DDD 40: Bunch o' gravestones

40. 11 January 2008

A creative day in perspective of tileset progression, although not so much space was used. I did a small stone for layer three and two gravestones for layer four. The cross and the gravestone were created easily with help of reference pictures found with browsing Google. Especially the gravestone looks good. The cross isn't bad, but its shape brings jawed edges and even my beloved anti-alias drawing style didn't cover it all up. Now there are 46 tiles of empty space. This is just great :)

22 June 2008 note: that gravestone I am talking about in this entry is seen in the 36th screenshot provided above. The text is actually just font Symbol, and it reads Hyvä Tampere, meant to mean "Good job, Tampere". Tampere is a city located in Finland. The reason this text is there is unknown for me. I could have put there something that would have amused me or mean something to me or somebody else, like the whole JJ2 community, but for some damned reason I just came up with this, and put it to the tileset :)

DDD 39: Trees

39. 9 January 2008

Nothing else today but making of three different trees for layer four. It was actually very simple task, but full of working in pixel size scale. There are possibilities to add the trees to brick and sand ground. 67 tiles to go!

19 June 2008 note: Dungeon development diary is going to be back for three times after this entry. To your knowledge, the entry going with number 41 is a gigantic text about finishing Fortress of Forgotten Souls and if this development hasn't been interesting, that entry might be :)

DDD 32: Introducing new graveyard

32. 31 December 2007

This year's last Dungeon modification contains making of layer 5 content. I started to make it as its own creation, but soon I realized I could use some of the old gravestones and such in this new edition. I am highly satisfied with noticing this, as I could add the crying angel back to the tileset. The new graveyard looks good, even though it is not finished. I have to shadow the trees better than I did before, and I should look can I get some leaves hanging from the trees. Additionally there has to be stones of different sizes everywhere so that the whole picture would not look like a flat painting (which it is of course :) This new graveyard is also more efficient (less green, more stuff) and contributes more to the Dungeon atmosphere and to the background idea which I am planning. The old one had too distant trees to put together with the great wall.

As a real surprise I noticed that I am not satisfied with the background grass green shade. It puzzles me as I just a while ago edited the color of this background to a better one. From the old screenshots I can see, that I changed the shade, but now this change seems to have reverted itself. The differentiation is visible when when one changes the colors to 8 bit mode. The background grass looks much better then. I must start modifying the palette, no one plays Jazz Jackrabbit 2 with 8 bit colours anymore.

28 May 2008 note: this diary entry introduces for the first time the Fortress of Forgotten Souls unfinished background structure with the castle walls in layer 6. Ultimately I abandoned this design because of I couldn't make the wall work. It did not look good at any point. Additionally a constant wall in the background wouldn't have done anything good for the big picture of the Fortress tileset as I have all the time planned that players should be allowed to exit the great decaying castles of Fortress of Forgotten Souls. A wall in the background layer would have destroyed that feeling for sure. More notes about the wall will ensue and you will read about the thinking that led to the wall abandonment.

DDD 30: Chain works

30. 29 December 2007

Chain works. I did a vertical chain for the foreground layers and the big chains endings, if somebody would like to use things like that. The vertical chains must have something more, even though they work even now as eye candy and hook events. I wouldn't like those to be layer 4 stuff, but there is little to be done about that. Maybe some invisible (masked) tiles will fix this.

23 May 2008 note: All those "Dungeon Development Diary Entries" look boring. Good names from now on. I also consider to change the earlier names to different ones.

Dungeon development diary entry 28

28. 27 December 2007

At last back in the Dungeon creation business. The simplicity of the dirt ground has been bothering me now for a long time, and now it seems that the solution is to add pixels here and there. The result would look like sand. Maybe not the most beautiful one but it seems to work just fine. Next I should be drawing many kinds of props so that the player's attention is in them, not the ground itself.

I added today a possibility to add background dark bricks and pillars to the dirt ground. Right now connecting pillars to dirt ground generates a continuity problem in the pillar bricks. I will see that closer later or not. The problem doesn't bother me that much.

I can't make any more essential or heavily masked tiles for Dungeon anymore. Everything must do something with the eye candy unless I want my remaining space to be wasted. I have left something like 230 tiles of free space and that is way too low in comparison to the amount of eye candy I initially planned to create.

20 May 2008 note: I planned this entry to look into Desert, but I did not have the material I need for that article on my current computer. The Desert and the other tileset entries are back soon enough...

Dungeon development diary entry 21

21. 12 November 2007

I made the Prince of Persia spikes I mentioned earlier. Two versions to be exact. It is unsure if I should animate them also, that would be cool. I created more essential tiles in form of signs, but this first version was bad, as it was made of wood. How could there possibly be left anything wooden after people have left the place hundreds of years before? :) Finally, arrows for level makers to give directions were done with ease. They look nice, though.

As I finish poles and signs, I am starting to have all the essential tiles I need. What would I still need? Answer after looking a while at Twilight Park: Looks like I miss some good looking destruct scenery blocks and the vertical chains with a tile that would work with the hook event.

17th April 2008 note: Sorry pals, no picture today! But worry not, there are still like 20 screenshots to show.