CastleTutorial

2007-04-08T02:27:08Z

Pukeman12345: /* The Simple Castle Model */

== Building tileable castles - A tutorial ==

== Introduction To Castles ==

===Overview===

Wesnoth terrain graphics system allows the WML designer to create various
terrain graphics "models": rules that allow to determine how the different
terrain tiles will be displayed by the game. Those allow the terrain designer
to specify renderings that go beyond the simple "one terrain type = one image"
representation.

One of those terrain models is the Castle (it will be called like that,
"Castle", all along this document, although this model can be used for many
other terrain types, like, for example, caves.) Castles are created from two
type of elements: a castle floor, and a castle wall. Castle floors are normal,
basic tiles that are placed on each corresponding tile. As those really have
nothing special, they will not be detailed in this document. What we will
detail is how to build castle _walls_.

===The Simple Castle Model===

The Simple Castle Model is used to build castle walls, without keeps. Castle
walls are special transitions, that are drawn between Castle tiles, and
Non-Castle tiles. For example, imagine some castle tiles are disposed as shown
in figure (1); castle walls will then be drawn as shown in figure (2)

''(figure 1)'' http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images/figure1.png

''(figure 2)'' http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images/figure2.png

Castle Walls are composed of 12 different images (as show in figure 3), that
tile together. Those are positioned at the corners of the castle border, as
shown in figure 4.
"convex" images are positioned at convex borders, "concave" images are
positioned at concave borders (as it hopefully might be expected.) When we talk
about "concave", or "convex" borders, we always take the castle's interior
point of view.

''(figure 3)'' http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images/figure3.png

''(figure 4)'' http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images[[Image:Example.jpg]][[Media:Example.ogg]][[Media:Example.ogg]][[Media:Example.ogg]]<nowiki>Insert non-formatted text here</nowiki>--[[User:Pukeman12345|Pukeman12345]] 04:27, 8 April 2007 (CEST)--[[User:Pukeman12345|Pukeman12345]] 04:27, 8 April 2007 (CEST)
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== Headline text ==

===The Keep Model===

The Keep Model is created to build the special transitions that are used to
build a wall around the Keep of a Castle. Keeps are assumed to be always
composed of one tile (isolated from any other keep tile.)
Keeps are a little more complex than castles walls: they are built from 24
different images (see figure 5,) thus setting to 36 the number of images
required for a complete castle.

''(figure 5)'' http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images/figure5.png

There are 4 kinds of keep images: those representing keeps corners that are
outside of a castle, those representing keep corners that are inside of a
castle, and thos representing keep corners which are in the border; the last
one being divided in 2 categories, depending on the castle-keep tiles going
clockwise, or counter-clockwise (see figures 5 and 6.) Interior keep tiles are
supposed to tile with other interior keep tiles, and with corresponding
transition tiles; same for exterior keep tiles. Figure 6 illustrates the
different types of transitions for keep tiles.

''(figure 6)''

== The Wall ==

===Tile drawing problematics===

To draw tileable castles, one should start with drawing the wall. Some tileable
castles may only consist on a wall, without a keep (Think here that what we
call "Castles" in this document may apply to a lot of other terrains, built
with the same rules. Also think that some castle may have keeps that are normal
tiles.)
The 12 tiles that compose a wall are made from 2 groups of tiles, as stated
above: convex wall tiles, and concave wall tiles. Tiles for each one of those 2
groups are drawn together, then automatically cut out using a specialized
software. That way, only 2 graphics are necessary to generate those 2 tiles.

The main problem, as that should be inferred from reading the tile model
description, is making convex graphics tiling with concave graphics: as concave
graphics are drawn together, there is no problem making them tile together;
same with convex graphics. See figure 7 for an illustration of this problem: ||A and
B are drawn together, so they tile perfectly. However, we must make sure A will
correctly tile with C!||

''(figure 7)'' http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images/figure7.png

Geometry, and a good methodology, may be used to make those tile correctly.
This is possible, but, trust me, this is tedious. And hard to maintain. And
even harder to explain. And, the more complex the graphics are, the harder it
is. That is why ia helper tool was developed, to help in the process.
The helper tool we are talking about is called the Castle Exploder. We will
describe how to used it to build a complete castle.

===Preparing the work environment===

Before using the Exploder, you must prepare a work environment. The Exploder,
must be provided with files named according to a correct pattern in order to be
able to work.
Exploder files are named according to the type of image they represent. The
"type" of the image corresponds to the position of the different tiles that
compose the image. For example, the exploder recognizes any image that is
called foobar-convex.png as containing the 6 convex castle walls, disposed
around an hex.

There currently are 7 different image types; all of which are used to build a
complete castle with keep. Those are named:

* convex
* concave
* exploded-convex
* exploded-concave
* keep (not yet available)
* keep-walls (not yet available)
* keep-flower (not yet available)

''(figure 8)''

Forget about the last 3 ones for now; the 4 first ones are used to build
castles.

Download the castle project here:

http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/files/castle_project.zip

To prepare your work environment, unpack the castle_project.zip file in a
directory of your choice.

===Drawing The Convex Wall===

Open, using your favourite bitmap editor the file "castle-convex.png" (if your
favourite bitmap editor cannot open png files, I can't help you.) You will see
the following:

''(figure 10)'' http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images/figure10.png

Do not be afraid with all those coloured polygons! Those just are guides, that
will help you to position your image. If your bitmap editor handles layers, I
suggest you make the actual drawing on another layer, keeping this one to
provide guidelines. If it does not, you should just delete all this coloured
stuff.
The different hexes, corresponding to the position of the actual terrain hexes
in the game, are represented with a value change. The 6 different corners, that
will be cut into tileable pictures, are represented with a hue change.

This image is supposed to represent a convex castle tile: that is, a single
castle hex, followed by non-castle hexes all around. Draw the corresponding
graphics on it. You do not have to bother about them tiling together: they
will, as they were drawn together.

Some guidelines on drawing the wall: when drawing a wall, the TOP of the wall
(not the bottom) should be around the hex border (TODO: confirm this: this is
good for the positioning of units, but not so for villages near castles)
Ideally, a wall should not be higher than 1/4 of a tile (that is: 18 pixels).
Try to make the castle appear to be viewed under the same angle as other
castles, and villages.

Let's draw the wall (figure 11).

''(figure 11)'' http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images/figure11.png

===Exploding The Wall=== http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images/castle-exploder.png

Now, we must draw the concave version of the wall. To make sure it will
correctly tile with the convex version, we will not directly draw it in the
castle_concave.png image: we will draw it in an exploded version of the
castle_convex.png image. That is where the Exploder Tool comes into play.

Just open a terminal window, and type the following command:

exploder castle-convex.png castle-exploded-convex.png

The exploder will open the first file, extract from it the tiles it
recognizes, then put those on the second file, if there is a place to put
them (For example, exploding castle_concave.png to castle_convex.png is a
no-op, as those two pictures do not have any tile in common.)

''After the program finishing merging the tiles'', the castle-exploded-convex.png
file will then look like figure 12

''(figure 12)'' http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images/figure12.png

===Drawing The Concave Wall===

Draw the castle graphics on the 6 concave tiles, so that they tile correctly
with the convex tiles. It is useless to modify the concave tiles; if you have
inadvertently done so, you may explode back the castle_convex.png file on the
file you are working on. Do not worry: your work will not be lost; as the
exploder tool does only overwrite the portions of the image it actually
replaces.

''After you have drawn the missing castle corners'', the castle-exploded-convex.png
file should look like figure 13

''(figure 13)'' http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images/figure13.png

===Imploding Back the Concave Wall===

The concave tiles you drew should, magically, tile together. However, you may
want to ensure they actually do, and, if they don't, to correct them so they
do. Just implode back the castle_exploded-convex.png file into the
castle_concave.png file, using the command

exploder castle-exploded-convex.png castle-concave.png

It should look like as in figure 14.

''(figure 14)'' http://www.anathas.org/ayin/wesnoth/castle-tutorial/images/figure14.png

===Further manipulations===

===Cutting The Tiles For Use In The Game===

Once you have up-to-date castle_convex.png and castle_concave.png files, you
must cut them, so they are usable by Wesnoth. To do this, create a directory
where you want the cut tiles to be output (or you may just use the "output"
directory which already was created), and use the commands:

cutter castle-concave.png output
cutter castle-convex.png output

== Keeps ==

As it was said above, keeps are a little bit more complicated than castles.
Keep always being composed of one isolated tile, keep tiles always are convex,
however, they may have several different relationships with nerby castle tiles:
they may be inside of a castle, outside from a castle, or in a border.

===The keep views===

===Drawing interior and exterior keeps===

Keeps inside of a castle, and keeps outside of a castle, may be strictly
identical. However, for your graphics to be more "realistic," you may decide they
are different. For example, keep tiles located outside of a castle may have no
doors, less windows, they even may have a stronger wall, etc. Interior keep and
Exterior keep tiles do not need to tile together, as there always will be an
intermediate Border tile to make transition. They may be made separately;
however, keep in mind that you will have to make each transition between those.
If they are too different, transitions may be clunky.

===Making keep transitions===

===Flower Power===

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