'll all be super simple to use with the biscuit method.

 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Well, good news, the three plane water works exactly as expected in-game! I just had to reposition each layer by 0.5cm to make it not stripe-out when I moved the camera. Even with the correct parenting and using an A-node on the base, I wasn't able to remove it otherwise.

 

It looks fantastic as is. The only thing I would change now is the position of the rocks, and their scale. Dwarven Forge tiles were made to be approximately 1/3 the size of NWN game tiles, give or take, so the scale of the near water rocks is a bit large. Everything else is spectacular. Using a candle or a torch, I can see down into the water just as far as I wanted, and the ripping effect multiplies the shine from below by giving it a "blending additive" TXI entry.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

I've been tinkering with this a bit more, and I think I will simply omit the raised rock section. I also modified the texture to blend almost seamlessly with the surrounding floor texture. Together, this reduces the polycount required for the model down to about 1/3 original.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

And then the bad news. It looks like I can't use rotate texture on an animesh node, so all my water just randomly translates everywhere instead of all pointing the same direction. Not a fan.

 

Looks like if I want this kind of water, I have to use animesh placeables. I'll put it aside for now and revert to OC underdark water.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Watery Grotto is done. These register as "Pool" and "Pool (Crosser)" in the toolset, when released.

 

 

Elevation change on walkable regions has been entirely removed. I may just stick to placeable rocks for that 3d feel. I was trying to do what some of the DOTA style games do, and have a combination of raised and flat sections. Other games have one or two raised sections per tile and they use those as placement for treasure you can find. I suppose that lends even more evidence to the reason to use placeables for such.

 

These are NOT what I had intended for the water, nor are they what I intended for the walkable stream, but they were too cool to turn down.

 

(brightness +25% for viewing)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

ok, so I was working on ramps and height transitions yesterday, and I'm thinking to do a base height transition of only 250, not 500. And then the special ramps I have already made will do two at once. This keeps me from having to do two at once on a single tile, like in the Granite Lands set, and also prevents having to make all those 4 thousand tile combinations. Instead of traversing a steep area, you enter a transitional "room", and then you exit two floors down, but inside a tertiary chamber. That's the beauty of "interior" tilesets. Much easier to make.

 

So for ramps, I have these so far:

• walkable ramp +250


• walkable ramp +250 along a wall


• walkable ramp +250 along a pit


• 2x2 room with a spiral "ramp" which rotates the character counterclockwise 270 degrees and transitions +500


• 2x3 zig-zag ramp (as shown on previous page) x2 (could add two more going the opposite direction)


• 6x6 room with a stair going clockwise round the top and right side, with a door at the top left, top center, and bottom center. At the bottom is a 3x3 region fit for combat, with a well shaft in the center. This transitions +1000, if I remember correctly.


• a few 3x6 rooms with various ramps. Not sure if I will keep these.

Here's what I'm thinking to do:

• modify the zig-zag ramp so that it doesn't require walls on the sides, allowing it to be used in other situations.


• ditch the 3x6 rooms with ramps, taking the parts as needed, to build more specific ramp groups

Examining SCL, I see the majority of height transitions are only about 250 maximum, with some being only 125, and the smallest noticeable one is 75ish. The tileset as a whole is only 400-500cm tall. Combining that with features from Dungeon Siege, you get a few specific room groups which are double tall to show some kind of fantastic detail. I think that is ultimately all I need for what I'm doing with this. Ceilings are still on the table I guess.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Running with the two chasms idea, here is what I'm planning for the Great Chasm room crossers (From Path of Exile)

 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_YeoldeFog]

               

This is only for inspiration, but if you ever want to add buildings, this would be something cool: https://3dwarehouse....3c-6183ce6cbb70

 

Of course, it would only be possible to walk at one level because of the walkmesh, but hey, still cool enough! '>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Actually, yes, I had been planning a wall city like that, as a face for a larger complex within a cave wall. I was basically going to go with the outside appearance of like the dungeon siege 1 clay houses the Droog live in, made of cemented together cave parts. It would be perfect for a gnome city, because they could shape stone.

 

Another alternative I have seen is clay-like structures entirely encrusted with skulls, either as a deep tomb from some long dead culture, or as a home for some powerful necromancer who just wants to be left alone.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Today I have been shopping for placeables to liven up any cavern. Ive found a few kits I can put together that make the cavern into something more, giving it a separate theme with just the placeables. Here are some themes I could easily do:

• Karst Caves: A lighter colored texture gives the feel of being inside sedimentary layers which dissolve easier. Karst caves are full of smooth and jagged combination rocks, and host a great deal of white to red speleothems of pretty much all kinds. The base wall can be left neutral or dark gray, and lighter colors can be placed closer to the walkable regions. Placeable-style roofs can be made somewhat lighter, and have regions which hang down to cover more base wall than normally needed. Debris would feature a combination of rounded rock and jagged chunks, both pushed to the sides of the walk path, or into piles in the centers of rooms. This cave could host a great number of non-magical mushrooms, or even some plant life. Algae pools could give rise to strange plant life in the dark, or create forests of fungus.


• Dry Caves: Light gray to yellow-red rock with only jagged edges gives the feel of somewhat-worked dry limestone, as if the region is a linear quarry of some kind, or that the waxy looking limestone has been worked away to make the cavern larger and more useful. Rocks could come in orthorhombic shapes, or columnar hexagons with kinks, or even thin flat plates. Stacked jagged stone should be common, both along the wall, and in for-use piles in rooms, or even turned into structures. This cave could have ancient wall murals, or be used as a tomb.


• Deep Caves: Dark gray to black stone is shiny and mostly smooth. Worked rock would be jagged, but not geometric in shape. Unworked stone would appear to be washed with water, or smoothed by the flow of ancient lava, but there would be no immediate way to tell which was which, as water from the upper caves would have covered or dissolved most of the work done from below. Hydrothermal deposits, such as large crystalline growth, would be common, especially along venting tubes. Pools and nooks would host reservoirs of other types of crystal growth from sediments. As with the karst caves above, debris would be stacked along the walls, and come in both smooth and jagged chunks. Collapse debris from vertical shafts would make great piles of unwalkable regions. True flowing rivers might be common. Steam vents may erupt from the floor, or pipes of hot air may ascend tubes along passages. This area would be dark, except for the presence of glowing fungi, or occasional magical crystal. The area might have until recently been completely submerged, giving a very wet and steamy appearance, with a fascinating quantity of small crystal growth, or the needed water to create mushroom packed tunnels. Ancient structures could remain from long-ago volcanic deposits, such as seams of metal, or hexagonal basalt column clusters.


• Lava Caves: Features would be generally the same as the deep caves, but with more hydrothermal deposit, possibly rivers of lava, or areas could be splattered with lava, creating obsidian knives, or curved dark pumice spikes or pillows. Bands of rust red or deep blue, as well as metal minerals, would be common. Jets of sulfuric gasses, in black, yellow, or red, could jet out of cracks in the floor. Blobs of lava could erupt from the surface of lava lakes, the surface of which could churn in a convection pattern, or flow downstream. This area would glow from its natural heat sources, or even from magical crystals.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_CaveGnome]

               This a beautiful  subterranean vision MD ! As a cavern dweller and an old urban cavity explorer, I hope you succeed capturing in your tileset something of the deep mineral magic you describe. I would love a limestone quarry...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Basic cave wall is finished and will be released like this, with biscuit style placeables to modify it. Here it is shown with the pool terrain and crosser, where some seam and color work still need to be done.

 

 

Although, with the way all the other tiles textures are able to be rotated, I'm not sure exactly how to do the mixing, without adding another texture layer on top of the water tile edges which also uses rotateTexture.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

If you haven't already seen them, go check out the YouTube videos for "topdown unity tilesets", specifically "Top-down Caves Unity 3d" and "Underworld: Cave Environment - Unity 3d". Much orgasm.