Grimrock

I'm currently working on a mine tileset and actually I'm almost done with it. But since the model converter doesn't support animations yet (not even using existing ones) I can't finish and release it and I figured it may be a good idea to post a WIP thread and gather some ideas for additional models that may be useful.

Here is how it currently looks:

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... Large2.jpg

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/ ... Large1.jpg

So far I have all the basic tiles (wall, ceiling, floor, pillar) including most of the decoration (damaged planks on walls, small rocks on floor etc). I also have all the standards ready for export (secret wall, secret buttons, drainage, alcove, gateway with doors etc).

What I'm wondering is what else would be useful. I'd like to add more variation to the tileset by adding some special pieces to break the monotony a bit. I already have the rock pillars you can see on the 2nd screenshot, two mining waste models (medium sized rocks on a pile) and I plan to make a mining cart and maybe a table. Do you have any other ideas? Maybe there is something obvious that I missed that should be in a mine? Preferably I'd like to hear suggestions that are possible with the game engine and don't take ages to make. And of course I can't promise that I'll do everything you suggest.

Thanks!

EDIT: Short video showing off the tileset in its current state (no animations possible yet, no doors, secrets etc)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ--kLhD8AM

Perhaps natural looking chasm-like pits with bridges, or shallow streams that could be animated later. Or very tall ceiling shafts with a narrow point of daylight at the top.

I really like your wall set!
As deco, maybe you can consider:
Some walls that contains 'impurities', like coal or gold.
Something like a tool racket for pickaxes.
How are your pillars look like? I've always imagined they should look like big wooden log, or thick metal bars or something similar.
I'm not sure if this would fit, but I personally like the idea of rails and carts scattered around...
Well, all of these at least for my personal idea of mine
If something else come to my mind I'll share them!

that looks really great so far! Maybe some minor vegetation, moss or mushrooms?

looks really good! awesome

Terrific. Wonderful work.

I can't help thinking "Lands of Lore" remake when I see it

I thought about chasm pits, but they would have to be passable from all four directions. Which is a bit of a problem. Or can you block a direction (eg so you can only walk from north or south on the tile, but not from west or east)? Animated water may be a bit hard to do, Grimrock has no water shader afaik and I'm not even sure it supports texture transform animations. The ceiling daylight I'll definitely do.

The impurities would be nice, but walls have a 1024 texture each and making a few different ore textures would cost too much performance I'm afraid. The transparency handling doesn't allow good looking overlays either I think. The tool racket sounds nice, but I'd like to have pickaxes you can actually pick up and I'm not sure it's possible to have some kind of 'alcove' that only takes a certain item (as other items would probably look messy in the racket). The pillars are what you see on the screenshot, single pillar models use the same model as the wall pillars (though only half of it can be seen while it's on a wall).

I really like the idea with the rails. I only thought about some simple deco carts, but I guess it would be pretty cool if you could build your own railway system. Made a quick test and it should be pretty simple to make a tileset with corners etc. Note that the railway on the screenshot is just a quick test, no adequate textures and a cheap model for testing - the real thing will look better.

http://s66.photobucket.com/albums/h271/Phittte/Rail.jpg

I tried moss on the planks, but the way I did it (overlay with transparency) it always looked like crap. Problem is that Grimrock only supports 'all-or-nothing' alpha channels properly, it's pretty hard to make it look good that way. A few mushrooms would be nice though, I even have textures left from other modding endeavors.

Thanks for the feedback!

If you're making a cart, you're gonna need a rail. I would be most interested in that.
You could make more dirt like walls (as opposed to stone, eg. browner.) Branching from that idea, you could do dirt mounds like blockages only destructible by lets say a shovel or pick axe. (That would really only be possible if you could define a new damage type, maybe )

You could do an alternate cave-in as well featuring more dirt and wood than the current ones.

EDIT: Oooh rail.

As for alcove with specific items only, they're something of a specialty of mine. I have been known to spend an hour and a half tweaking parameters to get the perfect fit.
All you would have to do on your part is design a container that it doesn't make sense to put other things on it.

However, if it doesn't clip, it should be allowed in my opinion.
Example, anywhere you can put a shovel, a spear would likely look okay in it's place, too.

Actually, you can make an alcove that accepts only certain items, trust me
I already made a pickaxe model --- well my friend did --- and I use it as a weapon.

I didn't remembered pillars in the middle of a room share the same models XD

EDIT: I think a way to add the impurities without adding an entire new wall texture is to make a small 3d model of the impurities and stick them on the wall, like every wall decoration.

For the Chasm, I just meant pits that aren't just single square if it's possible. I think ores could just be a wall decoration, sort of like Ivy. Pick holders could just use a custom alcove that uses an onInsertItem hook.