7943 replies to this topic

[Shane]

 
What if we went bigger?

The tiles look good, I wouldn't change them. Lovely screen as always, Jared.

[ywkls]

 

Should I leave in the leafy transparent over layer? It doesn't feel quite right to me.

 

This is inside a dungeon, BTW.

[Naru]

I don't see any problems with it and I think without the overlayer the screen might look a bit boring. Would you consider to recolor the keyhole into silver or gold?

[ywkls]

I don't see any problems with it and I think without the overlayer the screen might look a bit boring. Would you consider to recolor the keyhole into silver or gold?

Possibly. I just used a generic overworld lock block since I didn't have anything specific designed for this screen.

 

Next screen up. I think it needs something additional to add to the "we're really high up" vibe.

 

 

Thoughts?

[kurt91]

Depends on how you built that screen. Do you have an empty layer that can fit below the wooden walkways and above the trees? I know there's a script that can let you make a large image out of tiles, then have it moving independently of the game scrolling between screens. I use it for a background, and it's one of my favorite effects. I just don't remember if it was a script that I found on the site, asked somebody to make me, or cobbled together myself. Regardless, if you want to use it and can't find it on the site, shoot me a message and I'll get it to you.

 

Simple solution: Do that effect with some transparent clouds between the wooden walkways and the trees in the background.

Complex eye-candy solution: Do that effect with some SOLID clouds between the wooden walkways and the trees in the background. Next, use the same effect on larger TRANSPARENT clouds ABOVE the wooden walkways as an overlay. The overlay needs to move at about double or triple the speed of the background clouds. You may need to remove the forest shadow overlay for this area, which shouldn't be a problem. The various layers of clouds will have enough visual busy-ness that players won't notice. SNES Mega Man X games used similar effects, so you shouldn't have an issue with overwhelming the player visually.

Edited by kurt91, 25 August 2017 - 06:51 PM.

[ywkls]

Depends on how you built that screen. Do you have an empty layer that can fit below the wooden walkways and above the trees? I know there's a script that can let you make a large image out of tiles, then have it moving independently of the game scrolling between screens. I use it for a background, and it's one of my favorite effects. I just don't remember if it was a script that I found on the site, asked somebody to make me, or cobbled together myself. Regardless, if you want to use it and can't find it on the site, shoot me a message and I'll get it to you.

 
I do have a free layer or so, there. Getting it just right might take a bit of work, though.
 
I also seem to recall you having some technical difficulties with getting that script to work just right, but I might be able to figure those out on my end.
 

Simple solution: Do that effect with some transparent clouds between the wooden walkways and the trees in the background.
Complex eye-candy solution: Do that effect with some SOLID clouds between the wooden walkways and the trees in the background. Next, use the same effect on larger TRANSPARENT clouds ABOVE the wooden walkways as an overlay. The overlay needs to move at about double or triple the speed of the background clouds. You may need to remove the forest shadow overlay for this area, which shouldn't be a problem. The various layers of clouds will have enough visual busy-ness that players won't notice. SNES Mega Man X games used similar effects, so you shouldn't have an issue with overwhelming the player visually.

If I did layers above, I'd probably want them to be transparent. Right now, I don't really have very good cloud tiles/combos.

 

This is my attempt to adjust it per these ideas, using a lower layer of non-moving clouds.

 

 

Those downward platforms are intended to represent supports for this elevated walkway.
 

[Twilight Knight]

Hi ywkls,

 

I would suggest trying some more variations/detailing on your screens. For example, you could mix up the backdrop tree colors here and there. And in your previous screenshot (with the lockblock) you could use some SD3 grass detailing to make the grass a bit more natural and varied. You don't need to overdo this though, but a bit of detailing can never go wrong!

 

Otherwise, I really like the direction you're heading at, very creative. A dungeon on the tree tops, that's pretty unique to me!

[Naru]

Sadly the transparent layers in ZC often create weird colors and I think in the high up picture you shouldn't use one. Overall though I think you steadily improve your skills in designing screens, I like these quite a lot.

[kurt91]

There is a way to prevent the odd coloring when you use a transparency effect. It's adapted from a trick that the old Sonic games used to fake transparency effects on things like the surface of the water.

 

Step 1: Make each tile that you want to be transparent into a two-frame animation. Both frames must be identical.

Step 2: Open each frame in the Tile Editor, and start erasing pixels in a checkerboard pattern. The difference between the two frames needs to be that the pixels that were erased in the first frame are the ones that are left behind in the second.

Step 3: Set the tile animation to as fast as possible. The goal is to swap between the two frames faster than the player's eye can keep up.

 

You'll have a working transparency effect by leaving the two tiles solid. The player's eye won't be able to keep up with the alternating frames, and the colors of the layer underneath will "bleed" through in the proper colors. By combining this trick with the built-in transparency effect, you'll get an even fainter transparency for things like early morning mist, while the visual effect from the animation trick will help keep the colors looking closer to how they should.

[ywkls]

@Kurt91- That sounds like a lot more work than I'm willing to go through for the end result that I wish to achieve.

 

 

I think I like these areas without an overhead layer better than the ones which retain it.

[Lüt]

There is a way to prevent the odd coloring when you use a transparency effect. It's adapted from a trick that the old Sonic games used to fake transparency effects on things like the surface of the water.

The Sonic games have been rather thoroughly ripped on for how they look when displayed on PC monitors through emulators though.

 

The effect you're speaking of was dependent on the composite dithering inherent to the televisions of the day, and was generally done with longer vertical lines rather than a grid format. Current RGB LCDs can't create the tints those games faked, and though an extremely low response time may somewhat mimic the effect given your setup, it'll still fail when taking a still shot...

Spoiler

...not to mention look glitchy if the player speeds the game up, or has a system that can't keep up with the full 60 FPS. Running the program windowed also performs some manner of FPS conversion that doesn't align with fullscreen mode's even 60 FPS.

 

Related articles:

The Case for Composite

To RGB or not to RGB (on your Genesis / Mega Drive)

 

I couldn't find the best one, but those are a decent start.

 

I don't think there's any good way to work around the fact that transparency in 8-bit simply doesn't work.

 

That said, have you actually tried it? And what are your display settings? Because I have 144 Hz, and I can see pixels shaking everywhere underneath this layer, transparent or not. The screen looks like it's vibrating. If you're genuinely doing a thing like that in a quest of yours, and it somehow looks OK to you, you might want to get a range of opinions from people on different displays before deciding on making it a final effect.

 

At any rate, the screens are looking quite nice ywkls. The under-clouds give it the genuine feel of height that you were looking for, to me at least. I've played other games with similar sky setups, and it looks just as convincing as any of them ever did.

[Demonlink]

 

@Kurt91- That sounds like a lot more work than I'm willing to go through for the end result that I wish to achieve.

 

 

I think I like these areas without an overhead layer better than the ones which retain it.

 

Use some of the dark clouds that come with the tileset, but make those transparent (that is, if you have a spare layer you can use them on). Other than that, it's starting to give the "we're waaaaaay high up" vibe! Kudos.

[ywkls]

Use some of the dark clouds that come with the tileset, but make those transparent (that is, if you have a spare layer you can use them on). Other than that, it's starting to give the "we're waaaaaay high up" vibe! Kudos.

Believe it or not, I hadn't even noticed that the "dark clouds" existed before.

 

Added some to an existing screen.

 

 

I'm probably going to enter the map for this dungeon in Map of the Month when I'm done with it.

[Demonlink]

Life's a beach... You know, sunny and calm.

 

I promise, this is the last teaser for now. This is also my first attempt at making a tropical kind of area. I'm not entirely focusing on making this a beach like area, but it will have a few elements, giving this is the shoreline of the Eislynn Continent. This is also going to be a somewhat "optional area" to explore, but one of the main landscapes is right next of here; for that, I'm planning to make it an oasis/desert. I'll see where my inspiration can take me in the following days...

[Naru]

I was stunned for a few seconds, just wow!

Did you see that above the single green spot the sandy outline is missing? I nearly overlooked it, it looks great nonetheless. The three-leave grass isn't from the tileset, right? Have seen it in Zaxaphone's great screen and was wondering if he uses one of the edited EZGBZ-tilesets of the database.

I am not too sure about the palm trees. They look great and all, but next of them the flower looks rather simple (though the other details manage to pull away your attention from it) and I think they might be the reason why the GB-typical clear line between water and sand seems a bit brutal. Here it still looks all good, but I could imagine that they might create a not so great transition if you go into a more classical GB-area.