Prime's Storage Facility

[Psych]

I think it's pretty good, but I think you should have more gradual shots. You seem to just jump straight to the finished step, just saying "do this".

For the bigger steps, maybe try and show gradual improvements.

[Feaw]

Yay indoors. And since I'm an indoor-know-it-all, I'll toss in my two cents.

First off, you forgot some shading of the walltops next to the braces up north.

Secondly, there are "half-shaded" walltop tiles, which go next to wall corners;

Top right tiles.

Third,

Left of the T-wall, should be a little wider wall without the separation line.

Walls could use some variety (I will probably make a tut about that).

Unless the ground is higher up north above the cracked wall, it's not correct.

The 2 thick wall is... not too pretty. I advice using something else for de-spamming/filling the map.

Other than that, great tutorial, and decent map!

Edited May 30, 2011 by Feaw

[CT075]

I was about to point out that walls that are more than 1 tile thick look weird, but Feaw beat me to it.

So instead I'm gonna say "GREAT TUTORIAL MANG"

[Primefusion]

Damn, I forgot the wall shading again (I did this the last map too, Hero you know what I'm talking about)

I'll go back and add a few more things to Exhibits B and C then.

[Primefusion]

Double post for great justice. I've revised Exhibits B and C of Part II. They now cover topics more thoroughly.

Mapping Tutorial Part II: To the Castle!

[spoiler=Introduction]

Welcome to Part II of my mapping tutorial. Just like part I, we'll be taking a very simple map and improving it through some basic

rules and concepts. In this part I'll be covering the basics of indoor maps.

Here's what we'll be working with:

If you read part I, you should hopefully be spotting things to improve already. Plenty of the concepts from outdoor maps

carry over into indoor maps. However, there's also a few new concepts I'll be introducing here.

[spoiler=Exhibit A: Tile Spam and Empty Space]

Just like part I, I would like to talk about tile spam first because it's a very common problem with new mappers.

If you've read part I, hopefully you're first thought is to use different grass tiles as well as some of the dark grass to help

take out some of the tile spam. So let's do that:

Alright, our outside is looking a little better now. (Note: I'll just be touching on outdoor topics. Read Part I: The Great Outdoors for more help)

But, what about the inside? How do we make it look better?

Let's check out our floor tiles:

You'll notice that a lot of them have black lines (For lack of a better phrase. These are actually shaded tiles)

on the top and/or left side. I'll talk about those later. For now, focus on the tiles without shading.

You would not want to do something like this. Why? You've got no transition from one type of floor tile

to the next (Something I'll be covering later on). So that really restricts us to two different floor tiles.

Okay, so we've broken that up. But what else can be done? Well, we're indoors so we could add some more walls, some pillars,

quite a bit really. Let's point a few kinds of tile out first though.

Here's the basic wall tiles:

Now pillars:

The ones I circled in red may look like pillars, but are actually considered walls by the game. If you use those

for a hack, units won't be able to walk on them.

The ones I circled in blue are pillars units can stand on to gain a defense and avoid boost.

You'll also notice that there are some tiles that have pillar bases at the top of the tile. Right now, the pillars

in the example map lack bases.

So let's add more stuff.

This might be a good time to talk about wall joints.

See how the areas I circled don't really connect? They lack joints that put them together.

Each joint has it's own purpose. Some are to be used when the wall is two or more tiles thick,

while others are for simple one tile walls. Other still are meant to be at the end of a wall. Check it out:

Now we're getting somewhere. But I've got a question for you.

Do things look a little...flat? Check out Exhibit B to find out the correct answer!

[spoiler=Exhibit B: Shading]

So the question was: Do things look a little flat?

If you answered yes then you're correct!

This is caused by a lack of shading. (And you thought you could escape shading by making maps instead of sprites fufufufufu.)

Remember when I was talking about those floor tiles with black lines (Aka shading)? I'll point them out again:

There you go. So, here's some basic principles to follow for shading:

Let's go through the shading process step by step. First, we want to shade all the walls, pillars, and chests on the right side.

Next, we need to shade on the bottom of all the walls and chests (That door just beneath the throne too).

Hmm, but what about the walls in the corners? They need shading on both the right and bottom sides. There's tiles for that:

So let's shade the corners of walls and chests (and shade stairs if they're facing down, forgot to mention that).

Alright, so it's looking better. Let me ask you another question: Does the shading by the pillars seem cut off?

To fix this we would need some sort of half shaded tile. Luckily, they exist:

Certain ones have certain purposes (I'm always saying that, aren't I?). We want the one that has just a little bit of

shading in the upper left corner of the tile.

Subtle, but important.

So here's the map in it's entirety:

See? Isn't everything looking much more defined? Yes is the correct answer.

But wait! The outside of the castle needs shading too. Use these fancy grass tiles for the job:

Use those tiles I circled in red to shade the outside.

Notice that the outer walls require shading on the right and bottom sides, just like walls inside. Oh, and

the walls in the corner require shading too where appropriate:

Use the ones with shading on the left side of the tile!

But do the shaded walls by those stairs look funny to you? It would make more sense if there were some pillars

so that those kind of shadows would be possible. Find those kinds of pillars here::

Notice that some of the tiles I circled are pillars, while others are bases. Remember, pillars need bottoms!

And here's those pillars in action:

Now the shading makes more sense since the pillars would be able to create that kind of shadow.

In addition, wall caps (Those gray, brick looking wall tiles) need some shading when they're in a corner. Here's the tiles

I'm talking about:

Let's put them to use:

Look in the corners of walls and you'll see that I've shaded them. But things are a little different when

the wall is next to a pillar brace.

See how the wall cap is shaded all the way from top to bottom? Do this when next to a pillar.

Where are the tiles you ask? Here:

Thanks go to Feaw and Hero of Time for reminding me to shade wall caps.

There's one other thing I should talk about, the throne room.

See how it's got carpet all over the place? (I won't point out where the carpet tiles are, it's pretty obvious)

Well, because there's carpet going all the way to the wall, the room looks very flat without shading.

Never have a room that is all carpet because you won't be able to do any shading. Instead,

do this:

Leave a one tile perimeter around the carpeting (At least one tile). You've got to have shading or else

the room will look flat.

One more note:

If you were to have walls that were next to grass, Feaw says you would want to use these tiles:

Regarding walls next to either floor tiles or grass.

See how the walls next to the grass have a lighter left side compared to the indoor walls? (Thanks go to Feaw for that)

There's a lot of shading to remember in this section so here's a quick check list:

Walls - Shade on the bottom and right side

Chests - Shade on the bottom and right side

Doors - Shade on the side the door is facing

Pillars - Shade on the right and bottom right sides

Stairs - If the stairs are facing down, shade on the bottom. Otherwise don't shade.

Walls - Shade them with a half-shaded wall tile if they're in a corner. Shade them full-shaded wall tile if next to a pillar cap/brace

[spoiler=Exhibit C: Height Errors]

Height errors are another common problem in indoor maps. We all have them from time to time.

What are they exactly? It's where the implied elevation from stairs and the height of the walls

don't agree. Let's look at an example:

See how the stairs go three tiles up? To be consistent, the walls would need to decrease in height by three tiles.

But they don't and this is a problem. Let's look at one way to fix this.

Look at how the walls are 2 tiles high, and then when you go up the stairs the walls become 1 tile high.

Note that those pillar bases which are half a tile don't add to the height, they simply help with perspective.

But wait, the rest of the castle isn't of the same height, it looks funny still. Let's change that:

The upper right portion of the map is now consistent with it's height. But I didn't fix the rest of the map. Why?

I've got other ideas in mind:

Varying the height is a great way to add pizazz to your map and really make it interesting.

But there's still a problem:

The height of the ground doesn't agree with the building. If that wall broke, a unit would be able to go

from the outside in without going up in height. But look at the entrance in the bottom of the map.

Units need to go up two tiles worth of stairs to get inside. This is a more subtle height error, but an

error nonetheless (Thanks go to Feaw for pointing this out).

But what to do? I've got an idea:

I moved the breakable wall over 1 tile and then added enough stairs to be consistent with the other side

of the map. Now it's correct and still looks like units can come in from the outside at the top of the map.

Here's the finished product:

Let's follow the general flow of what's happening here. If a unit stands outside the castle, they'll

see the walls are 3 tiles high. If they move up the staircase (Which is 2 tiles high) and into the castle,

the walls will be 1 tile high. (3-2=1 simple math yay)

So the unit continues moving along, up the map, and comes to a staircase leading to the right. They go down the

one tile high staircase and now the walls are 2 tiles (As are the pillars, 1+1=2). If they move to the throne room

they'll have to go up a 1 tile staircase. The throne's walls are 1 tile high. If they move towards the chests,

there will be another 1 tile high staircase and so the walls within the chestroom will be 1 tile high as well (2-1=1).

See? As the stairs go up, the walls will decrease in height.

It's important to get rid of all height problems in a map. If you don't, the map won't make sense.

I should also say that if you use stairs, you can also change what kind of floor tile you use because you've

got a transition from one level to the next. Check out how I've got one type of tile on one side of the stairs

and then a new type on the other side.

[spoiler=Feaw talks about Wall Patterns]

Have you been wanting to spice up your wall patterns? Feaw has some great tips, check them out:

Now, for my promised wall decoration/variety tutorial.

[spoiler=1 tile high walls.]

As you can see, there are a lot of possible patterns possible. Not all of them work for both ways (shaded or not shaded), but you can always improvise or use the different types according to the situation.

[spoiler=2 tile high walls.]

Now, it gets a little bit trickier. Some patterns just won't look right for 2 tiles high walls. But, there are still several possible ways to do them.

[spoiler=3 and 4 tile high walls.]

Now it gets even trickier. 3 tiles high walls can still be done in a few ways, but you have to think more.

As for the 4 tiles high walls... I only know 2 ways to get them done.

The right one is used in FE6's chapter 16. It cannot be used with shading since the big window tiles lack any shadowed tiles.

That's where the left version comes in. It's used in FE8's chapter 16. Although that one is only 3 tiles high, but I added the top row to make it 4.

This one CAN be used with shading, so you have almost no choice to use something like this for that situation.

Keep in mind, there are waaaaaay more possible patterns and ways to do walls, but I listed the most used ones. So be creative and make your own patterns to make your maps more interesting.

If you're having trouble, I recommend looking to the official maps from the games.

That's basically all there is.

Thanks, Feaw!

[spoiler=Conclusion]

This concludes part II of my mapping tutorial. Remember: Shading and height are very important issues that need to

be addressed for your map to make sense mechanically. Shade properly and count your tile height.

If you follow this simple ideas I've laid out, I'm confident that you'll be able to take a map like this:

And turn it into something like this:

Happy mapping!

Feedback is appreciated.

Edited May 31, 2011 by Primefusion

[Feaw]

You seemed to have misinterpreted what I said about wall shading.

.

As you can see, when the wall is next to a brace, it uses the full shaded wall, and when it's next to a curve, it uses the half shaded wall.

Also something I forgot to mention is that you can use that curve tile in the picture above for said half shaded wall.

Keep in mind that the half shaded walls are only possible in FE 8's tilesets (and my custom tilesets).

As for the wall next to the T walls,

Use these.

Rest is much better!

Also, can I post some minor tutorials of mine here, so it can all be put in one mapping tutorial somewhere else?

Edited May 30, 2011 by Feaw

[Primefusion]

Oh, I see what you're saying. If it's next to a pillar cap, use full shading. If it's in a corner, use half shading.

I'll have to take a closer look at the T-wall stuff. As you can tell, indoor maps aren't my strong suit (Like a lot of other people)

And go ahead a post your tutorial's here. Once everything is squared away I'll put it all together (Giving proper credit of course) and put it into the Spriter's Resource.

I've got a map too. This is my entry for the SoS comp week 7:

Lots of referencing Tower of Valni maps =P

[Feaw]

Great, thanks. 

I'll start right away.

First a tiny piece regarding walls next to either floor tiles or grass.

 

Now, for my promised wall decoration/variety tutorial.

[spoiler=1 tile high walls.]

As you can see, there are a lot of possible patterns possible. Not all of them work for both ways (shaded or not shaded), but you can always improvise or use the different types according to the situation.

[spoiler=2 tile high walls.]

Now, it gets a little bit trickier. Some patterns just won't look right for 2 tiles high walls. But, there are still several possible ways to do them.

[spoiler=3 and 4 tile high walls.]

Now it gets even trickier. 3 tiles high walls can still be done in a few ways, but you have to think more.

As for the 4 tiles high walls... I only know 2 ways to get them done.

The right one is used in FE6's chapter 16. It cannot be used with shading since the big window tiles lack any shadowed tiles.

That's where the left version comes in. It's used in FE8's chapter 16. Although that one is only 3 tiles high, but I added the top row to make it 4.

This one CAN be used with shading, so you have almost no choice to use something like this for that situation.

Keep in mind, there are waaaaaay more possible patterns and ways to do walls, but I listed the most used ones. So be creative and make your own patterns to make your maps more interesting.

If you're having trouble, I recommend looking to the official maps from the games.

That's basically all there is.

[Primefusion]

I like those wall patterns, that's where I usually get stumped on what to do. Very nice.

I've toying with the idea of making tutorials for specific tilesets that are "unique". Like the Bern tileset and so on. Thoughts?

[Psych]

I would definitely like to see one for like the lava sets.

Deserts and Ice sets might be a good option too.

Oh, and you might want to give some advice on night sets/what to do when shading those.

Edited May 30, 2011 by Psychology

[Primefusion]

Shading nighttime sets should be no different from daytime sets since there's still a light source though it's a lot more faint.

Lava, huh? I'll need to play around with it a little first.

[Lord Glenn]

On top of that, from a technical / ROM perspective, night maps are simply just a different map palette compared to their daytime variant(s). Thus, you can basically make a map in its natural palette and then change to the night palette. (This is easier when inserting into a ROM though, since it's generally just a matter of changing some stuff in Nightmare. Alternatively, you could just use Yeti's Map Converter Tool.)

[deranger]

Do a Shrine of Seals set tutorial for those freakin tree-thickets

[Primefusion]

Haha, okay I'll probably talk about the Bern tileset too then (Since that's my favorite tileset and I'm totally not biased)

Though I'm gonna fiddle around with the lava sets first. Right now, FE7's version leaves something to be desired. FE8's looks stellar though.

Oh, and I edited Part II yet again, see the post higher up. I've added most of the parts Feaw pointed out I was missing in addition to his tutorials. The grass shading was added to Exhibit B and the wall patterns got their own section.

Edited May 31, 2011 by Primefusion

[Primefusion]

Alright, I've been messing around with the lava set. It seems like it could have lots of potential but it's missing a few key things I think:

1) Stairs that face to the right are nonexistent.

2) The only tiles with any real shading (For use next to walls) are nearly impossible to transition out of. They stand out too much.

3) The tileset is lacking in the wall department and so making buildings higher than 2 tiles looks kind of funny.

That said I made 2 maps. One using the FE7 version and one using the FE8 version.

1)

This one will most likely be in my FE7 hack

2)

This one I nearly tore my hair out making. Not only did it take forever, but like I said, buildings higher than two tiles look funny and lack of shading tiles sucks. I had to use lots of "pseudo-shading".

In a word: meh.

Edited June 1, 2011 by Primefusion

[Celice]

(The second)Since the temple's floors don't look to be artifical, but bricks on the floor, that window is misleading. You ascend the stairs upwards, but then, the floor suddenly slants downwards in order for that window to function? Unless it's a roof... but, that doesn't look much like roof-quality bricks. Or dirt :E

What's with the pseudo-maze out front?

[Anouleth]

I think another issue is that it has unused space on the left and right hand sides of the map. I don't think it looks very good. When you can slice off the leftmost 4 columns of the map and not really change it... it's sign that you don't need it.

I also think in general, it's a bad idea to 'stack up' lots of the brick slope tiles. It doesn't look that great and the result is just a... really thick wall.

[Primefusion]

@Celice: You would access the window from within the fortress not the top level. The window is below the level the throne is one (I hope I'm interpreting your post correctly). And the pseudo-maze isn't really a maze, I imagined it to be ramparts. Barriers to slow the enemy down.

@Anouleth: True, this was more of an experiment than anything. I'm trying to get a feel for the tileset.

[Tangerine]

*Whispers* Psst, you should point out the odd spots

I think it's the weird shape, personally. I kind of get the same feeling as Hero here.

Your mountains in this tutorial piece are like, a little patch or something. They don't seem to lead off the map, it just seems to be this random cluster of almost octagonal mountains. The top left part is what makes it look illogical for them to be leading off the map because of their shape. The top right I could probably buy, but from the looks of the incline I still think it's weird. Not only that but...they don't seem to have any purpose being there.

Because I am exceptionally lazy today, instead of digging up an FE7 map for an example like last time I'll just use one of ours

[spoiler=HoT]

Specifically the mountain in the southwest corner is what reminded me most of what it looked like you were trying to do. These ones look like they belong on the landscape. They are well-shaped and it is very apparent that they are going somewhere and a part of a larger mountain range. I think you should extend the west side of the mountain and fill in the green at the top. Other than that, the map looks pretty good to me! It'll be a nice tutorial for sure.

[Lord Glenn]

I think it's the weird shape, personally. I kind of get the same feeling as Hero here.

Your mountains in this tutorial piece are like, a little patch or something. They don't seem to lead off the map, it just seems to be this random cluster of almost octagonal mountains. The top left part is what makes it look illogical for them to be leading off the map because of their shape. The top right I could probably buy, but from the looks of the incline I still think it's weird. Not only that but...they don't seem to have any purpose being there.

Because I am exceptionally lazy today, instead of digging up an FE7 map for an example like last time I'll just use one of ours

[spoiler=HoT]

Specifically the mountain in the southwest corner is what reminded me most of what it looked like you were trying to do. These ones look like they belong on the landscape. They are well-shaped and it is very apparent that they are going somewhere and a part of a larger mountain range. I think you should extend the west side of the mountain and fill in the green at the top. Other than that, the map looks pretty good to me! It'll be a nice tutorial for sure.

That... doesn't really follow from the map. If the mountains weren't leading off of the map, then they wouldn't touch the top of the map. You also say that the top left corner of the mountains, with the grass there and the shape of the mountain tiles right around it, has issues, yet the map you compared to has just about the exact same area seen on it, two tiles to the right of the thicket tile in the first row of the map. If you were to crop off all of the columns to the left of this tile, you'd fundamentally have the same top left corner. The only difference would be how the map that you linked extends further down. It's entirely feasible that these mountains continue significantly far off to the north, off of the visible portion of the map. The mountains could even curve to the right in this area, making the range like a flipped comma or something in shape.

That being said, I think the main issue is twofold:

1) The abrupt "ending" of the mountains at the southern base. There should be a little variation on where the mountains end, especially since there are no obstructing features along the mountainside that would cause them to be straight there.

2) The patterning of the mountains. For starters, there's that very large, straight mountain face on the right part of the mountain range, which produces VERY sharp angles in the terrain. While it might be possible in reality, it's also not as likely as a more smooth transition between the ridges. Secondly, it's almost as if the mountain ranges on the left part of the map are more like a forking river. Granted, fixing the length of the bottom part of the map may alleviate this issue, but right now, their proximity and shallow depth (followed by the large gap to the right-most range) seem to jump out.

-----------------

As for the new maps:

Map 1)

- Shouldn't the wall tile above the left-facing stairs at the top left of the map have a slightly "rounded" edge on it? Right now, it looks like one of the standard wall tiles, such as the ones to the right of it.

Map 2)

- I kind of have to agree with Celice about the wall. Minimally, it's positioning just seems odd. What might fix this a bit would be to have a tile of separation between the sloped wall tiles and where the straight wall extends up from.

- I don't have much (read: any) experience with this tileset, so I can't really point too much out on it.

[Tangerine]

That... doesn't really follow from the map. If the mountains weren't leading off of the map, then they wouldn't touch the top of the map. You also say that the top left corner of the mountains, with the grass there and the shape of the mountain tiles right around it, has issues, yet the map you compared to has just about the exact same area seen on it, two tiles to the right of the thicket tile in the first row of the map. If you were to crop off all of the columns to the left of this tile, you'd fundamentally have the same top left corner. The only difference would be how the map that you linked extends further down. It's entirely feasible that these mountains continue significantly far off to the north, off of the visible portion of the map. The mountains could even curve to the right in this area, making the range like a flipped comma or something in shape.

Ummm, I'm not sure if you misinterpreted something I said or what, but I used that map as an example because of the similarities. The way it is in the tut map just looks strange and ambiguous. It is a clump off to the side. In my example the northern mountains are intended to end with the river - obviously it is something you can compare side by side.

The point is how it looks, you can create a bunch of ideas of what it could look like off the map, but to me it looks like it goes nowhere and obviously it does to other people as well. HoT and I share pretty much the same opinion on the map, we were discussing it just after I posted. I think I saved the image he edited while we were chatting about it..

- fabulous coloring credit goes to HoT

this was basically the suggestion I was making, minus the cliff grass because I hadn't even noticed a problem with it.

Edit: I can see in the last paragraph of my previous post where I might've confused some readers. Not really sure why I worded it that way, but if it's really that confusing after this post I can explain. Looks like there is a typo in there too.

That being said, I think the main issue is twofold:

1) The abrupt "ending" of the mountains at the southern base. There should be a little variation on where the mountains end, especially since there are no obstructing features along the mountainside that would cause them to be straight there.

This I agree with too at least.

Edited June 1, 2011 by Tangerine

[Primefusion]

[spoiler=The Lava Map]

I kind of lost interest in it. =/

[spoiler=The Tutorial Map]

I find it odd that Hero brought up the issues with you but not with me even though I made the map.

It's like...critiquing behind my back or something.

Oh, and a special feature presentation I'd like to call "Prime Through the Ages". The spoilers will explain.

[spoiler=The first map I ever made]

It always makes me laugh

[spoiler=First Map Redux]

This is when I came back a lot later and tried to improve it.

[spoiler=The New Version I just finished]

I'd like critique on this one.

I've been in a mapping mood lately.

[Tangerine]

[spoiler=The Tutorial Map]

I find it odd that Hero brought up the issues with you but not with me even though I made the map.

It's like...critiquing behind my back or something.

Haha! It's not like he came to me and just started talking about it. I was talking to him about random stuff and decided to show him the map/my post to see if the problems I had with it weren't just my eyes playing tricks on me or simply my own perception rather than something worth mentioning to you, then he made that little drawing thing somewhere during that. Essentially I was making sure that what I was saying wasn't just my own map preference/bias getting in the way of actually helpful critique, you know ?

In any case, the mountains are definitely starting to look better now. Shaped like a foot!

[spoiler=The first map I ever made]

It always makes me laugh

[spoiler=First Map Redux]

This is when I came back a lot later and tried to improve it.

[spoiler=The New Version I just finished]

I'd like critique on this one.

I've been in a mapping mood lately.

Haha, woah! That first one looks super retro. Like an old NES SRPG map, it's kind of charming in its simplicity!

I like the new one though. At first glance I don't see much wrong with it, but I'll take a better look later. Looks like a big battle is gonna happen in this one, kind of a CoD feel to it. I like that little item shop in the forest and the village next to it. Kind of reminds me of Noaniels and the hidden elf village with the secret item shop from DQ3....what? No Dragon Questers here? I am a lonely DQ fangirl on this site :(.

Edited June 1, 2011 by Tangerine

[iavasechui]

^_^ I love dragon quest, never played three though, I've got 4, 7 and 8

[Primefusion]

Haha! It's not like he came to me and just started talking about it. I was talking to him about random stuff and decided to show him the map/my post to see if the problems I had with it weren't just my eyes playing tricks on me or simply my own perception rather than something worth mentioning to you, then he made that little drawing thing somewhere during that. Essentially I was making sure that what I was saying wasn't just my own map preference/bias getting in the way of actually helpful critique, you know ?

Whoops, looks like I took things to seriously again.