Creating a thematic area - The mountain Inn

じ☆ve冰风

Disclaimer: This tutorial was intended for the blog but never made it there. In the meantime I wrote the very similar Making a map #1and #2, which are worth a read if you enjoy this ;3
if you know them already, some stuff might sound quite familiar, but anyways, this might be interesting for you!

In many cases you will end up building not only a single map for your game or only a single region but instead a whole world with different areas.
That is the point where just adding a sheet with the extra things to the default sets ends to me and I begin building my own sets.

“My own” is a very loose term here, as I don’t expect you guys to actually draw your own tiles.

Over the course of this tutorial we will have a look on how to set up a tileset for them and exchange some basic tips on how to create these areas. This series of tutorials will give you a deeper look into the workflow instead of highlighting single processes.

Before we even start to make anything… we need to figure out what we are actually making.
What is our region like? What do we need?

My example:
The High Rock Mountains divide two kingdoms which barely interact with each other. There are paths and caves through the area, but not that many people are brave enough to take them.
We have a lot of rocks (of course), but also pines and therefore wood used to build the houses. The High Rock Mountain Inn is a lonely place that marks the end of the easy passable road and leads to the risky territory of the mountains. It is a pretty large building though, as some of the groups passing this site consist of many people and as it is said, the owners are pretty wealthy as they sell informations to both of the kingdoms...

As you see - while some things I need are in the default RTP, some are not (for example, the pines).
So, before I even start, I start gathering stuff around the forums.
Since I own Ace, MV and MZ and their styles go along pretty well, I know I can check all these boards to get what I need.

Make sure to write down all the terms of the artists!

I usually make a folder for the area I am working on where I drop all my “maybe I’m gonna use this” files.

The artists I found for my quick basic gathering were:
PandaMaru (MV and Ace)
Candacis (MV and MZ)
Avery (MV and MZ)
Aqua (MZ)
and FSM (MV/MZ, not engine bound)
with a resulting pool like this:




Now we - you for your set and I for mine - have to make some basic decisions:
Which are the rock walls I am going with?
Which ground am I going with?
Depending on what you make, these questions differ, but generally I would always first set up the main autotiles, as these are the foundation of your map.
And this is one of the most important choices, because these basic autotiles will make up a huge part of your maps.
So, there were several thoughts I had that I will share with you:
I like Candacis’ walls for the easy mapping, but I wanted something more… curvy for my map
I like Maru’s angled mountain walls, but they look more like they match a normal grassland to me
I like my own wall (surprise, I guess) but FSMs have a huge advantage: They have a variant for caves as well, and since I want to have caves in my area this felt like a good choice. And it has the gritty mountain flair I want to achieve.

There are many more artists I could’ve mentioned or featured here, but just naming and introducion all round wall options would’ve blown up this thread a lot.

What I do first is to select and copy all the tileset files from “Outside” in my project folder and rename them:



Then I open them all in Gimp and add a new empty layer to each, add a 48x48 grid and switch off the original layer:



In case I have placement issues on the sheet I can have a look into the original layer and use it like a template.

Now we start:



Since the FSM walls are our base, I take a closer look at the set. I am in for mountains, not for volcanoes. As MZ allows A5 to have transparency, I plan to add all walls there and as I consider having a matching cave I’ll move these tiles there as well. The red crossed tiles are for no use for my maps and the greenish ones can be placed on B, as these match my environment.

Tip: If you are checking a set for usable tiles it can be easier to check the whole set and then remove it to “done” so your pool of stuff to review gets smaller.

I will now continue to work my way through my “pool” with the goal to build my A tiles first.



For example I want to match the FSM grass here to my ground.
To achieve that I use my color select to select all the sand ground and set its main color to alpha:




With the new ground placed on a separate layer behind we already have something that is pretty close to what we need:



Now we can erase the remaining with the eraser brush. It does not have to be pixel perfect, but make sure the result still loops. If you need more informations on how autotiles work or other ideas how to create such an effect there are these two tutorials:
https://www.rpgmakerweb.com/blog/classic-tutorial-making-an-autotile
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...es-a-5-minute-hack-to-nice-transitions.99753/




And we have something that will totally work. As I consider recoloring the grass later I keep the layers separate and just merge them for the export.



I have not yet decided which tiles I want to use for the Inn and trees and decorations are also on the hold.
As I don’t know yet if I will need water (and what type of water?), that one is empty as well.

The cave tiles are added in as I plan the outside sheet for the caves as well, as they share all the stone tiles anyways.

Tip: Build your set as you need it and don’t clutter it with stuff that you won’t use in the long run

Now we just set them up and start with our first map:
The plateau for the Inn



By sketching out the size of the building with one of my autotiles I start making my Inn map. The “road” tile marks where I plan to place the building and the road itself might change depending on how the building looks in the end.
But I rather have my surrounding rock structure done before I place anything else so all the heights stay consistent.
Some general Tips:

• if you go for atmospheric maps, curved rock tiles can make a huge difference
  
• the more straight parts in a cliff you have, the more artificial it looks
  
• height consistency is key
  
• don’t stop at this point!
  

By adding more consistent levels to the walls, we already achieve a much more interesting look. You can see how some of the overlapping of the levels got the walls to merge. As we make each level carefully on it’s own, we can make sure that all the heights still make sense.
But… we don’t have to stop here as well!



With each added variation, the mountains become more natural and pleasing to look at. By mapping every part of the map, even the corners that will not be entered, you can ensure that each single shot of the map will look interesting.

The Inn
Before we start throwing all the decorations and details onto our map, we should have the base structures ready, and the inn is the next step on our list as it can be very difficult to adjust everything for the building.
Buf before we can do that, we have to edit our tiles again:

• We need the tiles for the Inn
  
• and I want to get rid of the shadow of the cliff tiles, I think the map would look better without it
  

Looking through my folder I made in the previous step makes me realize I have not covered that much with my search, but reminded me of that I have never really mapped with my own timbered house tiles… and they fit the setting.
Of course we won’t need the whole thing!
I will add them piece by piece to ensure I do not waste space on my sets. If you plan to have a full village anyways, you don’t have to be that selective, but as I don’t want to overfill my files with things I don’t plan to use here.
To ensure easier mapping and as I already have some rocks and natural stuff on B, I will add all “human” things onto C. That way, if I run out of space on another map in this area, I can swap the “human” things for something else - maybe snowy stuff for a mountain top or a secret temple?




Mapping the Inn itself is pretty simple: a small stable for the horses and a massive main house. One large “public” room at the first level, the guest rooms on the second and the “private” rooms on the third is my plan for inside. It makes a lot of sense to know at least roughly how you want your interior to be before you map the exterior.

And as you saw before, working on the tiles is a huge “back and forth”. Our Inn needs a sign, a fence around the stables and a lot of clutter to decorate the area. Therefore we again go back into our folders and expand the tiles as needed.
And over time, we have added enough clutter to our sheets and to our map as well to call it finished:



Or… do we?
As a lot of different artists were involved, the resulting map seems to be a bit… stitched together. I like to make the color adjustment after making the map, as that way I see which tiles I need to adjust and which work fine. Generally, we can see the biggest difference between RTP styled and FSM, therefore you can find another tutorial on the blog:
https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/inde...-styles-match-each-other.132410/#post-1156342



And with just a few quick changes - upping the contrast for all FSM tiles, moving the grass more to the yellow side and reducing the saturation of the brown stones - we are done.
Welcome to the High Rock Mountain Inn!

And if you wonder, whether that process is worth it… here is the same map with vanilla RTP without any additions or edits to the Outside set:





本贴来自国际rpgmaker官方论坛作者:Avery处,因国际论坛即将永久关站,为了存档多年珍贵资料,署名转载到本论坛存档,由于官方帖子为英文原帖，需要中文翻译请点击论坛顶部切换语言为中文就可以将帖子翻译成中文浏览,方便大家随时查看,原文地址：https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/threads/creating-a-thematic-area-the-mountain-inn.158886/