32x32 Universal Tileset

[buzzkill]

*** Introducing the 32x32 Universal Tileset (aka UT32) ***

I've been 'creating' tiles and maintaining tilesets (based on the 32x32 David Gervais tiles) for Vanilla and a bunch of variants for the past couple of years and finally came to the conclusion that since most of these tilesets share 90% of their graphics, it's quite insane to maintain a separate tileset for each one. The purpose of this tileset is to have and maintain a single 32x32 tileset that will fully support Vanilla and all variants.

That's the good news. The bad news is that it currently only supports Vanilla, but that's good news too as I'd like to keep the Vanilla tileset 'pure', without any licensing concerns whatsoever and as I add more tiles to UT32 the likelihood of 'pollution' increases. Therefore, I strongly encourage any member of the current dev-team to grab and incorporate the currently hosted tileset into the last stable Vanilla release (and v4), and to continue to include it in future releases.

The UT32 tileset is available at www.mediafire.com/buzzkill in the "32x32 UNIVERSAL TILESET (UT32)" folder. It includes graf-dvg.prf and both .bmp and .png graphic files as I'm not sure which are currently required. I've tested UT32 with Vanilla Angband 3.2 and everything seems to appear exactly as it did before the change, exactly as it should.

Currently being assimilated... DAJ (FA and NPP are already supported (and NPP is looking pretty sweet)).

Happy Banding and Happy New Year to all!!!

[nppangband]

Just curious about the unstable part. Why would it be unstable? So far everything has worked great in NPP.

While I make no claim to being an artist, (Shockbolt could out-draw me with his eyes closed and both hands tied behind his back) but I still think the NPP tileset is going to look pretty good when it is all said and done. I want to put up some screenshots soon.

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by nppangband

Just curious about the unstable part. Why would it be unstable? So far everything has worked great in NPP.

Maybe "unstable" was the wrong word to use. The latest NPP tileset I posted was that of a WIP. I know, at the very least, the town graphics were mis-assigned. I spent most of today merging the old (as of yesterday) NPP tileset into the new UT32. I'm about 90% done. I just have to finish remapping the graf-dvg.prf. Then Vanilla and NPP will be as one (tileset). In the meantime the latest offering at mediafire.com/buzzkill is still 'a little funky' and will remain so until tomorrow (a pre-12-29 version is still avail, will probably work OK, but posting all this would have been a little long winded). Don't fret, I'm all over this. NPP will be made whole tomorrow, less the tiles that haven't been drawn yet... but it's on very solid footing... and once it's done finishing the Z+ and Ironband tilesets (and probably few others) will be a snap.

[d_m]

Originally Posted by buzzkill

That's the good news. The bad news is that it currently only supports Vanilla, but that's good news too as I'd like to keep the Vanilla tileset 'pure', without any licensing concerns whatsoever and as I add more tiles to UT32 the likelihood of 'pollution' increases. Therefore, I strongly encourage any member of the current dev-team to grab and incorporate the currently hosted tileset into the last stable Vanilla release (and v4), and to continue to include it in future releases.

Awesome!

I will try to take a look at this soon if someone else doesn't beat me to it. Seems like a great idea!

I wonder if Nomad and others will be interested. Especially if you do the work of creating a "master index" of which tiles are for which variants, it may be easier for others to slowly add variant support.

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by d_m

I wonder if Nomad and others will be interested. Especially if you do the work of creating a "master index" of which tiles are for which variants, it may be easier for others to slowly add variant support.

The system I'm using right now is simply keeping each variants tiles in its own 'layer', and then merging the layers together to create the bmp, png, whatever. I use Paint.net so the default WIP file type is a pdn document, but I think (never tried) that it can produce PhotoShop (psd) documents with the proper plug-in.

Currently the Vanilla layer contains only the (condensed) Gervais tileset and the NPP layer only contains the additional NPP tiles. I plan to continue this practice when adding additional variants although there's no harm (just extra work) in duplicating shared tiles in multiple layers.

Once UT32 grows sufficiently adding variants will be a simple matter of mapping the existing tiles rather than drawing and adding new ones.

[buzzkill]

All problems with the NPP tilset are resolved. Though still incomplete, it is still very playable. As always, get it at www.mediafire.com/buzzkill - look in the NPP folder.

[Magnate]

This is an excellent idea - I've created a new ticket for it, so it should be in 3.4. I've downloaded it and had a look, and although I'm far from a tileset guru I think I can offer some feedback. First, am I right in thinking that the bmp and mask files are not required for V? Just the png file, right?

Second, I'm afraid there are a couple of issues with the graf-dvg.prf file:

- it still has the tildes (~) for pluralisation, which V no longer uses.
- it doesn't have the different lighting levels for terrain (please see lib/pref/graf-dvg.prf in the nightlies to see what I mean)

Also, can I confirm there are no changes need to the xtra-dvg flvr-dvg files?

Thanks.

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by Magnate

This is an excellent idea - I've created a new ticket for it, so it should be in 3.4. I've downloaded it and had a look, and although I'm far from a tileset guru I think I can offer some feedback. First, am I right in thinking that the bmp and mask files are not required for V? Just the png file, right?

Not sure. I don't play much V and always have both (png and bmp) present, so I don't know which it uses. Both are identical.

Second, I'm afraid there are a couple of issues with the graf-dvg.prf file:

- it still has the tildes (~) for pluralization, which V no longer uses.
- it doesn't have the different lighting levels for terrain (please see lib/pref/graf-dvg.prf in the nightlies to see what I mean)

The tildes are in commented out lines. They don't affect the performance of the file. They could be removed for cosmetic reasons, but I'm not inclined to do it (at least not right now).

It does have the different lighting levels for the tile that use alternate tiles depending upon lighting levels, the floor, walls, and quartz/magma veins. Doors, etc don't use alternate tiles, if they did, they would display (both now and prior to the change) incorrectly in darkened conditions.

Also, can I confirm there are no changes need to the xtra-dvg flvr-dvg files?

That's correct. Only the terrains were touched. Some moved, most deleted. All objects and monsters are entirely untouched.

I did changed the file header slightly (graf-dvg.prf). You might want to compare the new to the old and make sure it I didn't make any licensing/attribution deletion faux pas.

I did test it with 3.2 (some dev version I guess, because it informed me of all OoD monsters and items at level generation, which was kinda neat) and everything seemed to display perfectly.

I encourage Vanilla players who do use 32x32 tiles to download this, give it a try and report back. Don't expect anything new though. What I'm shooting for is that the new tileset and the old look and display exactly the same. I would test it extensively myself, but I've got other fish to fry right now. UT32-Vanilla is just the first piece of a bigger puzzle.

[Blue Baron]

What magnate is talking about is a bit different. The format of the graf-xxx.prf files changed a bit since 3.2.

In 3.2.x features got one line and the lit features were a hardcoded offset from the given coordinate. In 3.3.x features got additional lines for the lighting levels. For instance:

# open floor
F:1:0x96:0x81

# invisible trap
F:2:0x96:0x81

# glyph of warding
F:3:0x87:0xA9

#open door
F:4:0x96:0x84

becomes:

# open floor
F:1:bright:0x96:0x80
F:1:lit:0x96:0x81
F:1:dark:0x96:0x82

# glyph of warding
F:3:all:0x87:0xA9

#open door
F:4:all:0x96:0x84

A similar thing happened for the spell effect lines:

# Group Ball
...
# mana
S:0x04:0x81:0xc3
...
# Group Bolt
...
# mana
S:0x44:0x81:0xA0

becomes:

GF:MANA:static:0x81:0xC3
GF:MANA:0:0x81:0xA0
GF:MANA:45:0x81:0xA2
GF:MANA:90:0x81:0xA1
GF:MANA:135:0x81:0xA3

In 3.4, the way pluralization works changed internally, and the object name that is compared in pref files does not have the tilde anymore. For instance:

K:spike:Iron Spike~:0x87:0x98

becomes:

K:spike:Iron Spike:0x87:0x98

Also there are a few more entries that accept tiles. In 3.3.x there is the pile ("K:0:0:0x87:0xB6"). In 3.4 there are a few more:
Trap Detected border overlay - F:65:all:y:x
Trap Detected border underlay - F:64:all:y:x (Could be the 3 floor tiles with the overlay already on it. Replaces plain floor when underneath a monster or object.)
Unknown object - K:0:1:y:x
Unknown treasure (if implemented) - K:0:2:y:x

When I added tile support for the trap detection border I just picked some green tiles (the green lightning ball and one of the grass tiles), but you might want to use something better.

Also, the windows PNG support was added in 3.3, so angband doesn't use BMP files anymore.

Anyways, i'll go ahead and change the feature locations in the pref file for 3.4, but you should be aware of the above for the future.

Lastly, in the mixed tileset I assembled for my personal copy of Z+ there are shaded doors on top of the walls, if you want to use them.

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by Blue Baron

Anyways, I'll go ahead and change the feature locations in the pref file for 3.4, but you should be aware of the above for the future.

I figured I was missing something .

Thanks BB. I was entirely unaware of the changes, though I do remember some talk of moving toward names rather than index numbers. Could you send me a copy of the 'translated' graf-dvg.prf when you're done with it, or just let me know when it hosted in the official release and I'll grab a whole 'new' Vanilla package.

Also, the windows PNG support was added in 3.3, so angband doesn't use BMP files anymore.

Good to know.

Lastly, in the mixed tileset I assembled for my personal copy of Z+ there are shaded doors on top of the walls, if you want to use them.

It would be trivial to reshade them myself, and then map them (I suppose), and then get the updated .prf back into the Vanilla repo.