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Designing Screens with Complex Tilesets


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#1 Aquamentus (Facing Right)

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Posted 14 February 2019 - 04:54 AM

This is kind of a strange question, and hopefully you understand what I'm talking about, but... I've just been so stumped. How do you people design screens with these tilesets like EZGBZ and Firebird? Not even going as far as visually stunning--how do you use those and finish a quest in your lifetime?

 

What I mean is, there are so many different tiles you need to select and place to make terrain (satisfactory-looking terrain, not garbage or works of art) using the GB mountains compared to, let's say, the classic ones where you just put one tile down for the whole structure other than the tiles on the tops and corners.

 

What is your style/method for producing screens using complex tilesets? Heck, just complex mountains? I don't see an "Easy" button. Is your secret just patience? Hot-keys!? Cheat-codes!?

 

Thank you for your time.


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#2 Deedee

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Posted 14 February 2019 - 05:51 AM

Simple: I do mountains first. Most of the GB mountains can be used like classic mountains since most of it is the forward mountain tile; you sort of just get a feel for it.

 

The real difficulty is coming up with interesting terrain; you need to have creativity for it, cause otherwise your areas end up samey. This, arguably, is the main reason why 8x8 overworlds are common; only 64 screens of interesting design, vs 128 or 256 screens.


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#3 Architect Abdiel

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Posted 14 February 2019 - 09:54 AM

I like to get an idea of what areas are in my world and place mountains accordingly.

For example, mountain areas themselves will have a lot of mountains. Whereas something like a forest or a village may have no mountains.

Anywhere I have a village, I tend to surround it with mountains, perhaps with some occasional ones that run through the village.

Sometimes the borders have water instead of mountains.

The tricky thing with GB mountains is just making it all height appropriate. You want mountains to stay on a consistent level. For example, if you had a mountain that was on the second highest level of altitude, you wouldn't want to go around and find it multiple mountain levels below the highest altitude.

I sort of place my mountains at random, bordering screens and have them jut in and out as my fingers desire.
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#4 TheRock

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Posted 14 February 2019 - 10:16 AM

Here's a step by step of how it looks for how I like to design screens:

First let's start with how the mountains are going to look. I like to make the shape first, then make them look right.

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Now let's make the mountains look right.

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Now let's add trees!

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Now these things for detail.

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Now the things that surround them.

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Now some a tile for detail. And it's done! 

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I hope this helps. 


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#5 Shane

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Posted 14 February 2019 - 10:32 AM

https://www.purezc.n...showtopic=69798 I made a thread on my take of screen design process. You could check it out. :P


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#6 SkyLizardGirl

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Posted 20 February 2019 - 11:21 PM

I never really got why mountains in some Zelda games have to have that strange white 'Lip Ridge' around them always.

 

I would eliminate it cause it's not really Natural in Nature with Mountains.



#7 Shane

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Posted 20 February 2019 - 11:41 PM

I never really got why mountains in some Zelda games have to have that strange white 'Lip Ridge' around them always.
 
I would eliminate it cause it's not really Natural in Nature with Mountains.

Because it's a aesthetic choice but also because it's a clear indication of where you can and can not jump since the GB games and some quests have cliff jumping.

 

Also, getting rid of them isn't as simple as you might think, it could cause a few issues. Mostly looking awkward without them.


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#8 SkyLizardGirl

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Posted 22 February 2019 - 02:56 AM

Oh ok, well you could just put gates there, or have the ridge invisible.



#9 Dark Ice Dragon

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Posted 22 February 2019 - 03:31 PM

I always thought it was some kind of railing, something that the island's inhabitants have built to avoid accidents​..seem so artificial​


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#10 P-Tux7

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Posted 22 February 2019 - 04:34 PM

Luckily, Lut is almost finished with a tileset that has heavy inclusion of combo aliases and relational combos, though it is just the classic Zelda 1 tileset.


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#11 Emily

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Posted 01 March 2019 - 01:38 PM

Is it bad that I still have yet to ever use combo aliases/relational combos, to the point that I still don't really even know what they are? (Well, I've accidentally entered relational mode a couple times and fucked up screens not realizing it XD)



#12 Kivitoe

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Posted 01 March 2019 - 11:02 PM

Is it bad that I still have yet to ever use combo aliases/relational combos, to the point that I still don't really even know what they are? (Well, I've accidentally entered relational mode a couple times and fucked up screens not realizing it XD)

I've never really used them that much either. I've never even needed to use them. To this day I have no idea how you're even supposed to use relational mode or what it does.


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#13 SkyLizardGirl

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Posted 02 March 2019 - 12:07 AM

I don't know either..



#14 klop422

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Posted 02 March 2019 - 07:46 AM

I mean, aliases are useful, but for some reason i can never scroll down - either there's only a page worth, my copy of ZQuest is broken, or I'm just dumb.

That said, I've never used relational mode either

#15 Lüt

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Posted 02 March 2019 - 09:37 AM

What is wrong with everybody  :gonk:

Relational Mode for Minish Cap Water & Ice
Relational Mode for DoR Grounds, Pack 01

Download either one and look at page 3 of the instruction sheets.

Basically, relational mode is where you configure a collection of combos so that you can pick the first one then click and drag to automatically create a properly-bordered structure instead of manually placing all the edges tile-by-tile.

Rob, you specifically should be interested in the second one for the overworld parts of MM2D. Packs 02 and 03 were meant to be coming soon after 01, along with 04 eventually, but, well...

I mean, aliases are useful, but for some reason i can never scroll down - either there's only a page worth, my copy of ZQuest is broken, or I'm just dumb.

Same controls as combo list - mouse wheel scroll or PgUp / PgDn.

But most sets don't provide more than a few, if they provide any at all, so you'll often not have more than a page to browse in the first place.
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