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[Klokjammer]

Not satisfied with any existing tilesets, I decided to make my own.  The alpha-numeric (standard ASCII) characters were slightly modified from the Curses_square_16x16 set, and the other symbols (non-standard ASCII) were created from the ground up.  All work done in MSPaint. The Dwarven tiles are all my own creation.  There were no direct rips from anyone else's tilesets, although some designs were inspired by their work.  The resemblance to the DOS font is totally coincidental (even though Curses was based on it), actually In the later part I was using DOS as a model.  I want to hear your input before I post it onto the Wiki.  So here it is.

           

Updated 3 times.

Tileset Name:  Masked Adventurer

Author:     Klokjammer
Tile Size:    16x16
Resolution:    1280x400
Usable with Graphics: YES
Original Template: curses_square_16x16.bmp
Significant Differences compared to Curses:

• @,£, <vermin>, and <seed> have been changed completely
  
• !! and ÷ have been modified heavily, they almost no-longer resemble the originals.
  
• The "Peseta Sign" has been rendered readable (Pta) although it could've been Pts before, but I couldn't tell.  Peseta can be written either way, but no-one cares since they've lost favor to the Euros (€).  Is this symbol even used in game?
  
• I made the dwarves beards darker so it wont blend with the background when engraved on rock (gray stone).
  
• The Heart, diamond, double quotes, and solid color tiles have been left alone, they've not been modified in any way.  The period, comma, apostrophe, and accent mark were merely moved by a few pixels.
  
• I didn't like the way DOS displays the eszett (ß), yes that's an eszett not a beta, so replaced it with my own.
  

Comments: I call the tileset "Masked Adventurer" because the icon used for the adventurer/guard/merchant looks like a dwarf with a Zorro/Lone Ranger mask.  The mask is guaranteed to look nice on your adventurer or your 194 KB disk space back.  It would also make your guards look more intimidating.

Like I said before, everything was done in MSPaint in my spare time, modified form curses and modeled after the DOS font. Any resemblance to any existing font is purely coincidental (and for some symbols, intentional).  I do own a US-International keyboard, so I'm able to determine what they're supposed to look like under DOS.  I know the Greek fonts are significantly different from the roman letters.  Also I'm not sure if the thread symbol is supposed to be a lowercase phi or the letter ø, I'm assuming the later, because it looks right.

Anyway, thank you for your comments and constructive criticism. This has been posted on the wiki, with two other variants.  The variants can be found here.

Okay, here are a couple of screen shots of the tileset (with graphics turned off) in Town Kinkib.

       

       

[ October 23, 2007: Message edited by: Klokjammer ]

[ October 28, 2007: Message edited by: Klokjammer ]

[ November 13, 2007: Message edited by: Klokjammer ]

[Keizo]

I like it; the various pictographic enhancements (insects, barrels) are a nice touch, and in general things look nice and crisp.

There is one major problem though, and that is that the lowercase "s" is tilted to the right, making it look very odd. I'm sure you can easily fix this little issue.

Thanks a lot for making the tileset!

[ October 20, 2007: Message edited by: Keizo ]

[Fedor]

Happily, imageshack does just fine with .gifs (which look almost identical to what's seen on screen), so here's an example screenshot:

[Klokjammer]

The lowercase 's' looks that way because the ends are wide.  In 8x zoom the letter looked normal, but in normal view it appears to be leaning.  Now that you pointed it out, it does bother me, and it looks odd in the game all of a sudden.  I have fixed the problem, and now it lines up with the 'c' above and the 'â' below (not counting the tail on the right).  I will update the picture soon.

Fedor:

• I'll look into the ² situation
  
• The barrels were supposed to look more like the ÷, I also told my self that the design is tentative anyway.
  
• As for letter width, any wider would appear out of proportion to me, as I always viewed letters as being rectangular, and this is how it is on a square tileset.  You should see my 16x32 tileset I tried before this one (it looked fine proportionately, but the X-axis distances looked shorter than they actually were, the bmp maps took up more space, and Markavian's compressor made a larger and more pixelated map).
  
• 'r' vs. 'a' ; I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean here.  As far as I can tell, all letters are the same width (+/- 1 pixel) and they are all positioned 3px from the left margin (for the sake of uniform spacing).

  [ October 20, 2007: Message edited by: Klokjammer ]

[Sappho]

Looks pretty good to me.  I just have to nitpick though and point out that that is, in fact, a beta, not an eszet.  Most of the symbols in that line are Greek letters, and the first three actually go in order: alpha, beta, gamma.  (Then it's pi, sigma, lowercase sigma, mu...  I'll shut up.)  In any case, there's nothing wrong with the way you made it look, and like you say I'm not even sure if it's used in-game for anything.  Still looks like a perfectly good beta to me!  And the German letter is directly based on the Beta anyway, so they're extremely similar anyway.

I'm definitely in the old school I-like-my-ASCII crowd.  I don't use graphic tiles or shaded tilesets.  Actually I created my own tileset as well because I wasn't happy with the ones in the wiki, but maybe I'll give yours a go and see how I like it.  Looks like you put a lot of work into it, so it's worth a try!

[Alfador]

quote:Originally posted by Sappho:
<STRONG>Looks pretty good to me.  I just have to nitpick though and point out that that is, in fact, a beta, not an eszet.  Most of the symbols in that line are Greek letters, and the first three actually go in order: alpha, beta, gamma.  (Then it's pi, sigma, lowercase sigma, mu...  I'll shut up.)  In any case, there's nothing wrong with the way you made it look, and like you say I'm not even sure if it's used in-game for anything.  Still looks like a perfectly good beta to me!  And the German letter is directly based on the Beta anyway, so they're extremely similar anyway.

I'm definitely in the old school I-like-my-ASCII crowd.  I don't use graphic tiles or shaded tilesets.  Actually I created my own tileset as well because I wasn't happy with the ones in the wiki, but maybe I'll give yours a go and see how I like it.  Looks like you put a lot of work into it, so it's worth a try!</STRONG>

Actually, you're both right. The original makers of Code Page 437 (on which the DF tileset is based) unified certain characters that are typographically distinct but which looked the same to them, such as the German and Greek letters mentioned above, as well as (I here disagree with the Wikipedia article) summation symbol and Greek capital sigma. I said I disagree with the latter because the summation symbol IS the Greek capital letter sigma, and anybody who makes them different is being needlessly pedantic. It's an INITIAL. The Sigma symbol denotes the SUM of a series, while the capital Pi symbol in the same location denotes the PRODUCT of a series (which to my knowledge usually only comes into play in statistical analysis).

Yes, I am a math nerd. When did you notice?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

quote:Originally posted by Alfador:
<STRONG>The original makers of Code Page 437 (on which the DF tileset is based) unified certain characters that are typographically distinct but which looked the same to them, such as the German and Greek letters mentioned above, as well as (I here disagree with the Wikipedia article) summation symbol and Greek capital sigma. I said I disagree with the latter because the summation symbol IS the Greek capital letter sigma, and anybody who makes them different is being needlessly pedantic.</STRONG>

I don't think there's any question that they're technically the same symbol, and I think it's not really a pedantic consideration to differentiate them as much just respecting common practice. The summation symbol is commonly written with a *large* captial sigma, clearly distinct from other letters and symbols in line by its size. There is certainly nothing wrong with using just one symbol for both in typing, and I would probably do the same if I were designing a character set, but it is also justifiable to split them in an extended character set if the designers wished to make a larger version of sigma for use as a specialized summation symbol.

[Klokjammer]

Well, that may be true that the designers of the DOS font decided to do that (of course I wouldn't know because I've never typed a beta in a command window).

I looked on other sets, they've made them look like ß (the german letter), which is distinctly different then a lowercase beta.  sure the beta would've fit among the alpha, pi, sigmas, omega, epsilon, delta, capital phi.  The lowercase phi didn't look like a phi to me so I used ø (the Norwegian/Danish letter).

Of course, I live in the western world where Greek is only used in mathematics and physics.  And the Germanic/Scandinavian symbols appear on my keyboard.

I might as well replace the eszett (beta *glare*), Theta, ø (lowercase phi), and lowercase sigma, with pictures of animal pelt, bed, thread spool, and anvil respectively since these symbols are never used for anything else.  Correct me if I'm wrong please, but don't bite my head off.

One of my pet peeves is when they use pictures of an object for symbols that are used for more than one thing.  There are supposed to be no chairs at the top of the waterfall, and what's this throne dong in on this bridge - it doesn't belong here;  Or go on journeys into the evil purple cabinet lair;  my fortress has a population of 50 not 5 caskets.  And my friend, Remón doesn't want his name spelled as R-e-m-lever-n. </rant>

Although, my way has six legged lizards and bats that look like beetles, but still the symbols for the seeds and vermin before were almost indistinguishable before.

But still, this design looks right to me, and its all a matter of personal preference.

[ October 20, 2007: Message edited by: Klokjammer ]

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Well, those seed and vermin tiles may be safe now, but look at the next version.
http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/imgs/choose_loc3.png

Notice that the seed and vermin graphics are going to be all over the map in the new version to represent the terrain one level down. Specifically:

Tiny dot (Seed): Ground, as seen from one level up
Medium dot (Vermin): Boulder, as seen from one level up
Large block (Stone Block): Tree, as seen from one level up

Implementing them as seed- and vermin-specific graphics is going to make the next version look like a farmer's nightmare.  

[ October 20, 2007: Message edited by: Jonathan S. Fox ]

[Turgid Bolk]

quote:Originally posted by Klokjammer: One of my pet peeves is when they use pictures of an object for symbols that are used for more than one thing.

You're probably already aware of this, but for those that aren't: http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Tilesets#What_tiles_are_used_for_what

[Klokjammer]

quote:Originally posted by Turgid Bolk:
<STRONG>

You're probably already aware of this...</STRONG>

I am, but the wiki list is incomplete, and I have not seen all aspects of the game.  Every item has the "others?" tag on it.

Jonathan S. Fox:  The threat of obsoleteness was not unknown to me, but I forgot that the new release is just beyond the horizon.  My seed tile would probably work fine the way it is, the vermin however... I'll work on that once it comes out.  I'm pretty sure other authors would want to change their sets as well, or abandon them.

[ October 20, 2007: Message edited by: Klokjammer ]

[Klokjammer]

Double post Time!!!

The tileset is now on the wiki along with two other variants.  The variations can be found here.  These include one with a different vermin symbol, and one with nothing fancy (excluding the @ symbol).

Thank you all for your input.

[ October 23, 2007: Message edited by: Klokjammer ]