attempts at new swamp tiles

Lugo Moll · Post by **Lugo Moll** » January 28th, 2006, 9:47 am

When/if you make more variations of this swamp, I suggest having less things in each tile than this one have. If all the tile variations will be filled with as much logs and stuff like the first the swamp will look to messy. So this swamp is fine as long as this variation is one of the most filled ones.

Do you see what I mean?

romnajin · Post by **romnajin** » January 28th, 2006, 7:33 pm

No, a swamp is supposed to look messy XP

Post by **freim** » January 28th, 2006, 8:04 pm

It actually didn't look half-bad tiled. Make some more variants and well see what can come of it.

It does look like it will have a problem with scale though. The plants are the size of trees in the forest tiles. This is actually the biggest problems with "busy" tiles like the swamp, you need to make the details big enough to be discernable and then you end up with a scale that is way off compared to the rest of the terrain.

Did some quick edits to test:

Website · Post by **Sapient** » January 28th, 2006, 8:39 pm

That looks very nice, frame. Thanks for the assist. I will make some more variants off of that edit.

toms · Post by **toms** » January 29th, 2006, 6:09 am

DonÃ‚Â´t forget that you also need variations with less numbers of plants.
And as more variations there are, as better it is!

Website · Post by **Sapient** » January 29th, 2006, 8:13 am

As requested, a variation with less plants. However, plants towering overhead and underneath the water are the reason behind shadows and patterns upon an otherwise plain surface.

Website · Post by **Sapient** » January 29th, 2006, 9:35 am

After reviewing some in-game pictures, I think frame's edit fixed the size imbalance but caused a worse problem...

Fallen logs and/or tall tufts of grass on dirt mounds are essential to avoid any visual confusion of the swamp tile with (potentially) the top of a superdense tropical forest.

Compare the pink side with blue side in the attached photo. The pink side swamp has fallen logs and tall tufts of grass on dirt mounds. The blue side swamp may be the top of superdense tropical forest.

So, a size imbalance may be the lesser of the two evils.

Post by **freim** » January 29th, 2006, 11:00 am

I would try to go both ways and see if it can be made into both a swamp and a tropical forest. The latter need to be divided into a bg and an overlay.

The trick will be to make them different enough. I would try to make more patches of "open" swamp water in the swamp (maybe a tad if blue here and there), and the tropical forest very dense. The overlay tree tops will also help out to distinguish it.

The tropical forest is ready for a replacement anyway.

Cuyo Quiz · Post by **Cuyo Quiz** » January 29th, 2006, 6:41 pm

More water like reflections, maybe?. It is not like all the swamps are damp and dark, after all, they have water.

JW · Post by JW » January 29th, 2006, 10:56 pm

Mybe it's just me, but that swamp looks way too green. It doesn't look good next to either forest. Could you make it a little bluer?

Website · Post by **Sapient** » January 29th, 2006, 10:59 pm

Cuyo - that was my original approach. The reflection on the swamp consists of two things: treetops and skyline. The skyline will be light blue and white (clouds). The trees overhead will reflect dark green (what you see now).

But, the feedback I got on my mod2 ver0.1 reflection swamp was that it was *too* light, almost snowlike, so I eliminated the skyline reflection and stuck with tree reflection.

Maybe I should try adding entire miniature trees (the same size as forest trees), so that I can line up the reflections around them?

By the way, my reference picture has been this picture of a hardwood swamp.

Cuyo Quiz · Post by **Cuyo Quiz** » January 30th, 2006, 12:03 am

Sapient wrote:Maybe I should try adding entire miniature trees (the same size as forest trees), so that I can line up the reflections around them?

Sounds good. However, i would not add more than three elements to each variation, as to avoid the forest feel.

JW wrote:Mybe it's just me, but that swamp looks way too green. It doesn't look good next to either forest. Could you make it a little bluer?

Yeah, maybe some of this too, right now the dark green blends too much with the dark bottom, so maybe a more blue tone of water around the light reflection, which, if i read correctly, is what you plan to do.

Website · Post by **Sapient** » January 30th, 2006, 1:54 am

And now for something different: Creepy Swamp

EDIT: hopefully it tiles better now
I haven't had the inclination to learn how to install python on windows yet (and thus gimp python plugins)

player · Post by **player** » January 30th, 2006, 3:37 am

eh???

your creepy swamp doesnt really looks creepy,,, it looks like.....

Website · Post by **Sapient** » January 30th, 2006, 3:44 am

Like this?