LMAT: Beyonduary: Phases Begone

[Obi1mcd]

I might just say that with no offence intended to MetalZerg, we should slow up on the updates until we fix some of the existing problems. The main one is the number of colours. We can't just keep adding tiles hoping that it will magically reduce. I can't download any images at the moment, due to some problems with my USB stick, but when I can, I'll try downloading the one this set was based off (on the last page) and seeing what I can do with it, as it seems to use a whole lot less colours. I might be able to change the palette to imitate the colours scheme we have now, and then substitute some tiles to get it to fit. I won't be able to do it for a day or two, though.

[Jgke]

Just found out why photobucket doesn't work. It converts .bmp's to .jpg.
Okay, I converted the picture to a 256-color .bmp using Tilesetpal. It looks actually good.
E: Imageshack also converts .bmp's to .png's. Using JCF's upload tool.

[Obi1mcd]

Well, it looks alright. There are only a couple of noticable spots, as far as I can tell, that look like they've suffered. There's a tiny little spot that looks out of place on one of those tiles on the top. The main thing would be those black-and-yellow tiles. They look pretty cheap. However, even if this is reduced with the JJ2 palette included and all, we won't be able to add any more colours, and the set may look slightly monochrome. Maybe I'm being overly fussy, though.

[Zerg]

I found a bug... the H-poles are not working good.

[Jgke]

They'll work when we add the masks file.

[Obi1mcd]

Phew! I managed to get the image reduced without TilesetPal. It took a lot longer, but I think it looks slightly neater, and will be easier to modify.

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/4783/lmatmain8bit.png

However, you can forget whatever I said earlier about it being monochrome. There's no way to add any more major shades of colour, unless somebody wants to try and optimize this palette. There are 40 empty colours left, though after 32 are taken for the textured background only 8 will be left. I'd appreciate it if anybody who wants to add tiles would use this as a base, and keep colour restrictions in mind so nobody else has to do this again. =b

Oh, and I hope Imageshack will keep the palette data.

[Jgke]

PNG's don't have palette data, and imageshack puts .bmp's into .png's.

[Stijn]

PNGs do have palette data, if you save them as a PNG with a palette ;)

[Toni]

Good job. I like it, no details is lost. Maybe we should try to add more tiles like windows, spaceship (can be modified) etc.

[Obi1mcd]

Oh, more detail is definitely needed. The set isn't finished yet, but I thought it would be easier to make a palette now rather than later. Also, the palette is slightly wrong. Colour 1 and colour 2 are both purple. I changed colour 1 from black to remove some of the 000 black bits from UR's tiles. I might fix it soon.

EDIT:
Fixed. Changed the link in the post above.

[Seren]

Some subtle changes (I resigned of making a full remake):
Made a theoretically working version of the corner (Fixorz me pls.) tiles, with and without stars (some useful tiles are still lacking though). Also replaced some stuff there.
Fixed the under-stairs stars (some useful tiles are still lacking though too).
Added a non-working lamp frame (for non-working lamps, and blinking lamps animation, wasn't tested as an animation yet though).
Changed the style and fixed lighting of poles.
Made the style of windows at the bottom-right fit the one of the window at middle-left.
Removed glass tiles meant for transparency, added glass tiles with background and stars.
Made some minor changes at yellow-black stripes, corners of the basic ground and vines.

http://img860.imageshack.us/img860/4876/lmat17.png

[Obi1mcd]

Well, I'm glad to see somebody else is working on this. I think I should be able to do a little bit soon, although I'm busy for the next couple of days. It's interesting what you did with the glass tiles, though, but I'm not too sure about the bottom one.

[Grytolle]

http://jazzjackrabbit.net/lmat17.png

[Obi1mcd]

Bump.
It's been almost six months since there was any activity in this thread, and I want to know if anybody is still interested in an LMAT. I've made attempts to work on it, but the palette is difficult to work around. It certainly seems as though it's dead at the moment, unless somebody has made any improvements in the background, and I was wondering if it would be worth starting over. The project could use a bit more of a consistent art style and management rather than just throwing anything into an image and hoping it works. Would anybody be interested in a potential reboot?

[Jgke]

I would be.

[Seren]

Well, my opinion is: let it die, forget it, wait some time and start a new one with a new theme. I don't think there's anyone really interested in this project anymore, and after so much time even I lost interest in it. It was started in a wrong way, and imo a bad theme was chosen, with everyone having different ideas on how should it really look like. Besides I'm tired of seeing those blue textured tiles already. My style has changed over time and I don't use textures anymore, I don't even like them. Some things in the basic tiles of this tileset were solved in a wrong way what makes it hard to predict what tiles which didn't get added yet are necessary for it to be usable. Sorry, I just don't believe anyone can turn this picture into something good anymore.

I wish the LMAT team focused on finishing Agama's Prison instead btw.

[Obi1mcd]

That's basically what I was thinking. The tiles are too difficult to work with, and it's evident that everybody has lost interest, so I've been considering making a new thread entirely, if nobody minds. I think the current image needs to be left aside, and a new art style and/or theme should be chosen.
And perhaps instead of people just adding to the existing image immediately, the tiles could be posted in the thread on their own to be fine-tuned by others to fit the overall style. If there's enough interest, that is.

[Seren]

I wish you stopped talking about Prison because it doesn't make you seem important unlike you think
(~reputation comment)
I don't respond to reputation normally, but I wanted to clear this up.
I do not feel special because of talking about it. I do realize that half of oldies in the community have a copy of Prison.j2t, otherwise I would never get it myself, because Agama doesn't have it anymore. If I am special, it's only because I actually got Agama's permission to finish that tileset, unlike anyone in the community in the past 10 years. Still, I do not post about it because that makes me important, I do because I'm Agama's fan and I'm excited about the idea of taking part in creation of the last of her tilesets. I however realize that I am not yet ready to work on a tileset of this level of pixel art, that's why I said I wish LMAT could help me in this. Prison is one of the best tilesets jj2 world ever saw but if I don't get any help, it'll take me years to release. That's all. It's a need of expressing emotions and impatience that make me post it, not trying to hunt for fame.

[Obi1mcd]

So, does anybody think it would be worthwhile to start a new thread for this then? Even if nobody particularly wants to draw anything, discussion on the subject would be helpful in any case.

[Violet CLM]

Wait, Agama has an unfinished tileset that people have access to? :confused::confused::confused:

[Jgke]

Yeah, and it's pretty neat too.

[Zerg]

I would like, however my drawing style on pc goes as far as paint and an online graffiti drawer program is. But I work pretty fine in photoshop...

[cooba]

Nubs like Jake and SE have it but Violet doesn't? What is the world coming to?

[Obi1mcd]

I'll just ask one more time:
Does anybody else want to work on a new/rebooted LMAT? It's just that I don't want to make a new thread or anything if nobody is interested.

Oh, and the tileset sounds interesting, I didn't know there was an Agama set floating around.

[Violet CLM]

Some more thoughts on a reboot. Looking at the list of <a href="http://www.jazz2online.com/user/4925/lmat/downloads/">successful (read: released) LMATs</a>, they can be broken into two camps. Prismatic Palace and Omen Woods both had significant amounts of work done by a single primary organizer, either during or after the collaboration stage. This allowed them to be somewhat complicated in various ways. Aftermath and Kansas were much more varied in content, being a more direct result of many different people working together, but got away with it probably in large part due to the simpler art style (8-bit) and <a href="http://www.jazz2online.com/tilesets/drawing2.htm">perspective</a> (non-isometric). While both 8-bit and 16-bit art styles may work for individual authors, 16-bit is less practical in an LMAT setting because it severely restricts who may edit individual parts of the tileset. As for non-isometric perspective, I think that's a less important factor because anyone can still draw it either way, but it is both a) easier to draw and b) easier to add more stuff to because every solid surface requires fewer tiles that way. The more complicated the basic ground gets, the more someone is required to step in and do some serious independent organization work if nothing else to make sure everything snaps together.

It may sound like I'm leaning heavily towards suggesting the Kansas/Aftermath approach over the primary organizer/approach, and I am. Primary organizers can happen by chance, but I suspect that intending to have one from the get-go would make it less "Let's Make A Tileset" and more "Let's All Help So-and-So Make A Tileset," which feels less appealing somehow.

(I don't want to discount the importance of theme, but I think that's been talked about these threads a lot before, so I don't have much to add. See perhaps <a href="http://www.jazz2online.com/jcf/showthread.php?t=13687">September</a> for one example of that going wrong. Also the drawing style and perspective stuff can definitely be simplified too far: note that nobody has any really strong interest in releasing <a href="http://www.jazz2online.com/jcf/showthread.php?t=14761">Valentine's Day</a>, even though it's been essentially finished for years.)

[Seren]

I'll work on any tileset you tell me to work on, unless there are other interested people who just can't stand the idea of collaborating with me.

[Sean]

I guess I'll be happy to help with the next LMAT, and I definitely think you should start a new one. This has gone stale.

[incandescentembers]

Hi all!
Sorry if this question was already answered in this topic but I don't have time to read all comments:
What happened to this tileset? Is it going to be published? I really like some graphics.

[Obi1mcd]

This set fizzled out and died, basically. We started again here (http://www.jazz2online.com/jcf/showthread.php?t=19202). That one ended up stalling too though.
It's not likely that this one will be uploaded to j2o, unless people have been doing some work on it quietly.

[incandescentembers]

It's not likely that this one will be uploaded to j2o, unless people have been doing some work on it quietly.

You mean it's possible to finish it by yourself?

I wish the LMAT team focused on finishing Agama's Prison instead btw.

Why don't you show this tileset to all? If Agama is no longer interested in tilesets / JJ2 why the community should not see the tileset?

I am interested in finishing the tileset. I know that I'm pretty new here and a noob with JCS but I can draw. So, can you please open the "LMAT" for Agama's Prison?

[Seren]

Why don't you show this tileset to all? If Agama is no longer interested in tilesets / JJ2 why the community should not see the tileset?

I am interested in finishing the tileset. I know that I'm pretty new here and a noob with JCS but I can draw. So, can you please open the "LMAT" for Agama's Prison?
As Obi mentioned, there is already one LMAT in progress, one of fairly good quality and barely 9 months of inactivity. I don't think splitting attention of tileset creators into two projects is a good idea.