So I'm making a game... I think the closest description is a city building rts mmo. I'm not going to bore you with a detailed description if you want more information simply ask.
The game is in isometric perspective and the world is gigantic. Because of this the world needs to be generated, making the landscape is simply too big of a task. We started the project about a week ago and are now at the point where we are working on generating the tiled world, but this proved a bit more difficult then we thought. The programming part is fairly easy for us but we don't have an artist (yet) so it is hard to make a decision on how we are going to blend between biomes. Depending on how the transition is supposed to look like we have to adapt our tile generator.
So my question is. How would you as artist prefer to transition between biomes in a tiled terrain? Should it fade into the next? Should transition tiles be created for every possibility? Or is there some technique I'm unaware of?
We want to have a working demo with shitty graphics done before we start looking for an artist, its a hobby project thus an unpaid job. So we want someone who is genuinely interested in the game to work with us.
Oh and sorry if my post is a bit messed up I haven't slept in a while and can't really think clearly right now :downs:.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/ihMq8qJ.png[/IMG]
Isometric tile.
[IMG]http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/images/terrain_trans4.jpg[/IMG]
faded terrain
[IMG]http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f9/theripper12/untitled-7.jpg[/IMG]
transition tiles
If whatever engine/graphics library supports shaders, you could use vertex blending and blendmodulate maps to give the 'fade' some texture.
If you're using a simple graphics library then you either need to write your own tile class which can support such blending (taking in the four adjacent spaces, blending those textures), or indeed make every transition manually.
[QUOTE=SweetSwifter;45290519]If whatever engine/graphics library supports shaders, you could use vertex blending and blendmodulate maps to give the 'fade' some texture.
If you're using a simple graphics library then you either need to write your own tile class which can support such blending (taking in the four adjacent spaces, blending those textures), or indeed make every transition manually.[/QUOTE]
We are making our own tile class and we can do both. We are just not sure what the best way of doing it is. So I'm asking artist what they think looks and works best. Or simply what the least work for them is.
It's not a big change to make at the end but it would be nice to show a game with dummy textures when we start looking for an artist.
I'd do a mix that wasn't a simple gradient but rather the grass goes clumpy as it fades out so it's believable and not just a hard line.
IMO the fade looks absolutely fine and is very easy, requiring no additional assets and only code.
I would definitely go with the fade.
The problem with that is the amount of tiles required. Every biome would need transitional tiles to every other biome.
Just fading out requires 0 extra transitional tiles and priority "hard line" transitions require something like 20 transitional tiles per biome.
Is it realistic to expect artists to make 100's of tiles?
[editline]4th July 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Jallen;45293263]IMO the fade looks absolutely fine and is very easy, requiring no additional assets and only code.
I would definitely go with the fade.[/QUOTE]
It would require a tiny bit of extra work from artist but indeed far less work. But how would things like rivers work? A fade to water is kinda "meh".
It wouldnt be that hard I would think, you just create the fade for say grass to desert, have it properly layered and then just pop in any of the other biomes instead of desert on that layer, like snow for example. It'd be a decent amount of work but not more than a few hours of work in photoshop assuming you've got quite a number of biomes.
[QUOTE=Miljaker;45293302]The problem with that is the amount of tiles required. Every biome would need transitional tiles to every other biome.
Just fading out requires 0 extra transitional tiles and priority "hard line" transitions require something like 20 transitional tiles per biome.
Is it realistic to expect artists to make 100's of tiles?
[editline]4th July 2014[/editline]
It would require a tiny bit of extra work from artist but indeed far less work. But how would things like rivers work? A fade to water is kinda "meh".[/QUOTE]
Fade everything until you have the game off the ground. It's an insignificant detail in the scheme of things.
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