Unbound Map: Cave Floor?

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dorpond
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Unbound Map: Cave Floor?

Post by dorpond »

A quick try at a dark, black, rocky area. Load this unbound. This would have worked well with Vry's Instant Cave Pieces.. *shrug*

As always, opinions always welcome - good or bad.

275K version:
Image

51K version:
Image

Phergus
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Post by Phergus »

I generally prefer much lighter floor material but this would work fine for a cave system in basalt or old lava tubes perhaps.

You know that you could always just make the tiles 200x200 or so instead of just JPEGing it to death to make the smaller version.

dorpond
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Post by dorpond »

I hate patterns and I find that I see more patterns the smaller (physically) the tile.

So I try to find a happy medium. Trevor wants to keep files very low for quick maps (around 10-40k) but that is very hard to pull off and have a decent looking tile (that goes on for ever and ever).

So I basically treat each project differently. If I can pull off a small tile, I will but if I have to make it larger (like the ocean), then something has to give to keep the file size down.

The Ocean tile would look like crap if it was 200X200.

Thanks for the advice though - I will keep it in the front of my mind.

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Post by Phergus »

dorpond wrote:I hate patterns and I find that I see more patterns the smaller (physically) the tile.
And I'm particularly sensitive to JPEG artifacting having coded JPEG codecs, worked on Motion-JPEG capture hardware and various NLE systems. :)

But that's okay I'll just use the full-size version.

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trevor
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Post by trevor »

dorpond wrote:Trevor wants to keep files very low for quick maps (around 10-40k) but that is very hard to pull off and have a decent looking tile (that goes on for ever and ever).
A minor clarification, I like low file sizes for the default tiles that come with maptool, since it has implications on the speed of download, and the bandwidth usage. For posting tiles for use here in the User Creations section, knock yourself out with detail ! So, it really boils down to the end goal of the tile, inclusion in the core program, or distributing for others to use separately.

One way we might approach this is to start with the really nice hi res ones, then as they are moderated up in value to Default status, we can look at a case by case basis on minimizing the size.
Dreaming of a 1.3 release

dorpond
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Post by dorpond »

Phergus wrote: And I'm particularly sensitive to JPEG artifacting having coded JPEG codecs, worked on Motion-JPEG capture hardware and various NLE systems. :)

But that's okay I'll just use the full-size version.
Since you have much experience in this area, is there a better format or preferred format that you like? Any advice will be helpful.

For now, I will make two copies; one high quality (may vary) and one low quality in case Trevor wants to make it a quick map.

If anyone has any advice on graphic related stuff, please feel free to pass it along. I am far from being a graphics expert, that is for sure! :)

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Post by Phergus »

There isn't much you can do about it. If you want small file sizes on largish, textures like those you have to use JPEG and put up with the loss in quality.

For QuickMap purposes, my opinion is that 200x200'ish textures are just fine even if there is some obvious repitition. That becomes less obvious when you have a grid turned on, various stamps placed around and a combat taking place.

For non-QuickMap but unbounded purposes, big is beautiful and I stick with either JPEG at 90-95% or just use PNG.

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