Dungeon tiles - a small project

[StillCypher]

"Awesome project" someone said. Yeah, HUH! These are knock-your-socks-off fantastic! I love all the little pieces and the idea of fitting them all together to build cool new stuff with 'em ::rubbing hands together gleefully:: Rep for you!

[RPMiller]

"Awesome project" someone said. Yeah, HUH! These are knock-your-socks-off fantastic! I love all the little pieces and the idea of fitting them all together to build cool new stuff with 'em ::rubbing hands together gleefully:: Rep for you!

If you really want to get a lot of bang for your buck you should grab MapTool and see just how fantastic those tiles are to use because in MapTool they snap to the grid so you don't even have to try aligning them. All the work is done for you.

[StillCypher]

Right, because I reeeeeeaaaally need another time-sucking, addictive, tons-of-fun application to fool around with, right? LOL!

[RPMiller]

Right, because I reeeeeeaaaally need another time-sucking, addictive, tons-of-fun application to fool around with, right? LOL!

Well, if you are going to put it that way... YES!

[torstan]

Firstly, thanks for all the compliments and the rep. It certainly helps with a project of this size. I should put the small in quotes in the title of this thread. I'm up to 8MB of tiles and growing steadily.

Okay, so all the lightsources are finished now. I've also rebuilt the outer walls so that they snap over a grid line so that when the players explore they can see the walls. I've added markers too - letters, numbers and a generic star. Also in this update:
1. New grass texture
2. Windows
3. Doorways
4. Fireplace
5. Generic fire stamp

A few of the new features:


Here's a demonstration of the new walls. First, here's the player view:


Note that it is not entirely clear which walls are single thickness and which go all the way back. Now in the GM view this is clear:


Maptool also has snap to grid vision blocking that gets painted on its own layer (vision blocking layer is often abbreviated to VBL) so it's really quick and easy to lay in where the walls are:


Note, I've only updated the 100px zip file. Let me know if anyone wants the 50px version of these.

[torstan]

Turns out people did want the 50px version so they've been updated too.

[torstan]

Okay, after a request, here are the three principle tiling textures with a grid added:



These can be used with gimp to build dungeons for printing out at the table. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Make sure you set it up so that the grid size is 100px in Image->Configure Grid.
2. Make sure the image resolution is 100px per inch (Image->Scale Image)
3. Turn on snap to grid under view->Snap to grid
4. Make the grid visible (View->Show Grid)
5. Create a selection using the rectangular select tool that will be the floor of your dungeon.
6. Fill this with the desired texture (you can do this by opening the jpgs above, hitting select all and then copying them (ctrl-a, ctrl-c). Now they will be in your patterns dialogue. Select the pattern and on your dungeon image hit ctrl-; )

Now lay in the walls. To do this do the following:
1. Find the tiles in your computer.
2. Click and drag a corner tile onto the active picture (literally drag and drop the tile onto gimp). This will create a new layer on the image with the tile in it.
3. Use the move tool set to Move Current Layer to move the corner tile to a corner of your dungeon.
4. Duplicate the layer and repeat, rotating (Layer->Transform->rotate 90 degrees) as required.
5. Flatten all of these layers to one layer.
6. After placing all the corners, repeat with the large wall sections.
7. Fill in the gaps with small sections.
8. Flatten all the wall sections into one layer.

Change the colour of the background if you don't want the walls to fade to white. Add set dressing on a new layer as before - remember things like stairs and so on should be on a layer above the floor texture but below the walls layer. You're done! Play with grunge brushes and so on to personalise it.

Here's a quick dungeon I threw together using this technique in Gimp. The drag and drop from directory is the real lifesaver in this method.

[jfrazierjr]

Nice Stuff Torstan! One question though... how come the smallish corner blocks are significantly smaller that the ones making up the main wall tiles?

EDIT: I also noticed that those tiles have a lighter backdrop. I rather like the burnt umber tone on the ones used in the corner as well as the smaller block size.

[torstan]

It's the inevitable result of making tiles by hand - there's some variation. I actually made the straight wall first and the corners last. I also like the newer corner tile wall style and back. I might have to re-do the straight-line wall for consistency.

[jfrazierjr]

It's the inevitable result of making tiles by hand - there's some variation. I actually made the straight wall first and the corners last. I also like the newer corner tile wall style and back. I might have to re-do the straight-line wall for consistency.

Understood... I have not looked at this in detail in a few weeks, so did not know if you had different versions that were slightly different in style. I too like the corner stones (smaller, look better in this case) as well as the background with the more burnt umber look to it.

It's not a big deal, but would be nice if you swapped them out. Perhaps long term, if you feel like it and can find the time, you could go back and add some corners in the style of the big blocks as that seems like a larger more permanent/stable structure might be made out of (castle wall for example.)