Jutt
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Rheb's latest effort to complete his excellent Mosaic Frost style inspired me to get back to one of my own unfinished styles. I had posted this one before, but it was still lacking some extra floors and obstacles. Now it should be about finished, but feel free to post any suggestions.

The zip file contains both the images and a .dmf file for easy installing.
I'll see what I can do for an RPG vesion, but that may take a while.

[Technical issues, download currently unavailable]

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Holds: An Architects Audition, Artful Architecture, Salamander, Elusive Exhibitions, Leftover Levels, Six Times Six
Collaborative: Way Forward, Advanced Concepts 2
Styles/Mods: Basalt, Sandstone, Garden, Clock using game elements

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[Last edited by Jutt at 12-22-2014 09:50 PM]

Jutt
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File: Garden_Sample.jpg (266.3 KB)
Downloaded 1324 times.
License: Public Domain

And here's a sample screenshot showing most elements that get replaced with this style. Of course I recommend that you just download it and try it out for yourself.



____________________________
Holds: An Architects Audition, Artful Architecture, Salamander, Elusive Exhibitions, Leftover Levels, Six Times Six
Collaborative: Way Forward, Advanced Concepts 2
Styles/Mods: Basalt, Sandstone, Garden, Clock using game elements

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[Last edited by Jutt at 10-08-2009 10:11 PM]

Dex Stewart
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Jeebus... I'm literally out of words to describe how awesome this is.

Go you!

EDIT: Well, I should probably try to be more useful... The two elements which I don't like that much are the water, for which you should probably make a larger sprite, more than a 1x1 tile, and tunnels which are just kinda ugly. Also, while I'm at it, the wall edges and the white wall in the corner could be prettier.

But still, this is astounding work.

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[Last edited by Dex Stewart at 10-08-2009 10:55 PM]

Briareos
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Jutt wrote:
The zip file contains both the images and a .dmf file for easy installing.

That's quite a feat for a 22 byte ZIP file. It just seems as if WinRAR isn't compatible with it, as all I get from it is an empty directory listing - but no error...

*nudge nudge wink wink etc etc*

np: Múm - Illuminated (Sing Along To Song You Don't Know)

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Jutt
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Well, that's what you get when you make zip files with the windows explorer—they're bound to get screwed up sometimes. Attached a new version made with 7zip, hope that works better.

Thanks for the comments Dex.
The problem with water is that I cannot make any larger sprites. Water is, unlike the floor textures, handled as a 1x1 tile in generaltiles. That means I cannot simply expand the texture to make it look less repetitive. The only option I could try is making the texture finer and hope the repetition is less apparent.
Funny you describe the tunnels as ugly. Anything in particular that strikes you as off? Too bright, wrong colour?

With the wall edges I presume you mean the brick bottom half of the walls. I think I can try to sophisticate tem a bit, althoug I'm not sure there's much to be gained. And again with the white wall you have to help me; what exactly is it you think could be improved? I've been thinking maybe the near solid white is a bit too bright, but maybe it's something else that you think needs improvement.


____________________________
Holds: An Architects Audition, Artful Architecture, Salamander, Elusive Exhibitions, Leftover Levels, Six Times Six
Collaborative: Way Forward, Advanced Concepts 2
Styles/Mods: Basalt, Sandstone, Garden, Clock using game elements

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[Last edited by Jutt at 10-08-2009 11:35 PM]

Dex Stewart
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Regarding the tunnels, I can't exactly place my finger on it... even though I now know that it isn't so, the first glance gave me a slightly pixelated impression. It may just be me though.

Regarding the walls, I didn't mean the brick bottom half, I actually really like that. I meant the very bright colouring, which is also what disturbs me about the solid wall. I think they might be improved if you made them a bit more yellow-ish.

Tim
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I just wanted to say that I really like this style. Especially the "palm" trees. Not too sure about the "cabbage" looking ones though.

As for the trapdoors, I found it hard to distinguish them from each other, as well as being a bit hard on the eyes... Perhaps you can put a bit darker borders around them, and somehow make them a bit smoother?

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Ravon
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I like the diagonal lines across trapdoors. I'd like them better if they tiled correctly. The one-pixel-off-ness between two adjacent trapdoors is quite jarring. Of course, if you do fix this, darker borders are a must.

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[Last edited by Ravon at 10-09-2009 12:29 AM]

Rabscuttle
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Tim wrote:
I just wanted to say that I really like this style. Especially the "palm" trees. Not too sure about the "cabbage" looking ones though.

My feelings are the reverse. I like the cabbages but the palms look a bit off to me. Maybe it's because the shadows are too big, or I can't see the trunks? I have the feeling of floating bushes.

The grassy "normal" floor is cool.

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[Last edited by Rabscuttle at 10-09-2009 04:55 AM]

Nuntar
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Woohoo, another gorgeous style, just as we've come to expect from you What really impresses me is that it actually does look like a garden -- I think we're going to see a lot of use of this style from now on.

The one-pixel-off-ness between two adjacent trapdoors is quite jarring.

I think it's appropriate -- keeps the trapdoors looking like distinct blocks and not a mishmash of intersecting lines.

The grassy "normal" floor is cool.

All the floors are cool -- I particularly like the purplish tiled floor in the lower-left.

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[Last edited by Nuntar at 10-09-2009 02:37 PM]

Rheb
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Really beautiful style!
I just love the wall edges, they're original and gives a really nice garden feeling.

The one thing I don't really like is the water tile, it feels like it's some sort of sand/dirt which the wind has given a wavy pattern. (I think you could just use the nice water tile you have in Sandstone.)

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[Last edited by Rheb at 10-09-2009 02:51 PM]

Jeff_Ray...
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Nice looking style! It's a much better-looking outside style than Aboveground is.

I'll wait for the .dmf before installing it, though.

EDIT: Sorry, didn't read the first post too well.

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[Last edited by Jeff_Ray... at 10-09-2009 04:00 PM]

hartleyhair
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This is the only custom style I've seen that actually looks better than the built-in ones. Kudos to Jutt!

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vittro
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Awesome! I think that some of the best fan-created styles could be added in TSS.

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Banjooie
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vittro wrote:
Awesome! I think that some of the best fan-created styles could be added in TSS.

At first I was like 'Man that's hilarious'.

Then I was like 'wait, Caravel doesn't actually have any graphics guys working for them really?'

Ergo this is probably actually a good idea to some extent.

i feel strange having complimented something in a non-ironic fashion

i am going to go lie down now

Doom
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By the way, someone clearly intended to distribute additional styles in an official manner, as the mod management screen contains a box for CaravelNet published styles. The help even states: With a CaravelNet subscription, you may download and import graphical mods published on CaravelNet.

There just aren't any. Yet

Nuntar
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All three of Jutt's styles, and Mosaic Frost, should be in TSS (and RPG 2); they make a perfect complement to the existing styles and it would be great to see more levels made with them.

(Incidentally, does anyone know, if a level is made in a custom style, does it appear in that style when searching H&S?)

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Dex Stewart
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I know that Volcano and Sanctum were added, as well as the two styles in "Gigantic Jewel Lost".

Jutt
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File: Garden_Sample v02.jpg (266.4 KB)
Downloaded 1002 times.
License: Public Domain

I made a few modifications to the style:

– Made the water texture finer, such that it hopefully looks better when tiled over large areas.
– The upper part of the walls was made a tiny bit darker and especially the texture on large parts of hard wall looks more pronounced now.
– Made slight changes to one of the cabbages, which was a bit irregular.
– Palm shadows reduced slightly. It was indeed a bit too large, but only a few pixels in my opinion.
– The diagonals on the trapdoors were attenuated while the borders got some extra contrast. That should make the trapdoors more distinguishable, while making the misalignment of the diagonals less jarring. That misalignment was btw intentional—like nuntar said it was to accentuate the transition between adjacent trapdoors.
– Fiddled a bit with the tunnels. Actually I wasn't quite sure what to do with them, so I'll leave it to you to decide if it's any improvement.

The attachment in the first post has been updated and here's a new version of the screenshot:


Of course if you think any modified tiles actually got worse rather than better I'll revert them to their previous state.

____________________________
Holds: An Architects Audition, Artful Architecture, Salamander, Elusive Exhibitions, Leftover Levels, Six Times Six
Collaborative: Way Forward, Advanced Concepts 2
Styles/Mods: Basalt, Sandstone, Garden, Clock using game elements

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[Last edited by Jutt at 10-11-2009 04:48 PM]

Nuntar
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Jutt wrote:
Of course if you think any modified tiles actually got worse rather than better I'll revert them to their previous state.

And what if two or more of us disagree?

I don't like the trapdoors so much now that the lower-right diagonal slat is very indistinct; I think you should revert to the old version but with the improvement to the borders seen in the new one. Or at least try that out and see whether it looks better than version two.

The hard wall is definitely improved. And I'll have to wait till I can view the image on a less crappy monitor before I decide how I feel about the water.

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Dex Stewart
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I regard most of those changes as a clear improvement. The tunnels do indeed look better, as does the upper part of the walls, and the solid wall. I also feel that it's easy enough to distinguish between adjacent trapdoors. The water is also better; I personally still don't really like it, but I can't think of anything you could do to improve it further.

Also, something I just noticed: looking at the texture in the bottom left, at the vertical lines of small tiles, it seems to me that the top tile in a set of three is smaller than the middle one, which is smaller than the bottom tile. Also, while I'm at it, I think it would look better if you shifted the texture 11 pixels left and 11 pixels up. This would make it work better with walls and obstacles and the likes. True, this would lead to half-tiles and even quarter-tiles, but we already have fractions of the big tiles, so I don't think that's a problem.

Jutt
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I have uploaded a quick update to this style (see first post), because it was lacking shallow water tiles. In fact I changed the water to an alternate texture and made small tweaks to a floor texture as well.

Anyway, the style is not yet available on Caravelnet. I'm about to publish a hold that uses it, so I wonder if it could be added for in game download?

____________________________
Holds: An Architects Audition, Artful Architecture, Salamander, Elusive Exhibitions, Leftover Levels, Six Times Six
Collaborative: Way Forward, Advanced Concepts 2
Styles/Mods: Basalt, Sandstone, Garden, Clock using game elements

Nuntar
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I'm sure that could be done (it was done very recently for Mosaic Frost as soon as it was used in a published hold). Have you thought about adding music to this and your other styles? One obvious possibility would be to use the same music as the corresponding TSS styles, but you may have a different idea

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Jutt
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Oh, good point, I completely forgot I can do that. So that would be Greenhouse music for this style. Sounds good to me, I'll get to it immediately.

Same goes btw for the other two styles. They also need an update for shallow water, and using Caldera music for Basalt and Badlands music for Sandstone looks like a good addition as well. They have already been published to CaravelNet though, so I may have to discuss the details of an update with Schik.


Edit: Updated version with music set to greenhouse available.

____________________________
Holds: An Architects Audition, Artful Architecture, Salamander, Elusive Exhibitions, Leftover Levels, Six Times Six
Collaborative: Way Forward, Advanced Concepts 2
Styles/Mods: Basalt, Sandstone, Garden, Clock using game elements

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[Last edited by Jutt at 12-22-2014 12:48 PM]

disoriented
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Sorry for my ignorance: do styles also need updates to add the disabled force arrow graphic? Maybe thin ice as well?

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Jutt
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Not necessarily I'd say, only if they don't work well with other elements from the style. Ice probably stands pretty well on its own. The disabled force arrows don't really seem out of place as long as a style doesn't mess with the rough shape of the arrows. Though I must admit that visibility of disabled arrows in general is a bit of a problem, but that's a whole issue of its own.

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Holds: An Architects Audition, Artful Architecture, Salamander, Elusive Exhibitions, Leftover Levels, Six Times Six
Collaborative: Way Forward, Advanced Concepts 2
Styles/Mods: Basalt, Sandstone, Garden, Clock using game elements

Nuntar
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It hasn't worked -- I hear Deep Spaces music when I import the style. We had similar problems with Mosaic Frost, but Schik got it to work in the end -- you might have to ask him what he did

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Jutt
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Gah. Ok, I removed the file for the time being. This does sound like a bug in the style export functionality, but I'll leave it to the experts to figure this out.

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Holds: An Architects Audition, Artful Architecture, Salamander, Elusive Exhibitions, Leftover Levels, Six Times Six
Collaborative: Way Forward, Advanced Concepts 2
Styles/Mods: Basalt, Sandstone, Garden, Clock using game elements

Jutt
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File: Styles TSS Update.zip (1.4 MB)
Downloaded 62 times.
License: Public Domain

I'm going to use this topic for the updates to all my styles. Attached to this post are DMF files for Garden, Basalt and Sandstone with the added shallow water graphics. I'm posting them here for comments and suggestions, to make sure there are no remaining issues. If all is well, I'll ask Schik to add the music to these files and put them on Caravelnet.

If you like to test the styles with music, add the following lines to drod.ini in the [Songs] section.

Basalt:

BasaltAmbient=TSS/D3 song14 lis01.ogg
BasaltAmbient=TSS/D3 song17 lis01.ogg
BasaltAttack=TSS/D3 Song05 lis03.ogg
BasaltAttack=TSS/D3 Song08 lis02.ogg
BasaltExit=TSS/D3 Song01 alt.ogg
BasaltPuzzle=TSS/D3 Song01 lis03.ogg
BasaltPuzzle=TSS/D3 Song07 lis02.ogg
BasaltPuzzle=TSS/D3 song10 lis02.ogg

Garden:

GardenAmbient=TSS/D3 Song06 lis03.ogg
GardenAmbient=TSS/D3 Song02 lis03.ogg
GardenAttack=TSS/D3 song21 lis01.ogg
GardenAttack=TSS/D3 song11 lis01.ogg
GardenExit=TSS/D3 song04 alt.ogg
GardenPuzzle=TSS/D3 song12 lis01.ogg
GardenPuzzle=TSS/D3 song04 lis03.ogg

Sandstone:

SandstoneAmbient=TSS/D3 song16 lis01.ogg
SandstoneAmbient=TSS/D3 song20 lis01.ogg
SandstoneAttack=TSS/D3 song19 lis01.ogg
SandstoneAttack=TSS/D3 song15 lis01.ogg
SandstoneExit=TSS/D3 song19 alt.ogg
SandstonePuzzle=TSS/D3 song18 lis01.ogg
SandstonePuzzle=TSS/D3 song03 lis02.ogg

____________________________
Holds: An Architects Audition, Artful Architecture, Salamander, Elusive Exhibitions, Leftover Levels, Six Times Six
Collaborative: Way Forward, Advanced Concepts 2
Styles/Mods: Basalt, Sandstone, Garden, Clock using game elements

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[Last edited by Jutt at 01-24-2015 10:30 PM : added final version (no sound yet)]

Schik
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File: jutt_styles_with_music.zip (1.4 MB)
Downloaded 60 times.
License: Public Domain

Here are the styles, hopefully with the music set properly. I am currently without a working TSS, so... anybody care to test them?

Edit: They're tested and seem to work. I'll update/upload the styles on CaravelNet shortly...

Edit edit: The styles are all uploaded to CaravelNet.

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[Last edited by Schik at 02-23-2015 03:44 AM]