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Seamless Tiles

Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 11:32 pm
by Mazerik
Here is another one that is done in oil paint (using a wacom drawing tablet and ArtRage).

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 11:36 pm
by syntruth
Not a bad start. However, the drop shadows make it look like grey lily-pads to me, not like the stones are embedded in the ground. And the grout sections need some sort of texture as well, in my opinion.

What app are you using to make this in? :)

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 1:25 am
by Azhrei
syntruth has some good comments and with those adjustments made, I think this would look pretty good. :)

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 2:09 am
by keithcurtis
If you are using Photoshop, try adding a bevel effect to the layer, rounded and fairly large, to give them a weathered look, or smaller and sharper for newe flagstone. A slight inner glow set to Shadow might also work.

Note, you'll need to work with a larger texture and then cut it down to size from a flattened version, otherwise you'll wind up with bunged-up edges.

This looks like a good start.

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 10:01 am
by Phergus
In general, don't use directional shadows for images meant to be used in VTTs. It is pretty much a guarantee that whatever direction you pick won't match the lighting where it is used and won't match the other objects used.

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 10:23 am
by wrathchild
I like that the tile doesn't give any obvious patterns when zoomed out - this is very easy to get with these kind of tiles - good job on that.

I agree with the grout lines needing a texture also - that would look great!

No shadows is probably also a good idea for the reasons stated.

Great effort! Keep working on it for all of us who haven't got a creative bone for such things ;).

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 5:51 pm
by Mazerik
Ok, I spent a little more time with this one. The other one, I used photoshop and attempted to create one real quick. I agree with all of the constructive criticism and so I decided to do a more artistic approach. I used the program "ArtRage 2" and painted one. I then took it into photoshop to create the seamless effect. Is this style usable for people's campaigns? Let me know, cause it was kinda fun!

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 7:17 pm
by Phergus
Nice.

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 9:09 pm
by Mazerik
here is another one!

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 11:19 pm
by Mazerik
ok, here are a couple of dungeon/castle tiles... For the full set, click on the link below and go to my gallery!


http://gallery.rptools.net/v/contrib/Mazerik/

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 12:54 am
by Mazerik
can anyone tell me how I can make all of the tile sets available for download? I have 33 of the same style as the post above and I would like to let people download them. I haven't made any doors, traps, stairs or other objects yet but the tile sets have just about everything you need to make a custom dungeon in maptools.

one other question... in photoshop 5.5, how do you make an object (for example, a table) and preserve the transparency so that you can drop it on top of another tile in Maptools? I should know how to do this, but for the life of me I cannot seem to do it!

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:21 am
by wrathchild
Mazerik wrote:Ok, I spent a little more time with this one. The other one, I used photoshop and attempted to create one real quick. I agree with all of the constructive criticism and so I decided to do a more artistic approach. I used the program "ArtRage 2" and painted one. I then took it into photoshop to create the seamless effect. Is this style usable for people's campaigns? Let me know, cause it was kinda fun!
I really like the style of this one (and the dungeon tiles based on it). Up close it's great!

It doesn't zoom out as well as the first one however - AFAICT it has to do with the very light stone in the upper left corner. The ones to the left of that one are also in the lighter range, and together they come to form a repeating line when you zoom out.

But I really like the style. Different than what we're used to.

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:23 am
by wrathchild
Mazerik wrote:here is another one!
Again liking the style, but this particular one gets very bad when zooming out even a little due to the light band of stones in the middle. If that could be adjusted it'd be a winner!

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 3:19 am
by wrathchild
Mazerik wrote:ok, here are a couple of dungeon/castle tiles... let me know what you think
Now that I've tried to set them up a bit and fool around, I can say that these have turned out great. They're 350 px AFAICT and for some reason this seems perfect for the hexmaps I usually use - snap-to-grid makes them fit perfectly. And as said above, I like the style a lot.

Re: Seamless Tiles

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:46 am
by Phergus
Mazerik wrote:can anyone tell me how I can make all of the tile sets available for download? I have 33 of the same style as the post above and I would like to let people download them.
There is a Gallery attached to the main site that you can upload images into. You will need to make an account for yourself.
Mazerik wrote:one other question... in photoshop 5.5, how do you make an object (for example, a table) and preserve the transparency so that you can drop it on top of another tile in Maptools? I should know how to do this, but for the life of me I cannot seem to do it!
You save them as PNG files though there is probably a setting in Photoshop that says to preserve transparency. I use Gimp so can't help you with the specific setting.

When saving images that have a transparent area around them use whatever the feature in Photoshop is called that allows you to automatically crop away the unneeded portions while preserving the drop shadow.