Khall's Tundra Tileset

[Khall]

Since the proposed tundra tileset never made it into the final game, I decided to make my own and fully integrate the already partially implemented tileset. Now this tileset isn't fully complete, I've just added outdoor forest and wooden cabin props so far, but there's enough to allow me to publish it. The civilians and local forces used in this are taken from the Soviet tileset. Props used are "tundra-fied" (making artic trees less snowy, adding frost to farm logs, etc.) versions of props taken from other tilesets. I've updated the tileset masks on the geoscape, so mainly Canada and upper Eurasia have tundra, at the expense of less industrial (which is the most common tileset anyway).

I've made 2 maps for each ufo size (lightscout, small, medium, large). That might not sound like a lot, but they are forest themed (which a few people have been requesting on the forums in the past ), which allowed me to construct them out of loads of random variants of submaps, so no map should be the same twice. I also created some variants of wooden cabins, but I've not had much time to expand on it yet. As the maps are random forests and are quite cramped, they probably wont be suited for vehicles, and saving for reaction fire is highly recommended against ambushing enemies. There is quite a lot of cover in the maps, but they disintegrated very quickly after a few shots, so vision blocking props (e.g. trees) are your safest bet. Maps have been made with Goldhawk standards in mind. I am not the best mapmaker, this is only to give you an idea of potential.

In the long term, I plan on:

- "Tundra-fying" more props

- "Tundra-fy" more ground tiles, I've only got snowy soviet grass at the moment (this takes a lot of time, it'll be a while before I have roads included)

- Create more diverse maps, such as military bases or rural villages

Some images:

Of course, anyone can use the assets in the mod to create their own maps, there a lot of better and more experienced map makers out there, but please use the current tiles in the tundra folder, don't mix and match props from other tilesets, or if its really necessary, copy the tile images and spectre into the "copies" folder in the tundra tileset, and edit the spectre accordingly(make sure the spectre paths to the images in the tundra/copies/ folder, and not the previous path). It just makes it easier if a compilation of maps is done further down the line.

Versions:

V1.0: Initial tileset

V1.1: Overhauled the look of the tileset, added tall grass

V1.2: Added road, vehicles, rural tiles, 2 rural maps for light scout and scout/corvette

Enjoy

Download link (V1.1):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fb91wkio5t65fks/Khall%27s%20Tundra%20Tileset.rar

Edited November 5, 2014 by Khall

[Skitso]

Great looking stuff! Thanks for doing this.

[TacticalDragon]

Wao awesome work!

Thanks!

[Lt_Parsons]

Your tundra-fu is strong - it looks great!

(So much mods to try, so little time =)

[kabill]

Exciting!

(It's good to know that the Tundra tileset can actually be used in game, as well.)

[Theon Greyjoy]

Great work.

I wish there was a way to implement a civilian bear.

[kabill]

You could actually probably do that. It would have the same stats as anything else, and I don't know how well the AI would cope with using a melee weapon (if you cared about it actually attacking things). But otherwise it would just be a matter of doing the artwork, pretty much.

[Theon Greyjoy]

and I don't know how well the AI would cope with using a melee weapon

Problem?

There would also be the problem of the bear counting as a civilian in mission summary.

Pvt. Jenkins: Sir, all civilinas are dead, I repeat, all civlians are dead.

Cpl. Eales: Jenkins, are you blind, there is one still alive behind those trees.

Pvt. Jenkins: But, sir, that is a bear!

Cpl. Eales Cover the bear with your own body Jenkins. We cannot afford any more civilian casuelties.

Pvt. Jenkins: ?!

Cpl. Eales: Now look Jenkins, you're a good lad but Brezhnev is threatning that the Soviets will leave the alliance if we let anymore civilians die. They are already on the verge, Jenkins. Last week a light Ufo scout terrorised Kamchatka cos we didn't think that it was strategically important and none of our interceptors can fly to that God forsaken place.

Pvt. Jenkins: But why do they care about a bear?

Cpl. Eales: It's about national symbols, Jenkins. The aliens are targeting national symbols... Most of Mother Russia's distilleries have already been destroyed. Without vodka, bears are Russias only reliable manpower...If we let bears die too... the soviet block will surely fall.

Edited June 15, 2014 by Theon Greyjoy

[kabill]

You make a convincing case.

[Chris]

Nice. The original tundra tileset was originally planned to use the Soviet Town ground tiles - the pale green grass etc - along with those buildings. It was basically a rural version of the Soviet Town tileset (or rather it was literally us just making a Day-Z tileset). You could recreate that if you want, as we weren't planning to use many new tiles that weren't in the Soviet Town tileset already.

Otherwise I think you may end up a little too close to the Arctic tileset for the Tundra maps to have their own distinct identity.

[Khall]

Thanks everyone

Yeah, I remember you saying it was meant be rural soviet style when it was discussed ages ago, so I've been keeping that in mind. I also wanted to make it a little different than the soviet tileset, and with only arctic trees fitting the style (which i've tried to look less snowy), led to me making the ground look colder, and therefore also the props. Rural villages are what i'll be working on next, which will be eventually be the main identity for the tileset, with the current random forests and later on military bases to provide some variety. But they'll require more ground tiles such as roads, which takes a while to alter (the basic pale green grass in the tileset is just soviet grass with a semi-transparent overlay of artic snow, but it consists of 100 tiles and spectres which i did individually). I did forests first because it takes the least effort to produce a good amount of variation, just using a lot of random submaps. I've tried to differentiate the current forest maps from arctic forest by having them more densely filled with props (bushes, logs, etc.) and I'll see about adding that tall grass from the farm tileset to make it look more wild, so its a more unique experiance.

Any feedback about the maps or how i can improve tiles would be greatly appreciated (I think i might add grass around tree stumps, it looks a bit too clean at the moment)

Edited June 16, 2014 by Khall

[Skitso]

I took a quick look and while there's lots of good stuff, there's also few visual things I think you should improve on:

-Overall the tileset feels a bit too snowy and samey with arctic.

-Rocks, middle eastern shrubs and all the other props you've modified look somewhat too low contrast compared to the trees - is there anything you could do to preserve their outlines better and add contrast to match?

-Maybe also try to make trees have bit less snow to really differentiate it from the arctic tileset?

-I have to agree with Chris: I feel the ground texture (grass) is way too white and too close to arctic palette to feel different. Could you have the grass show a bit more through and maybe even make it variable so that there's more snow at some places and less in others to make the ground look less uniform?

-Adding tall grass in the tileset and around the stumps seems like a great idea - and while you are at it, you could fix the stree stumps in the farm tile set too.

When you get the tileset somewhat ready, I could make you some maps in this mod if you want.

Keep up the good work!

Edited June 16, 2014 by Skitso

[Khall]

I'll see if I can add the original outline to the props, when I used an overlay the first time I forgot to take into account the outline as well. I'll also play around some more with contrast and saturation.

I'm in the process of making the grass less snowy, it's around half of the current grass and the original soviet. I tried in the past to make the snow more variable, but when it came to fitting the ground submaps together, the edges didn't match, or if I left the edges alone, it was really noticeable where the submap ended. But with the grass texture showing through more, it should look a bit less flat.

The trees are still a bit too snowy, so I'll trying increasing the saturation more and make the snow greener and less bright, but there's only so much I can do with that snow texture and make it look natural.

I'll post some images later on my progress

There's not much else in the tileset at the moment but once I fix the current issues and add more rural props more maps would be great

[Khall]

Well I've made adjustments to a lot of props (bushes, rocks, logs, trees) and the grass, mainly contrast and brightness changes, to make it less arctic looking. Here's some comparisons

New rock vs old rock

Old tree vs new tree

Overall New vs Old

Just altering the rest of the current props before I add anything new. I'll finish this and add tall grass and new tree stumps before I update the download

Edited June 16, 2014 by Khall

[KevinHann]

Seems much better, mate! Keep up the good work!

[kabill]

Yeah, I think I like those changes too. The old ones were a bit snowy, the new ones have a frosty feeling to them instead.

[Skitso]

Yeah, I agree. Much better! Now just add more props and it'll be great! Destroyed trees still have snow though.

[Frakel]

Those changes look really well!

*Sigh* I dream of making a jungle/tropical tileset, but the prospect of making it all from scratch is disheartening.

But imagine doing Predator style missions in the dense jungle...

[Khall]

Ok, I've finished the tall grass and the tree stumps and made the grass on rocks the same texture

Overall look

I think that concludes the wilderness part of the tileset so far, unless there are any more suggestions (which are very welcome), so I'll start work on rural village props now. I've updated OP with a new download link with all the changes and some more images from ground combat.

Bonus for the farm tileset:

Edited June 16, 2014 by Khall

[Sentelin]

That looks awesome !!

[dpelectric]

Your changes have made it much better. When I saw this post initially I thought "meh, still basically arctic". Now it's taking on a distinct character of it's own. Great work, can't wait to see the finished product!

[Xitax]

I want to encourage you, but this does not look much like tundra. It looks like you merged snow and grass terrain literally and now it's sort of white-green. Tundra is characterized by brown (sometimes vibrant colors when flowers are in season) shrubby, wet nearly swampy, and rocky terrain with few trees. It does not in any way look partially white, except when it is actually snow.

The tree stumps look pretty nice, but I think they are too large to fit in with all the other trees, all together.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Xitax

[dpelectric]

These points may all be true ^ but it's not THE point, which is that at least the tileset is different. I'd play tundra maps if they featured nothing but floating jellyfish just to get some variety!

[Gauddlike]

Yeah don't get focused on the tundra name of the tileset, that is just what the game references.

Think of it more as the rural soviet tileset for all of those areas that are not farms but also not cities which are generally under represented.

[Xitax]

Sure thing, no problem. Go ahead and enjoy it.

I still think the terrain would be improved by having a generally brownish cast rather than the current color though, if nothing else.