New tiles feedback and suggestions

[Alais]

Post here what you think of the new tiles (as seen on the screenshot), what you like and dislike, and any suggestions for improving them. I am currently the tile artist, and would very much appreciate both constructive criticism and positive feedback
E.g. Better colour palette, "real" depth in water (like in diamond/pearl)

You may also post suggestions for what kinds of new tiles you would like to see.
E.g. Flowing lava tiles and a volcano set, more types of flowers and rocks to make the open areas interesting, more types of trees.


Known issues:

    * Tile pixel alignment errors on a roof
    * Slight blending errors in short grass edge shading
    * Missing player character shadows
    * Variable shadow colour and lightness
    * Forest shadows may need to be larger
    * Slight lack of embellishments in mapping (flowers, rocks, weeds etc.)
    * Missing anti-aliasing in places

[Kuhns]

-Stares at pictures-

I'm digging the overall style, and that's one nice Pokemon Center in the second shot.

But, in the first shot there are the two types of trees. The big...kinda fluffy one, and the Christmas tree looking ones. The big one, I don't know if it's the shading or what, but it looks more...3Dish. If you look at it, and the tips of the Christmas other trees peeking above the chatbox, you can see a noticeable difference in their renders. Err--unless that's just me.

And the second critic is more me than you, but the Pokemon Center...hm. I always...imagined that Pokemon Centers were a kind of...status for a city or town, kinda like a really expensive store is to a real life city or town. The town in the picture looks like a backwater village at the end of a swamp--err, in that it doesn't really have any noticeable roads/walkways.

>_>;;;

It's like, smaller towns usually don't have the same things as bigger towns/cities. Why should Pokemon Centers in PU be any different?

P.S.

That's a really nice plane.

[Alais]

The pine trees are the ones you make the huge forests that surround towns and routes out of, they're meant to look a little 3D, same as the big tree, but the big one is meant to be all puffy whereas the pine trees are spiky. I know what you mean though, both those trees have been through a lot of rework already haha.

I was planning to make a different Pokemon centre for every town in the game, or at least a lot of different kinds, since that's how it works in the anime. I always thought it was boring the way the official games did it, as the Pokecentres are usually pretty spectacular to look at. I have a folder full of Pokecentre screenshots from the anime actually, lol. I think the Pokecentre in the screenshot may be a bit high class for that town, perhaps I will use a different one, but it was my first attempt at drawing any building at all xD so it was that one or nothing.

...and thanks about the plane ^^ it is probably my favourite thing of all :p but I'm biased.

[ghostman50]

My suggestion doesnt include the tiles or anything like that (I dont think); but the chat, I think, should be changed. The words go through the player's name. I think that having a "mini" bubble above/below the players name (above the sprite's head) would be better. I read, somewhere, that there would be a local chat and world chat.

While playing in MMOs like runescape, guild wars, and WoW world chat flies by so fast and it can be hard to see the player speaking and the entire message. Sometimes a player may have to rely on looking at the screen, to see who's talking. Not having the names blocked would help a ton.

Not sure if this has been brought up just a thought.

[Dvys]

Bubbles above the heads? So if ten players next to you say something, you can't see anything?
And if the bubbles disappear, the message is also gone..Forever..
A chatbox, like there is now, would be better. Even if it's going fast (the bubble's aren't?) you can read back! 

However, I agree with some of your opinions. The chat could be going fast, so my suggestion is to change the 'World Chat' to 'Island Chat' or something like that. Just a thinking ^^

[Alais]

I know what you mean about local chat, I'm not sure about text appearing on the map itself, it looks messy now and I'm not sure there is a good solution. It'd be nice if it were to look less messy. Local chat is relatively rare, most chat in MMOs happens via private messages or guild channels. So maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have the text appear above one's head.

As for fast chat, it doesn't happen that often that people are talking so fast you can't follow the conversation. If this does happen, you can expand the chat box to the height of the client window, and scroll up if need be.

[Kuhns]

*Forest shadows may need to be larger

I'm unsure if this refers to below in that you're already aware of it. :\

Another thing I noticed was with the Christmas trees in the second picture. (In both actually, but it's more noticeable in the second)

If you look at the trees to the left of the Pokemon Center, you can clearly see vertical lines running in between them. I figured it was the shadows and squished branches that caused this. The branches towards the bottom look cutoff (or really, really close to it), but I think the easiest way to fix it is to just somehow complete the tree's shadows.
 

[Alais]

The vertical lines actually look much worse when there are more than two trees, and it's been fixed. The shadows may end up just being round for all the trees, I think it will look less fussy that way.

[Kuhns]

Yeah, it'd probably be easy on you as well. xD

[ghostman50]

The vertical lines actually look much worse when there are more than two trees, and it's been fixed. The shadows may end up just being round for all the trees, I think it will look less fussy that way.

I dont think the appearance of a group of trees is all that important. Im all for realism in a game but its called a game for a reason. I dont think anyone in the history of gaming spends any valuable time nit-picking over a tree.  I dont think anyone has ever quit a game because one rock didnt look exactly like a rock (more like a shoe). I think that something as simple as a tree can be fixed in a future patch or completely ignored. Not all trees in real life are perfect anyway.

 Id rather have a great gaming experience  catching, roaming, and having a good time with horrible terrain than a game with the greatest landscaping job of all time and looks amazing but runs like mi 3 legged dog.

[Alais]

...but the people who are responsible for coding are not the same as the people who are artists. So it's not like the artists can spend their time "making the game run better". People do care a lot about tiny errors in the graphics. The first time we posted a showcase on PokeCommunity, we got zero positive praise, because people didn't like our tiles and said something along the lines of "people won't play unless the graphics are perfect". Even now, there are people womaning about this and that. Check the new thread for yourself, lol.

http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=203849

Btw replies on that thread are always welcome if it isn't on the top half of the first page, most people won't even see it.

Edit: If you reply to the PokeCommunity thread, please keep your posts constructive and insult-free. It's our official showcase thread and I want to keep the tone professional. If someone says something bad about PU, the best way to answer is with a well-reasoned counter-argument. Thanks!

[Counter Bug]

Work on your grass tiles

haha, what a prick. The grass tile is great. As his arguments were not good, he wants to make your game look bad. Ignore this idiot =/

[Alais]

Yes, he is an idiot in my opinion, but if you reply, please keep your posts constructive and insult-free. His own grass tiles are not exactly perfect:
http://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=203878

[Kuhns]

The rock/bush shadows in the first picture. They indicate that the sun is hitting them at an angle, but the other trees indicate that the sun is hitting them from directly above. (It's a small gripe, but it might help overall.)

[Alais]

The light source is from the top and slightly left of the screen, but for trees, you can't extend the shadow because they are constrained to fit on the tiles. I will just make the shadows darker and more round and hopefully no one will care