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This is not an HD tileset but a tool for tileset creators. The title reflects that poorly, sorry. Do not pay attention to any specific textures. This is about how the new OpenBW tileset mechanism works.
Presenting a first peek of the OpenBW HD tileset mechanism.
This post is mostly targeted at map makers and 2D artists, explaining some of the internals of our tileset mechanism. All information is subject to change, since the OpenBW HD Tileset is currently under development.
OpenBW tilesets provide considerable improvements over original tilesets in terms of extendability and usability, while remaining fully backwards-compatible with original maps. A standard tile measures 64x64 pixels (versus the 32x32 from the original).
Each tile on the map uses three parameters:
- foreground texture identifier
- background texture identifier
- mask identifier
Thereby, transition tiles can be created by designing just a mask, independently of the textures used.
Textures can measure up to 1024x1024 pixels. This means, that an area as wide as 16x16 tiles can be covered with plain tiles without ever having to repeat a single pattern. Seamless blending of tiles becomes a non-issue. Only the large texture maps need to be designed such that they blend seamlessly.
OpenBW tilesets will also be exchangeable, such that the same map can be viewed in different themes.
For reference, see the top left main of Fighting Spirit in original tiles:
![[image loading]](http://www.openbw.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/original_32_tiles.png)
Above: Fighting Spirit top left position, original tileset
In the following three screenshots the individual original tiles are replaced with just transition masks, masking a 1024x1024 foreground texture onto a 1024x1024 background texture. The individual masks were created manually for each tile to imitate original transitions.
The first image uses a spaghetti background and a bolognese foreground texture to illustrate the point. Geyser and mineral patches are edited on top with Photoshop for easier orientation. Note how the bolognese substitutes jungle and the spaghetti substitutes dirt while the original shapes remain intact.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fbiXN7G.jpg)
Above: Fighting Spirit top left position, using spaghetti textures
For demonstration purposes only, the textures for the following image are taken from 0ad. However, exchanging textures is as easy as replacing two PNG images.
![[image loading]](http://www.openbw.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/openbw_1024_texture.png)
Above: Fighting Spirit top left position, using 0ad grass and dirt textures
To stress the point that really any two textures can be used and they work independently of the mask, here's a beach vegetation interpretation of FS:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6GO3On0.jpg)
Above: Fighting Spirit top left position, using 0ad beach and beach vegetation textures
In the images below, the two 0ad textures are replaced with original textures from Blizzard. The first image uses a 64x64 resolution, the second image uses an upscaled version of the original 32x32 resolution.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/adgh8y6.png)
Above: OpenBW tileset rendering using the original Blizzard textures 64x64
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/qNi7BLc.jpg)
Above: OpenBW tileset rendering using the original Blizzard textures 32x32 upscaled
As you can see, we arrive at an image that very closely resembles the original reference image.
As a next step, the masks used for transitions between different textures are generated using exchangeable algorithms to create natural looking borders. The prototype uses the midpoint displacement algorithm as well as the Koch curve algorithm to create borders, then applies a transparency gradient filter on top of it.
Demo:
![[image loading]](http://www.openbw.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/mask_blending.png)
from left to right:
- foreground texture
- background texture
- manually created mask for reference
- result using manual mask
- mask generated with midpoint displacement algorithm
- result
- mask generated with Koch curve algorithm
- result
There is clearly room for improvement. However, generated masks will bring the additional benefit of perfectly matching borders, apart from the reduced workload. Individual masks can always be improved manually in a second step.
We hope that this project appeals to map makers and pixel artists, as well as anyone interested in BW maps. Due to the backwards compatibility it will be possible to see (and play) every current map based on the Jungle theme in the new OpenBW tileset. Other tilesets will follow depending on community contributions. If you are interested in contributing, please get in touch.
Bonus: Some cliffs
+ Show Spoiler +
Edit 1: rephrased paragraphs and updated images to better reflect that the post is about how the OpenBW tileset works, rather than individual textures, which have been chosen only for illustration purposes.
Edit 2: Added beach image and captions for all images
Edit 3: Added spaghetti textures to make extra-sure readers won't judge the textures as "looking worse than the original"
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i like first the most 
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On January 30 2017 18:23 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:i like first the most
the textures aren't finalized, this is more about the concept and algorithm behind it, which from what i can gather is pretty awesome.
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At first I wasn't sure how to feel about it but the more I look at it the more it is growing on me.
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On January 30 2017 18:23 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:i like first the most
Same here to be honest. The original is just the best (well, that is just my opinion).
I don't get why people try to make a HD version themselves anyways (nor why blizzard should make one xD).
Edit: While playing (or even obsing/casting) I assume that no one pays attention to the map anyways (doesn't matter whether HD or original) because there is simply no time to focus on that, there are more important things to look for.
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On January 30 2017 23:01 RedW4rr10r wrote:Same here to be honest. The original is just the best (well, that is just my opinion). I don't get why people try to make a HD version themselves anyways (nor why blizzard should make one xD). Edit: While playing (or even obsing/casting) I assume that no one pays attention to the map anyways (doesn't matter whether HD or original) because there is simply no time to focus on that, there are more important things to look for.
See my answer above with some impressions of our tileset mechanism combined with Blizzards textures.
As to why we are making our own version:
The long-term goal is to play OpenBW without any dependencies to Blizzard. As long as any dependencies exist, we will always require users to own a legal copy of the original game.
Furthermore:
Ever tried making a broader ramp or similar in a BW map? With our tool it will be a piece of cake.
You're a modder and want that grass to be just a tiny tad darker? Easy as adjusting the brightness of your grass texture, and it will automatically be applied to all tiles in the map.
Edit: IMO you also underestimate the importance of a good tileset when it comes to map making. You will want everything to work together smoothly out of the box and focus on important aspects such as high/low ground, main sizes, rush distances etc., without having to manually adjust things.
A good example of how that is currently not the case can be easily observed here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/467815-qmapmaking-instantly-change-of-tileset
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On January 31 2017 00:06 imp42 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2017 23:01 RedW4rr10r wrote:On January 30 2017 18:23 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:i like first the most Same here to be honest. The original is just the best (well, that is just my opinion). I don't get why people try to make a HD version themselves anyways (nor why blizzard should make one xD). Edit: While playing (or even obsing/casting) I assume that no one pays attention to the map anyways (doesn't matter whether HD or original) because there is simply no time to focus on that, there are more important things to look for. See my answer above with some impressions of our tileset mechanism combined with Blizzards textures. As to why we are making our own version: The long-term goal is to play OpenBW without any dependencies to Blizzard. As long as any dependencies exist, we will always require users to own a legal copy of the original game. Furthermore: Ever tried making a broader ramp or similar in a BW map? With our tool it will be a piece of cake. You're a modder and want that grass to be just a tiny tad darker? Easy as adjusting the brightness of your grass texture, and it will automatically be applied to all tiles in the map. Edit: IMO you also underestimate the importance of a good tileset when it comes to map making. You will want everything to work together smoothly out of the box and focus on important aspects such as high/low ground, main sizes, rush distances etc., without having to manually adjust things. A good example of how that is currently not the case can be easily observed here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/467815-qmapmaking-instantly-change-of-tileset
ok this is officially awesome as fuck, might persuade me to take up bw mapmaking again when it comes out
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Looks good but really different. Make it more darker, greener and closer to original one.
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What lovely feedback lol.
The higher resolution certainly looks better, but the more realistic one looks a bit funny with the old minerals and geyser... Just the contrast and stuff is what throws me off about it. Maybe with the BW HD version it would look better, but the 64x64 screen is the best looking one to me. I'm sure that some of it is simply what we're used to, and if it got adopted, with time both tilesets would be good.
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imp42 thanks for the explanation,maybe i just need to adapt,but it reminds games like platoon and Contra with better graphics :D
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Props to Imp for engaging in this project. However, I'd have to agree with those who say the original tileset looks best of the ones shown so far.
The one with the dramatic color change looks odd to me/is too much of a change.
The HD one seems to be suffering from some sort of 'tiling' issue, where you see small textures being repeated ad infinitum. Or at least, that's the effect.
The upsampled one just looks like the original, but very slightly blurrier.
Don't doubt that the BW tilesets can be made to look better than the originals, but none of these are it, IMO.
Good luck with your project, it's pretty cool nonetheless.
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mate if you ask me, you should pretend you live in russia and host openbw.com at a russian web host.
that way activision-blizzard corporation, a corporation worth over $10 billlion, can never pull up some obscure copyright law hidden in an american law book and go after you and your project with their team of highly-paid lawyers. you can say you're careful about not infringing copyright all you want, but if openbw in any becomes a competitor to any of their products (ie. broodwar), they will figure out a way to go after you with some IP infringement bullshit.
oh wait, you already are russian anyway, forget everything i said (wink, wink)
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On January 31 2017 06:36 [[Starlight]] wrote:
Props to Imp for engaging in this project. However, I'd have to agree with those who say the original tileset looks best of the ones shown so far.
The one with the dramatic color change looks odd to me/is too much of a change.
The HD one seems to be suffering from some sort of 'tiling' issue, where you see small textures being repeated ad infinitum. Or at least, that's the effect.
The upsampled one just looks like the original, but very slightly blurrier.
Don't doubt that the BW tilesets can be made to look better than the originals, but none of these are it, IMO.
Good luck with your project, it's pretty cool nonetheless.
Seems like I failed hard to properly communicate the content / purpose of the OP. All textures you see are just for illustration purposes. the post is about the how the tileset mechanism works. It now states this in big red letters at the beginning. I will also provide a Spaghetti Bolognese texture to make the point clearer 
Edit: here we go, Fighting Spirit as Spaghetti Bolognese:
:p
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On January 31 2017 07:34 imp42 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2017 06:36 [[Starlight]] wrote:
Props to Imp for engaging in this project. However, I'd have to agree with those who say the original tileset looks best of the ones shown so far.
The one with the dramatic color change looks odd to me/is too much of a change.
The HD one seems to be suffering from some sort of 'tiling' issue, where you see small textures being repeated ad infinitum. Or at least, that's the effect.
The upsampled one just looks like the original, but very slightly blurrier.
Don't doubt that the BW tilesets can be made to look better than the originals, but none of these are it, IMO.
Good luck with your project, it's pretty cool nonetheless.
Seems like I failed hard to properly communicate the content / purpose of the OP. All textures you see are just for illustration purposes. the post is about the how the tileset mechanism works. It now states this in big red letters at the beginning. I will also provide a Spaghetti Bolognese texture to make the point clearer Edit: here we go, Fighting Spirit as Spaghetti Bolognese:
Mmm... tasty. 
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Upscaled tileset looks good. Better than original.
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fighting bolognese is amazing!
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On January 31 2017 09:11 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
fighting bolognese is amazing!
now you're getting it 
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Brood War but the entire game is food.
I'd play and eat it.
I'm excited for the modding opportunities with tools like these. Maybe we can see a Carbot mod in OpenBW one day
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On January 31 2017 09:17 eviltomahawk wrote:Brood War but the entire game is food. I'd play and eat it. I'm excited for the modding opportunities with tools like these. Maybe we can see a Carbot mod in OpenBW one day
I was gonna ask him. But then I learned that somehow Blizz is involved in his design company that he built with their help or something along those lines, so it might not be the best idea.
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@OP: Make sure you take some of these criticisms with a measure of salt:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure_effect
Although I'm sure you're more familiar with this effect than I am given the nature of your work.
Keep up the great work! My personal opinion would be that you could generate multiple options for tileset substitutes and then poll the options or use your own discretion, given that Fighting Bolognese didn't seem like it was too hard to make
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On January 31 2017 07:34 imp42 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2017 06:36 [[Starlight]] wrote:
Props to Imp for engaging in this project. However, I'd have to agree with those who say the original tileset looks best of the ones shown so far.
The one with the dramatic color change looks odd to me/is too much of a change.
The HD one seems to be suffering from some sort of 'tiling' issue, where you see small textures being repeated ad infinitum. Or at least, that's the effect.
The upsampled one just looks like the original, but very slightly blurrier.
Don't doubt that the BW tilesets can be made to look better than the originals, but none of these are it, IMO.
Good luck with your project, it's pretty cool nonetheless.
Seems like I failed hard to properly communicate the content / purpose of the OP. All textures you see are just for illustration purposes. the post is about the how the tileset mechanism works. It now states this in big red letters at the beginning. I will also provide a Spaghetti Bolognese texture to make the point clearer Edit: here we go, Fighting Spirit as Spaghetti Bolognese: :p
Ok, I also totally got you wrong and misunderstood your thoughts and concept, sorry
That bolognese illustration should make that clear indeed and is just awesome xD
So yeah, that project should give map makers a lot more opportunities to create maps as they want them to be.
On January 31 2017 00:06 imp42 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2017 23:01 RedW4rr10r wrote:On January 30 2017 18:23 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:i like first the most Same here to be honest. The original is just the best (well, that is just my opinion). I don't get why people try to make a HD version themselves anyways (nor why blizzard should make one xD). Edit: While playing (or even obsing/casting) I assume that no one pays attention to the map anyways (doesn't matter whether HD or original) because there is simply no time to focus on that, there are more important things to look for. A good example of how that is currently not the case can be easily observed here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/467815-qmapmaking-instantly-change-of-tileset
Those comparisons, if you try to convert the jungle tileset to another 1:1 just gives you eye cancer, especially that space FS is just horrible :D
So yes, I'm getting your point now
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Very cool! I was curious about how you would go about solving map texturing when you first announced OpenBW, this should solve some of the problems with repeating tilesets that plague other HD versions of older games.
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On January 31 2017 00:06 imp42 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2017 23:01 RedW4rr10r wrote:On January 30 2017 18:23 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:i like first the most Same here to be honest. The original is just the best (well, that is just my opinion). I don't get why people try to make a HD version themselves anyways (nor why blizzard should make one xD). Edit: While playing (or even obsing/casting) I assume that no one pays attention to the map anyways (doesn't matter whether HD or original) because there is simply no time to focus on that, there are more important things to look for. See my answer above with some impressions of our tileset mechanism combined with Blizzards textures. As to why we are making our own version: The long-term goal is to play OpenBW without any dependencies to Blizzard. As long as any dependencies exist, we will always require users to own a legal copy of the original game. Furthermore: Ever tried making a broader ramp or similar in a BW map? With our tool it will be a piece of cake. You're a modder and want that grass to be just a tiny tad darker? Easy as adjusting the brightness of your grass texture, and it will automatically be applied to all tiles in the map. Edit: IMO you also underestimate the importance of a good tileset when it comes to map making. You will want everything to work together smoothly out of the box and focus on important aspects such as high/low ground, main sizes, rush distances etc., without having to manually adjust things. A good example of how that is currently not the case can be easily observed here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/467815-qmapmaking-instantly-change-of-tileset
"Ever tried making a broader ramp or similar in a BW map? With our tool it will be a piece of cake."
I've been making maps since like 2006-7 or something like that, and I was introduced to SCMDraft2.0 (the map editor that allows copy/pasting, tileset indexed, rectangular terrain, etc) around 2007-8. This was the first time I learned how to make inverted or extended ramps (tile by tile, and even then they were buggy because of elevation differences and tile properties I did not know about). So ever since then ramps, or even terrain in general, have been a pain to deal with, and can be an annoying limitation when making a map.
So here are my questions, pardon my curiosity:
How will OpenBW HD make this easier for map makers?
Will there be a map editor that comes along with it, or no?
--> If yes, what capabilities would it have?
Since the game seems to run on a background of individual tiles and subtiles (the 32x32 grids inside tiles with different properties), and the original BW already has a set number of tiles per tileset (can be seen in the SCMDraft tileset indexed menu), would the ability to make different types of terrain basically introduce new tiles with new properties that didn't exist in original BW?
And assuming unit AI and pathfinding (what I as a mapmaker have assumed for the longest time and take into consideration when making maps) seems to be a continuous improvisation of a viable path for each unit (behaving differently when grouped or not grouped and taking into account the "magic box") every few seconds or so, won't new or modified tiles produce unit pathfinding that could possibly never occur in the original BW?
I say this because one of the most reliable ways to debug resources on maps is a method of actually changing some walkable terrain somewhere else on the map, and somehow this changes pathing around the whole map very slightly, with the effect of sometimes fixing resource gathering or screwing it up somewhere else.
I don't know how much sense I'm making here lol, but maybe you can get the gist of what I am asking and can give an explanation that gets to the heart of what I'm alluding to here, I asked too many questions. I'm also open to being proven wrong in my assumptions on how the game works.
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On January 31 2017 18:51 JungleTerrain wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2017 00:06 imp42 wrote:On January 30 2017 23:01 RedW4rr10r wrote:On January 30 2017 18:23 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:i like first the most Same here to be honest. The original is just the best (well, that is just my opinion). I don't get why people try to make a HD version themselves anyways (nor why blizzard should make one xD). Edit: While playing (or even obsing/casting) I assume that no one pays attention to the map anyways (doesn't matter whether HD or original) because there is simply no time to focus on that, there are more important things to look for. See my answer above with some impressions of our tileset mechanism combined with Blizzards textures. As to why we are making our own version: The long-term goal is to play OpenBW without any dependencies to Blizzard. As long as any dependencies exist, we will always require users to own a legal copy of the original game. Furthermore: Ever tried making a broader ramp or similar in a BW map? With our tool it will be a piece of cake. You're a modder and want that grass to be just a tiny tad darker? Easy as adjusting the brightness of your grass texture, and it will automatically be applied to all tiles in the map. Edit: IMO you also underestimate the importance of a good tileset when it comes to map making. You will want everything to work together smoothly out of the box and focus on important aspects such as high/low ground, main sizes, rush distances etc., without having to manually adjust things. A good example of how that is currently not the case can be easily observed here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/467815-qmapmaking-instantly-change-of-tileset "Ever tried making a broader ramp or similar in a BW map? With our tool it will be a piece of cake." I've been making maps since like 2006-7 or something like that, and I was introduced to SCMDraft2.0 (the map editor that allows copy/pasting, tileset indexed, rectangular terrain, etc) around 2007-8. This was the first time I learned how to make inverted or extended ramps (tile by tile, and even then they were buggy because of elevation differences and tile properties I did not know about). So ever since then ramps, or even terrain in general, have been a pain to deal with, and can be an annoying limitation when making a map. So here are my questions, pardon my curiosity: How will OpenBW HD make this easier for map makers? Will there be a map editor that comes along with it, or no? --> If yes, what capabilities would it have? Since the game seems to run on a background of individual tiles and subtiles (the 32x32 grids inside tiles with different properties), and the original BW already has a set number of tiles per tileset (can be seen in the SCMDraft tileset indexed menu), would the ability to make different types of terrain basically introduce new tiles with new properties that didn't exist in original BW? And assuming unit AI and pathfinding (what I as a mapmaker have assumed for the longest time and take into consideration when making maps) seems to be a continuous improvisation of a viable path for each unit (behaving differently when grouped or not grouped and taking into account the "magic box") every few seconds or so, won't new or modified tiles produce unit pathfinding that could possibly never occur in the original BW? I say this because one of the most reliable ways to debug resources on maps is a method of actually changing some walkable terrain somewhere else on the map, and somehow this changes pathing around the whole map very slightly, with the effect of sometimes fixing resource gathering or screwing it up somewhere else. I don't know how much sense I'm making here lol, but maybe you can get the gist of what I am asking and can give an explanation that gets to the heart of what I'm alluding to here, I asked too many questions. I'm also open to being proven wrong in my assumptions on how the game works.
First of all, excellent input. I was hoping to get a comment like this. To be honest, despite dealing with Brood War at quite a deep level for several months now, I'm fairly new to map making. So I could miss a lot of details.
I've been using SCM Draft heavily for the "reverse engineering" of maps. Let me try to elaborate a bit using the ramp as an example.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oP7evln.png)
Top left you see the original top-right/bottom-left ramp. Dots in red indicate fully walkable paths (I didn't double-check those, I just know all maps have a fully walkable path and my manual marking is good enough for illustration purposes).
Top right: extending a ramp such that it becomes wider while still fitting the same cliff angle is as easy as cutting out a staircase shape and shifting the tiles 1 down, 1 to the right (red dots are shifted to orange dots). If you want to extend the ramp less than that you can also just shift 1 down or 1 to the right. As a result, the cliff won't match its original diagonal line anymore. But that's not a big issue, you can just extend the cliff shifted by one tile as well.
So far everything is fully compatible with original Brood War out-of-the-box.
bottom left: the original top-left/bottom-right ramp
bottom right: if we want to create the bottom-right/top-left ramp, which does not exist in original Brood War, things get a bit more complicated. First, we can simply rotate the original ramp by 180 degrees. This will correctly place the fully walkable tiles correctly, but it will look bad (see the area circled in red). Propably we would want the tiles in that area to have a different design and possibly even make the dotted tiles walkable.
In OpenBW this is just a matter of painting new tiles, but original maps use some "hacks" to make it look good. They borrow tiles from another design. This can best be seen here:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/vCqmmKs.png)
Above you see the inversed map used in Fighting Spirit, with the green numbers indicating tile index and sub-index.
In the red are you see an alien 41.12 tile inserted. It makes the top border look pretty good, but you can also clearly see a sharp line at the tile border because it doesn't match perfectly.
If we wan't to remain backward-compatible with such "hacks", then the tile designer of the 41.12 HD version must keep that in mind, which complicates matters.
Wrt your other questions: yes, there will be some form of map editor. In a first step it will most likely target tileset creators more than map creators. This is simply because getting existing maps to look good in a HD tileset has priority over creating new maps directly in the HD tileset, and currently it's just me working on it. If anybody wants to step forward and help out he will get all the support necessary.
It is likely that OpenBW will contain new tiles with new properties, such that new OpenBW maps cannot be played in the original BW. It's a priority that old maps run in the new mode. Remaining compatible in the other direction as well would probably restrict us too much.
For the all-important pathing we're looking into a real-time pathing prediction which you can use in the editor.
by the way: walkability has mini-tile resolution, so there are partially walkable tiles. The concept of shifting and rotating applies to them in exactly the same way.
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On February 01 2017 01:18 imp42 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2017 18:51 JungleTerrain wrote:On January 31 2017 00:06 imp42 wrote:On January 30 2017 23:01 RedW4rr10r wrote:On January 30 2017 18:23 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:i like first the most Same here to be honest. The original is just the best (well, that is just my opinion). I don't get why people try to make a HD version themselves anyways (nor why blizzard should make one xD). Edit: While playing (or even obsing/casting) I assume that no one pays attention to the map anyways (doesn't matter whether HD or original) because there is simply no time to focus on that, there are more important things to look for. See my answer above with some impressions of our tileset mechanism combined with Blizzards textures. As to why we are making our own version: The long-term goal is to play OpenBW without any dependencies to Blizzard. As long as any dependencies exist, we will always require users to own a legal copy of the original game. Furthermore: Ever tried making a broader ramp or similar in a BW map? With our tool it will be a piece of cake. You're a modder and want that grass to be just a tiny tad darker? Easy as adjusting the brightness of your grass texture, and it will automatically be applied to all tiles in the map. Edit: IMO you also underestimate the importance of a good tileset when it comes to map making. You will want everything to work together smoothly out of the box and focus on important aspects such as high/low ground, main sizes, rush distances etc., without having to manually adjust things. A good example of how that is currently not the case can be easily observed here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/467815-qmapmaking-instantly-change-of-tileset "Ever tried making a broader ramp or similar in a BW map? With our tool it will be a piece of cake." I've been making maps since like 2006-7 or something like that, and I was introduced to SCMDraft2.0 (the map editor that allows copy/pasting, tileset indexed, rectangular terrain, etc) around 2007-8. This was the first time I learned how to make inverted or extended ramps (tile by tile, and even then they were buggy because of elevation differences and tile properties I did not know about). So ever since then ramps, or even terrain in general, have been a pain to deal with, and can be an annoying limitation when making a map. So here are my questions, pardon my curiosity: How will OpenBW HD make this easier for map makers? Will there be a map editor that comes along with it, or no? --> If yes, what capabilities would it have? Since the game seems to run on a background of individual tiles and subtiles (the 32x32 grids inside tiles with different properties), and the original BW already has a set number of tiles per tileset (can be seen in the SCMDraft tileset indexed menu), would the ability to make different types of terrain basically introduce new tiles with new properties that didn't exist in original BW? And assuming unit AI and pathfinding (what I as a mapmaker have assumed for the longest time and take into consideration when making maps) seems to be a continuous improvisation of a viable path for each unit (behaving differently when grouped or not grouped and taking into account the "magic box") every few seconds or so, won't new or modified tiles produce unit pathfinding that could possibly never occur in the original BW? I say this because one of the most reliable ways to debug resources on maps is a method of actually changing some walkable terrain somewhere else on the map, and somehow this changes pathing around the whole map very slightly, with the effect of sometimes fixing resource gathering or screwing it up somewhere else. I don't know how much sense I'm making here lol, but maybe you can get the gist of what I am asking and can give an explanation that gets to the heart of what I'm alluding to here, I asked too many questions. I'm also open to being proven wrong in my assumptions on how the game works. First of all, excellent input. I was hoping to get a comment like this. To be honest, despite dealing with Brood War at quite a deep level for several months now, I'm fairly new to map making. So I could miss a lot of details. I've been using SCM Draft heavily for the "reverse engineering" of maps. Let me try to elaborate a bit using the ramp as an example. Top left you see the original top-right/bottom-left ramp. Dots in red indicate fully walkable paths (I didn't double-check those, I just know all maps have a fully walkable path and my manual marking is good enough for illustration purposes). Top right: extending a ramp such that it becomes wider while still fitting the same cliff angle is as easy as cutting out a staircase shape and shifting the tiles 1 down, 1 to the right (red dots are shifted to orange dots). If you want to extend the ramp less than that you can also just shift 1 down or 1 to the right. As a result, the cliff won't match its original diagonal line anymore. But that's not a big issue, you can just extend the cliff shifted by one tile as well. So far everything is fully compatible with original Brood War out-of-the-box. bottom left: the original top-left/bottom-right ramp bottom right: if we want to create the bottom-right/top-left ramp, which does not exist in original Brood War, things get a bit more complicated. First, we can simply rotate the original ramp by 180 degrees. This will correctly place the fully walkable tiles correctly, but it will look bad (see the area circled in red). Propably we would want the tiles in that area to have a different design and possibly even make the dotted tiles walkable. In OpenBW this is just a matter of painting new tiles, but original maps use some "hacks" to make it look good. They borrow tiles from another design. This can best be seen here: Above you see the inversed map used in Fighting Spirit, with the green numbers indicating tile index and sub-index. In the red are you see an alien 41.12 tile inserted. It makes the top border look pretty good, but you can also clearly see a sharp line at the tile border because it doesn't match perfectly. If we wan't to remain backward-compatible with such "hacks", then the tile designer of the 41.12 HD version must keep that in mind, which complicates matters. Wrt your other questions: yes, there will be some form of map editor. In a first step it will most likely target tileset creators more than map creators. This is simply because getting existing maps to look good in a HD tileset has priority over creating new maps directly in the HD tileset, and currently it's just me working on it. If anybody wants to step forward and help out he will get all the support necessary. It is likely that OpenBW will contain new tiles with new properties, such that new OpenBW maps cannot be played in the original BW. It's a priority that old maps run in the new mode. Remaining compatible in the other direction as well would probably restrict us too much. For the all-important pathing we're looking into a real-time pathing prediction which you can use in the editor. by the way: walkability has mini-tile resolution, so there are partially walkable tiles. The concept of shifting and rotating applies to them in exactly the same way.
Ok, so the terrain will have to be dealt with by the individual who is working with the tiles... thanks for the response, this project you are working on is awesome, I imagine being the only person working on this so far must be difficult.
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On February 01 2017 16:31 JungleTerrain wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2017 01:18 imp42 wrote:On January 31 2017 18:51 JungleTerrain wrote:On January 31 2017 00:06 imp42 wrote:On January 30 2017 23:01 RedW4rr10r wrote:On January 30 2017 18:23 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:i like first the most Same here to be honest. The original is just the best (well, that is just my opinion). I don't get why people try to make a HD version themselves anyways (nor why blizzard should make one xD). Edit: While playing (or even obsing/casting) I assume that no one pays attention to the map anyways (doesn't matter whether HD or original) because there is simply no time to focus on that, there are more important things to look for. See my answer above with some impressions of our tileset mechanism combined with Blizzards textures. As to why we are making our own version: The long-term goal is to play OpenBW without any dependencies to Blizzard. As long as any dependencies exist, we will always require users to own a legal copy of the original game. Furthermore: Ever tried making a broader ramp or similar in a BW map? With our tool it will be a piece of cake. You're a modder and want that grass to be just a tiny tad darker? Easy as adjusting the brightness of your grass texture, and it will automatically be applied to all tiles in the map. Edit: IMO you also underestimate the importance of a good tileset when it comes to map making. You will want everything to work together smoothly out of the box and focus on important aspects such as high/low ground, main sizes, rush distances etc., without having to manually adjust things. A good example of how that is currently not the case can be easily observed here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/brood-war/467815-qmapmaking-instantly-change-of-tileset "Ever tried making a broader ramp or similar in a BW map? With our tool it will be a piece of cake." I've been making maps since like 2006-7 or something like that, and I was introduced to SCMDraft2.0 (the map editor that allows copy/pasting, tileset indexed, rectangular terrain, etc) around 2007-8. This was the first time I learned how to make inverted or extended ramps (tile by tile, and even then they were buggy because of elevation differences and tile properties I did not know about). So ever since then ramps, or even terrain in general, have been a pain to deal with, and can be an annoying limitation when making a map. So here are my questions, pardon my curiosity: How will OpenBW HD make this easier for map makers? Will there be a map editor that comes along with it, or no? --> If yes, what capabilities would it have? Since the game seems to run on a background of individual tiles and subtiles (the 32x32 grids inside tiles with different properties), and the original BW already has a set number of tiles per tileset (can be seen in the SCMDraft tileset indexed menu), would the ability to make different types of terrain basically introduce new tiles with new properties that didn't exist in original BW? And assuming unit AI and pathfinding (what I as a mapmaker have assumed for the longest time and take into consideration when making maps) seems to be a continuous improvisation of a viable path for each unit (behaving differently when grouped or not grouped and taking into account the "magic box") every few seconds or so, won't new or modified tiles produce unit pathfinding that could possibly never occur in the original BW? I say this because one of the most reliable ways to debug resources on maps is a method of actually changing some walkable terrain somewhere else on the map, and somehow this changes pathing around the whole map very slightly, with the effect of sometimes fixing resource gathering or screwing it up somewhere else. I don't know how much sense I'm making here lol, but maybe you can get the gist of what I am asking and can give an explanation that gets to the heart of what I'm alluding to here, I asked too many questions. I'm also open to being proven wrong in my assumptions on how the game works. First of all, excellent input. I was hoping to get a comment like this. To be honest, despite dealing with Brood War at quite a deep level for several months now, I'm fairly new to map making. So I could miss a lot of details. I've been using SCM Draft heavily for the "reverse engineering" of maps. Let me try to elaborate a bit using the ramp as an example. Top left you see the original top-right/bottom-left ramp. Dots in red indicate fully walkable paths (I didn't double-check those, I just know all maps have a fully walkable path and my manual marking is good enough for illustration purposes). Top right: extending a ramp such that it becomes wider while still fitting the same cliff angle is as easy as cutting out a staircase shape and shifting the tiles 1 down, 1 to the right (red dots are shifted to orange dots). If you want to extend the ramp less than that you can also just shift 1 down or 1 to the right. As a result, the cliff won't match its original diagonal line anymore. But that's not a big issue, you can just extend the cliff shifted by one tile as well. So far everything is fully compatible with original Brood War out-of-the-box. bottom left: the original top-left/bottom-right ramp bottom right: if we want to create the bottom-right/top-left ramp, which does not exist in original Brood War, things get a bit more complicated. First, we can simply rotate the original ramp by 180 degrees. This will correctly place the fully walkable tiles correctly, but it will look bad (see the area circled in red). Propably we would want the tiles in that area to have a different design and possibly even make the dotted tiles walkable. In OpenBW this is just a matter of painting new tiles, but original maps use some "hacks" to make it look good. They borrow tiles from another design. This can best be seen here: Above you see the inversed map used in Fighting Spirit, with the green numbers indicating tile index and sub-index. In the red are you see an alien 41.12 tile inserted. It makes the top border look pretty good, but you can also clearly see a sharp line at the tile border because it doesn't match perfectly. If we wan't to remain backward-compatible with such "hacks", then the tile designer of the 41.12 HD version must keep that in mind, which complicates matters. Wrt your other questions: yes, there will be some form of map editor. In a first step it will most likely target tileset creators more than map creators. This is simply because getting existing maps to look good in a HD tileset has priority over creating new maps directly in the HD tileset, and currently it's just me working on it. If anybody wants to step forward and help out he will get all the support necessary. It is likely that OpenBW will contain new tiles with new properties, such that new OpenBW maps cannot be played in the original BW. It's a priority that old maps run in the new mode. Remaining compatible in the other direction as well would probably restrict us too much. For the all-important pathing we're looking into a real-time pathing prediction which you can use in the editor. by the way: walkability has mini-tile resolution, so there are partially walkable tiles. The concept of shifting and rotating applies to them in exactly the same way. Ok, so the terrain will have to be dealt with by the individual who is working with the tiles...
In other words: since the tileset is easily extendable things like extended ramps can simply be added as predefined subsets ready to be copy-pasted. And creating the subset itself is also easy.
I imagine being the only person working on this so far must be difficult.
I do get a lot of support by tscmoo regarding the internals of BW and quuad was the one who suggested using 1024x1024 textures. It's just that I'm the only one coding atm., which affects speed.
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This is so awesome I cannot express it enough. I fully support the work you do. The results you presented are very promising, can't wait for more!
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That pizza tileset getting me hangry.
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Question: Are map makers able to mirror half a map or rotate a quarter of a map with current tools?
(at least horizontal mirroring should be feasible)
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On February 07 2017 16:39 imp42 wrote:
Question: Are map makers able to mirror half a map or rotate a quarter of a map with current tools?
(at least horizontal mirroring should be feasible)
current tools allow reflectional symmetry, but not rotational symmetry, that's all done manually.
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On February 07 2017 16:39 imp42 wrote:
Question: Are map makers able to mirror half a map or rotate a quarter of a map with current tools?
(at least horizontal mirroring should be feasible)
download SCMDraft2 here so u can sample the terrain mirroring tools yourself.
http://stormcoast-fortress.net/downloads/scmdraft2ZIP/
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Rotational symmetry can only be approximated due to the cliffs. But maybe something can be done to at least reduce manual work somewhat.
I missed the mirror function in SCM Draft, thx for pointing out there is one.
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Very interesting work you've been doing imp42!
Your whole project is incredible and would help extend BWs life indefinitely.
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Highly relevant, regarding symmetry (abstract: How naive y-mirroring gives bad results and how to avoid it). A good auto-mirroring tool should observe this (i.e. at least give the option to automate the kind of modified mirroring described).
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.openbw.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/cliffs_demo.png)
