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32x32 tiles (mostly rant)

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Alexander Ulyanov

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Feb 13, 2005, 10:11:34 PM2/13/05
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Hi all.

Yesterday I discovered that the Windows front-end supports increasing/
decreasing tile width. While this is not as good as tile size
independent of font, it looks ok. There are no such features in x11/xaw
front-ends, though. Is anyone maintaining them (for Vanilla)? I begin
to feel like I use the unsupported platform!

So, I quickly hacked in similar support for xaw front-end, and started
examining David Gervais 32x32 tiles. Most of the tiles look just fine,
but some are just hilarious!

- Sauron is... who? Mage? Undead? Big Red Eye? No, he is a *GENIE*!
Well, whoever is responsible for that, thanks for a good laugh, but
JRRT must be turning in his coffin...
- Hellhounds and Carcharoth don't look like canines at all. They have
some horns on the forehead, though!
- Lungorthin. Eh, he is a Balrog of White Fire. Why is he blue?
- The Nazgul -- they don't look like undeads at all.
- Ungoliant is just a small brown bug. I though she was a huge black
spider...
- The Greater demonic Q has beautiful blue color. Nothing even
remotely similar to "hellish light" in description.
- All the molds have two eyes and a large mouth. Sheesh.
- The elementals look incredibly silly.
- Mummies are purple?

These are just the most obvious problems. I understand that these tiles
were not originally for Angband, but why didn't anyone fix the problems
yet? The tiles are large, neat and easily distinguished -- it's a shame
they don't work right.

(BTW, I tested everything on Vanilla 3.0.5. So these are not because
of wrong mappings in PosBand.)

--
Alexander Ulyanov, maintainer of PosBand roguelike
E-mail: posband_AT_earthsea_DOT_org Web: http://posband.earthsea.org/
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no
account be allowed to do the job. -- The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Bill

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Feb 14, 2005, 6:03:02 PM2/14/05
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Unfortunately, the *band community has never attracted the graphics
talent needed to "fix the problems". The unknown (to me) person who did
the "original tiles", Adam Bolt, and David Gervais have been the only
contributors AFAIK. Gervais probably did take a lot of his tiles from
other projects, my impression being that he was recruited by Tim Baker
to create tiles for AngbandTk.

I published a rant a couple of years ago about how the community wasn't
supporting graphics properly. I learned during the discussion that the
majority of *band players could care less about graphics. The
developers do an adequate job of support, but no one with any graphics
talent has stepped up to manage the tiles.

Bill

Alexander Ulyanov

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Feb 15, 2005, 5:38:13 AM2/15/05
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On 2005-02-14, Bill <wpete...@socal.rr.com> wrote:

> Alexander Ulyanov wrote:
>> These are just the most obvious problems. I understand that these tiles
>> were not originally for Angband, but why didn't anyone fix the problems
>> yet? The tiles are large, neat and easily distinguished -- it's a shame
>> they don't work right.
>
> Unfortunately, the *band community has never attracted the graphics
> talent needed to "fix the problems". The unknown (to me) person who did
> the "original tiles", Adam Bolt, and David Gervais have been the only
> contributors AFAIK. Gervais probably did take a lot of his tiles from
> other projects, my impression being that he was recruited by Tim Baker
> to create tiles for AngbandTk.
>
> I published a rant a couple of years ago about how the community wasn't
> supporting graphics properly. I learned during the discussion that the
> majority of *band players could care less about graphics.

Well, I'm a console junkie too -- but look, it's 21st century, we are
launching spaceships to Saturn, and we are still unable to make a good
graphics roguelike!

> The
> developers do an adequate job of support, but no one with any graphics
> talent has stepped up to manage the tiles.

As I said, I'll see what I can do. Yesterday I tried to re-make
elementals from scratch. The result is not bad, but it looks rather
different from DG's tiles.

Martin Read

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Feb 15, 2005, 6:43:05 AM2/15/05
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Alexander Ulyanov <pos...@earthsea.org.invalid> wrote:
>Well, I'm a console junkie too -- but look, it's 21st century, we are
>launching spaceships to Saturn, and we are still unable to make a good
>graphics roguelike!

A good graphics roguelike exists. It's called Diablo II.

Good art takes money, a lot of the time, because good artists can get
money for their art.
--
Martin Read - my opinions are my own. share them if you wish.
My roguelike games page (including my BSD-licenced roguelike) can be found at:
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~mpread/roguelikes.html

David Gervais

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Feb 15, 2005, 7:54:16 AM2/15/05
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On 14 Feb 2005 15:03:02 -0800, "Bill" <wpete...@socal.rr.com> wrote:

Hello,

...


>Gervais probably did take a lot of his tiles from other projects,
>my impression being that he was recruited by Tim Baker to
>create tiles for AngbandTk.

It's comments like this that pull me out of lurk mode.. ;)

Time for a little history lesson.. I have always been a fan of roguelike games
and way back when, I found the TK versions of Angband. I played the game for
several months (Mainly KAngbandTK my personal favorite) I was using Adam Bolts
tiles and found that they looked fuzzy when played at 32x32 (I believe they
were originally made at a scale of 16x16) Well, I first took Adam's bitmap and
slowly began to replace the tiles with new ones that I drew myself (from
scratch) I was however basing them on Adam's tiles so they would fit in with
the game. My first tiles were the objects, walls, weapons and terrain. When I
finished that I contacted Tim Baker and asked if he would like to use them in
KAngbandTK, he said yes. I also contacted Adam and let him know I was
'editing' his bitmap and asked if he mined, he didn't and said have fun. Once
I finished all the 'objects etc, I decided to tackle the monsters, the first
batch being the 'townspeople' I again tried to make them look similar to adams
tiles (only drawn to a scale of 32x32 from the start.) Tim suggested that I
start making separate files from Adams and so I did, That's when I chopped the
tiles into the individual tile sets you can find now in the TK versions of
Angband. At some point I also made some of the UI widgets that are in the
TKBands.

we interrupt this rant with some links..

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/newuploads/1050512585.gif

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/newuploads/1050665451.gif

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/newuploads/1050665571.gif

Those are some of my workscreens that I used when building the various tiles.

..and this is where you can find all of my free tiles, including all the ISO
tiles I did for Dungeon Odyssey.

http://pousse.rapiere.free.fr/tome/index.htm

As you see I would build workscreens by making different heads, body parts,
etc. I would then grab the pieces and build different monsters. All were drawn
fram scratch, although I started out using Adam's tiles as a guide I soon
wandered off the beaten path and made my own. I did make a lot of monster
tiles. I thought, that someone would like them and create a version of TKBand
that used my tiles and renamed the existing descriptions for the monsters and
players to match my tiles. That was a big mistake, I got several e-mails
saying "Your monsters don't fit the *band monster list, blah, blah blah.." And
"When are you going to make the missing monsters to complete the set for Z, K,
O and Vanilla?" then I started getting requests for 'custom' tiles for
individual 'variants',.. no one seemed interested or wanted to use the tiles I
made to create an all new Variant. I didn't have the time, But I did make a
few modules for KAngbandTK and that was kind of fun. Then a guy nammed Aaron
Hall contacted me and asked if he could use my tiles in a game he was making,
I was thrilled, and he contacted me just when I was in the process of making
the ISO versions of my tiles. I agreed and made more tiles and designed the UI
for Dungeon Odyssey and decided to make the UI fit with the look of my tiles.
(which I must say have a very 'retro' look to them.) When the game came out,
PCGamer actually liked the game, but said the graphics were a little too
'retro' for today's gamers. (I laughed, unknown to the reviewer, he gave me
the ultimate compliment. I made the UI look 'retro' on purpose. :)

We interrupt this rant for a not about my ISO tiles..

Something to note about my ISO tiles, they are not 64x64, they are 54x54. I
was often asked why I went with this non-standard size. Well, when I mad ethe
tiles innitially I wanted to save and use my existing monsters and well, they
looked too small on the 64x64 tile size so I srunk the tile size down to
'visually' fit the look and size of the monsters. (Just so you know, I have
never been one to 'follow the crowd' I do program in my spare time, and never
saw the reasoning behind tiles having to be multiples of 8 ie:16x16 to 32x32
to 64x64 for building tiles. As a programmer I know that I can make my sprites
any size I want, so I did.) Another 'reason' I think my ISO tiles are a better
size than the 'traditionnal' 64x64 is that you can fit more tiles onscreen.

Anyway, I made a full set of tiles, both overhead 32x32 and ISO. I also make
these tiles available for free. I hear people saying that there is a lack of
'tiles' available for programmers to use, I think there are lots of tiles, the
problem is that 'most' of the programmers that want to use tiles can't make
them themselves and are looking for people to make new tiles that fit their
'game concept' (kind of a vain attitude, but I think I'll adapt it for my
tiles too.) I made all these tiles, I think you programmers should find a way
to use them and make your 'game' fit my tiles, after all, programmers are a
dime a dozen and we artists are a dying and rare breed. ;) just kidding.
Everyone has a certain amount of pride in their work, I like my tiles, and
know several people that like my tiles and the bottom line is this, if you
want to use my tiles 'as is' or edit my tiles that is fine with me.

Well, that's enough history for today, I hope I haven't bored you all to
sleep, have a great day, Cheers!


David E. Gervais


P.S. For those that might like to know, Tim Baker is alive and well. I heard
from him just before christmas. I for one was relieved to hear from him, I had
thought the worst when he dropped off the net. Happy gamming people.

Alexander Ulyanov

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Feb 15, 2005, 2:53:31 PM2/15/05
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On 2005-02-15, David Gervais <het...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Anyway, I made a full set of tiles, both overhead 32x32 and ISO. I also make
> these tiles available for free. I hear people saying that there is a lack of
> 'tiles' available for programmers to use, I think there are lots of tiles, the
> problem is that 'most' of the programmers that want to use tiles can't make
> them themselves and are looking for people to make new tiles that fit their
> 'game concept' (kind of a vain attitude, but I think I'll adapt it for my
> tiles too.) I made all these tiles, I think you programmers should find a way
> to use them and make your 'game' fit my tiles, after all, programmers are a
> dime a dozen and we artists are a dying and rare breed. ;) just kidding.
> Everyone has a certain amount of pride in their work, I like my tiles, and
> know several people that like my tiles and the bottom line is this, if you
> want to use my tiles 'as is' or edit my tiles that is fine with me.

Thanks for the clarification, David. Now my conscience has calmed :).

Mitsuhiro Itakura

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Feb 15, 2005, 9:08:23 PM2/15/05
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Nice summary! Thank you.

David Gervais <het...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<lt24111ak481hrv5n...@4ax.com>...

> Anyway, I made a full set of tiles, both overhead 32x32 and ISO. I also make
> these tiles available for free. I hear people saying that there is a lack of
> 'tiles' available for programmers to use, I think there are lots of tiles, the
> problem is that 'most' of the programmers that want to use tiles can't make
> them themselves and are looking for people to make new tiles that fit their
> 'game concept' (kind of a vain attitude, but I think I'll adapt it for my
> tiles too.) I made all these tiles, I think you programmers should find a way
> to use them and make your 'game' fit my tiles, after all, programmers are a
> dime a dozen and we artists are a dying and rare breed. ;) just kidding.
> Everyone has a certain amount of pride in their work, I like my tiles, and
> know several people that like my tiles and the bottom line is this, if you
> want to use my tiles 'as is' or edit my tiles that is fine with me.

Currently I'm participating in the development of Dungeon Crawl tile version
(this is why I've become an almost-ex DevTeam member of Zang)
http://crawlj.sourceforge.jp/down_e.html

Our team consists of three Japanese members.
Nullpo: A chief coder and project manager. He also does Japanese localization.
Me: Tile display coder and an artist.
Denzi: An artist.
(Alex Korol also contributed a lot of tiles for us)

Our "artists team" actively proposes new ideas together with tiles, such as
part-by-part customizable player tile, and then the "Coders team" implemets
them. Not all the ideas are accepted and some are rejected, but quite a many
ideas has been incorpolated into the game.

BTW I and Mr.Denzi have made a lot of 32x32 and 64x64 tiles for Dungeon Crawl.
You can find them at http://rltiles.sf.net
and *freely use them*.

> P.S. For those that might like to know, Tim Baker is alive and well. I heard
> from him just before christmas. I for one was relieved to hear from him, I had
> thought the worst when he dropped off the net. Happy gamming people.

It's a great news!
--
M.Itakura

klaus.st...@gmail.com

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Apr 11, 2018, 4:34:10 AM4/11/18
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Hey David,

I hope You read this post. Tried to find contact info everywhere, but this (though 12 years old), seems to be the only way to reach You.

I wanted to thank You for your great work. Your tileset is the best that happened to my own little ZPG (Zero PLayer Game) game project. Your graphics just fit so perfectly.

I think you might be happy that your work is still of great use for new games.

You can have a look at:
https://epicidlequest.com


Yours,
Klaus
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