Thread: [Rails-devel] Improved tiles?

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Brett mentioned that better tiles were needed.

Would this website help?

http://www.18xx.info/tiles/

-- 
Iain

On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 1:54 PM, Iain Cheyne <ia...@ch...> wrote:
> Brett mentioned that better tiles were needed.
>
> Would this website help?
>
> http://www.18xx.info/tiles/
>
> --
> Iain
>

More specifically, by "better tiles", I meant that someone needs to
just spend some time making sure the tiles are all consistent. Make
sure each tile is aligned to the same pixel offsets, etc.

It's time consuming, but it would help make the map look a little
better, and make improving the drawing code an easier process.

--Brett.

On 5/10/08, brett lentz <wak...@gm...> wrote:
> More specifically, by "better tiles", I meant that someone needs to
>  just spend some time making sure the tiles are all consistent. Make
>  sure each tile is aligned to the same pixel offsets, etc.
>
>  It's time consuming, but it would help make the map look a little
>  better, and make improving the drawing code an easier process.

Please could you elaborate a bit more on that? Maybe post the tiles up
somewhere with instructions? Even if I can't do it, someone else might
be able to.

-- 
Iain

1. If you look into the 18xx CVS repository, under tiles, you'll find a file
TileDictionary.18t, which is a data store maintained by Marco Rocci's Tile
Designer program (see http://www.rails18xx.it/software.html). I have started
from Marco's base version and added a lot of game-specific tiles in the
course of time. 

2. The program allows the export of tile pictures in various formats. We use
both GIF and SVG. Brett can give you any details on how exactly he has done
that (I think he modifies the SVG versions in some way). The resulting files
can also be found in CVS, under tiles/images and tiles/svg.

(For the 18EU specific tiles we use picture files obtained from John
Tamplin, I believe he uses a modified version of Marco's program.).

3. The GIF or SVG tile pictures are loaded, resized, rotated and rendered by
the Rails Java code (classes rails.ui.swing.ImageLoader and
rails.ui.swing.hexmap.GUITile).
(N.B. GIFs currently can't be loaded, not sure what has caused this
breakdown).

I think any tile graphics issues (whichever they are) arise in steps 2 or
(more likely) 3.

Not sure what kind of technologies in these steps you consider yourself able
to address....

Erik.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rai...@li... 
> [mailto:rai...@li...] On Behalf 
> Of Iain Cheyne
> Sent: Sunday 11 May 2008 16:30
> To: Development list for Rails: an 18xx game
> Subject: Re: [Rails-devel] Improved tiles?
> 
> On 5/10/08, brett lentz <wak...@gm...> wrote:
> > More specifically, by "better tiles", I meant that someone needs to
> >  just spend some time making sure the tiles are all consistent. Make
> >  sure each tile is aligned to the same pixel offsets, etc.
> >
> >  It's time consuming, but it would help make the map look a little
> >  better, and make improving the drawing code an easier process.
> 
> Please could you elaborate a bit more on that? Maybe post the tiles up
> somewhere with instructions? Even if I can't do it, someone else might
> be able to.
> 
> -- 
> Iain
> 
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>
>
>  > -----Original Message-----
>  > From: rai...@li...
>  > [mailto:rai...@li...] On Behalf
>  > Of Iain Cheyne
>  > Sent: Sunday 11 May 2008 16:30
>  > To: Development list for Rails: an 18xx game
>  > Subject: Re: [Rails-devel] Improved tiles?
>  >
>  > On 5/10/08, brett lentz <wak...@gm...> wrote:
>  > > More specifically, by "better tiles", I meant that someone needs to
>  > >  just spend some time making sure the tiles are all consistent. Make
>  > >  sure each tile is aligned to the same pixel offsets, etc.
>  > >
>  > >  It's time consuming, but it would help make the map look a little
>  > >  better, and make improving the drawing code an easier process.
>  >
>  > Please could you elaborate a bit more on that? Maybe post the tiles up
>  > somewhere with instructions? Even if I can't do it, someone else might
>  > be able to.
>  >
>  > --
>  > Iain
>  >

On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 11:53 AM, Erik Vos <eri...@hc...> wrote:
> 1. If you look into the 18xx CVS repository, under tiles, you'll find a file
>  TileDictionary.18t, which is a data store maintained by Marco Rocci's Tile
>  Designer program (see http://www.rails18xx.it/software.html). I have started
>  from Marco's base version and added a lot of game-specific tiles in the
>  course of time.
>
>  2. The program allows the export of tile pictures in various formats. We use
>  both GIF and SVG. Brett can give you any details on how exactly he has done
>  that (I think he modifies the SVG versions in some way). The resulting files
>  can also be found in CVS, under tiles/images and tiles/svg.
>
>  (For the 18EU specific tiles we use picture files obtained from John
>  Tamplin, I believe he uses a modified version of Marco's program.).
>
>  3. The GIF or SVG tile pictures are loaded, resized, rotated and rendered by
>  the Rails Java code (classes rails.ui.swing.ImageLoader and
>  rails.ui.swing.hexmap.GUITile).
>  (N.B. GIFs currently can't be loaded, not sure what has caused this
>  breakdown).
>
>  I think any tile graphics issues (whichever they are) arise in steps 2 or
>  (more likely) 3.
>
>  Not sure what kind of technologies in these steps you consider yourself able
>  to address....
>
>  Erik.
>

First off...  I'd like to ask for everyone's replies to be
bottom-posted.  Top posting or (even worse) mixed top and bottom
posting makes a thread hard to follow and impossible to do inline
commenting.

Here's my process for the tiles:

>From Marco's tile designer, I export Postscript images. This is mainly
because direct export to SVG doesn't create a file that Batik will
read.

Then, I use pstoedit to convert the postscript to SVG.

Next, I load up the SVG into Inkscape, then flatten and resize the
image into the current format.

Unfortunately, this process doesn't create exactly identical tiles,
because Inkscape resizes each image is slightly different ways
depending on the elements within the image.

So, what I'd like is if someone who is more familiar with the
intricacies of images, could come up with a better process for
creating tiles that are more consistently sized (or reduce/remove the
current tiles' subtle differences).

Secondary to that, we could really use someone who is more familiar
with AWT/Swing than I am. There are several issues in our map drawing
code that I'd like to see cleared up.

---Brett.

On 5/12/08, brett lentz <wak...@gm...> wrote:
> On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 11:53 AM, Erik Vos <eri...@hc...> wrote:
>  >  Not sure what kind of technologies in these steps you consider yourself able
>  >  to address....

Sorry, but this stuff is really out of my ability range. I'll have to
stick to writing.

>  >From Marco's tile designer, I export Postscript images. This is mainly
>  because direct export to SVG doesn't create a file that Batik will
>  read.

>From the descriptions above, it sounds like Rails can handle SVG
files. If Marco's tile designer could export files that Batik could
read, then maybe that would solve the problem? Maybe there could be
some dialogue with Marco?

-- 
Iain

On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 2:21 AM, Iain Cheyne <ia...@ch...> wrote:
> On 5/12/08, brett lentz <wak...@gm...> wrote:
>  >  >From Marco's tile designer, I export Postscript images. This is mainly
>  >  because direct export to SVG doesn't create a file that Batik will
>  >  read.
>
>  >From the descriptions above, it sounds like Rails can handle SVG
>  files. If Marco's tile designer could export files that Batik could
>  read, then maybe that would solve the problem? Maybe there could be
>  some dialogue with Marco?
>

Already tried that. Unfortunately, Marco believes that his SVG output
is correct and doesn't have the time/interest to work on updating or
fixing it.

>  --
>  Iain
>

---Brett.