Hex tileset needs very large y offsets, problems ensue
Posted: Tue Nov 12, 2013 5:44 pm
So I'm making a new tileset. 128px for the first version (then I'll see about scaling it down to 96, 64, and 32). But I'm having issues with the y offsets (i.e. for unit and shield gfx), specifically that they need to be far larger than I'd expect them to be. For my 128px version it's around 160px, meaning that with a 0 offset, the unit graphics are all completely outside and above the base tile graphic.
That's if I use graphics that are cut close to the visible pixels. (At this point, I'm just linking to unit PNGs from existing sets.) I can also use very tall images with a big transparent space at the top. But that (1) leads to sloppy tile resources, and (2) doesn't solve the real problem: the support/garrison section of the city management window gets absurdly tall to make room for the unit images. To be clear, the images aren't themselves large, the game just seems to include either the offset (if I use offsets) or the extra pixels (if I pad the images) as part of the unit's total height.
Making things worse, I only seem able to move the unit and shield by using an offset property, but not the action/rank icons or HP bars. To get those to line up visually, I'm forced to use the tall image option for at least those graphics. So there's no way to know whether moving everything with offsets would solve the problem.
Looking at some of the non-hex iso sets (e.g. amplio), y offsets for even the larger sets are closer to around 8--16px. But even a smaller hex tileset like hex2t has an offset of around 60px, which is 50% larger than its tile widths, has garrison/support views that are taller than they need to be, and uses order/rank graphics that are much larger than just the visible pixels. Based on this, I'm guessing that my own set suffers from the same placement issues (perhaps even a proper bug?) but they are more pronounced because I'm making much larger base tiles.
tl;dr:
When making a large (128px) hex tileset, I get garrison/support views that are ridiculously large (added whitespace, not stretched images). And I cannot solve this by changing y offsets. Also consider that if my offsets are set to 0, the unit graphics sit well above (completely outside) the tile graphic.
If I have time, I'll get around to taking some screenies and doing a little more testing.
That's if I use graphics that are cut close to the visible pixels. (At this point, I'm just linking to unit PNGs from existing sets.) I can also use very tall images with a big transparent space at the top. But that (1) leads to sloppy tile resources, and (2) doesn't solve the real problem: the support/garrison section of the city management window gets absurdly tall to make room for the unit images. To be clear, the images aren't themselves large, the game just seems to include either the offset (if I use offsets) or the extra pixels (if I pad the images) as part of the unit's total height.
Making things worse, I only seem able to move the unit and shield by using an offset property, but not the action/rank icons or HP bars. To get those to line up visually, I'm forced to use the tall image option for at least those graphics. So there's no way to know whether moving everything with offsets would solve the problem.
Looking at some of the non-hex iso sets (e.g. amplio), y offsets for even the larger sets are closer to around 8--16px. But even a smaller hex tileset like hex2t has an offset of around 60px, which is 50% larger than its tile widths, has garrison/support views that are taller than they need to be, and uses order/rank graphics that are much larger than just the visible pixels. Based on this, I'm guessing that my own set suffers from the same placement issues (perhaps even a proper bug?) but they are more pronounced because I'm making much larger base tiles.
tl;dr:
When making a large (128px) hex tileset, I get garrison/support views that are ridiculously large (added whitespace, not stretched images). And I cannot solve this by changing y offsets. Also consider that if my offsets are set to 0, the unit graphics sit well above (completely outside) the tile graphic.
If I have time, I'll get around to taking some screenies and doing a little more testing.