Terry - Creating a Battle Tile Map
Creating Battle Tile Map
09 April 2015
09:22
Creating Battle Tile Map
Blocking Out Core Features
Blocking out the tile map involves adding all of the basic tiles required to get the map functioning. This includes the basic ground types (plains, desert etc.), and the permanent feature tiles (beaches, cliffs, rivers, roads and mountains).
- When working on tile maps, in particular the world tile maps (e.g. main_attila_map) working in feature specific layers is recommended, for example:
- Plains
- Desert
- Sea
- Cliffs
- Beaches
- Rivers
- River Crossings
- River Sources
- River Mouths
All this can be stored in a master PSD to allow a smoother workflow.
- Paint each of the layers with the correct RGB value, based on those in the battle tile database,
- Save a copy of the file as, ‘tile_map.png’ in your new battle folder.
Outfield Tiles
The outfield is the area beyond the playable extents of the current battlefield. Some tiles, such as mountains, should always be in the outfield, and are used in combination with the no go map to ensure this.
The nogo.dds defines non playable tiles in red, a battle will only spawn in a location that has a valid 8x8 pixel area with no red pixels within. See [onenote: Battle Catchments Areas]
Masked Tiles
Masked tiles have a custom outline cut out of a square height map. The mask is created in the Tile Properties of TEd. Masked tiles need to have a custom alpha map to allow them to blend correctly into the surrounding terrain.