#like blobs drawn on a map ugly

[reyneluvirith]

What's the progress on Morrowind? I'm exploding with anticipation. Also, if you got the maps from somewhere, could you share them?

progress on the Morrowind chapter has been good—over 3k words in it so far!! (also lots on other chapters, including over 2k in the chapter for Anequina+Pellitine, and another 2k across the Black Marsh and Aldmeri Dominion chapters)

not totally sure re: your question about the maps. all my maps are my own work! i have a basemap of my own that i put together based on official maps like the anthology map, in-game map tiles, and some fan-made sources (e.g. i have a soft spot for Tamriel Rebuilt Morrowind, so the Morrowind on my Tamriel map is more similar to theirs than to official maps). i do have a few other map of mine that i haven't shared, but they're older ones that aren't as nice as my current work.

if you're curious, though, here's a super early WIP of the Morrowind map, without any of the actual languages put in it yet (and subject to change with cities and such):

[iiasha-archived]

so i made this like. over a month ago. like literally the day after i said i was going to make a tutorial LMAO i found it too ugly to post but at this point i don’t have a lot of time to make the refined tutorial i want and also the point isn’t to post perfect art so... here is an extremely brief overview of the intent behind my art process. more to come later?

so i get a lot of comments about how i paint from big blobs to essentially finished paintings. here’s the thing: that’s exactly what i’m doing.

in more formal terms, mapping down general areas is my way of breaking up the monotonous space that is the canvas, and it also sets up the initial color palette and tone that drives the rest of the painting (color is a beast of its own topic though, so i’m going to focus more on form itself here).

a blank canvas can be extremely overwhelming if you think too much about the details first, and doing this breaks the canvas down into smaller, more manageable areas 

what you see in the images above is an exercise i was taught (shout out to my high school art teacher) that helps you start seeing how simple forms eventually build into complex shapes. basically you take the image you want to paint, and blur it at various stages. then, you paint from the blurred images, eventually getting sharper and sharper until you have all the detail you want. i think 4 is a nice number of image “stages” but obviously you can do more (wouldn’t suggest going below 3 though that’s literally just having a blurred image and then a not blurred image)

with the image blurred, you are forced to ignore minor details that honestly shouldn’t be considered until you have the underlying proportions already mapped out

by painting down blobs that generally lay out where certain things are supposed to be (e.g. the head, the hair, the body), it first of all helps get your proportions laid out. it doesn’t need to be perfect; you just need some guidelines on approximately how one part of the body is sized relative to another. and then within each “blob” you can further break it down into even smaller areas, e.g. for the head generally where the eyes, nose, and mouth should go. 

everyone is different, but to me this is more effective at accurately mapping proportions than using guidelines and sketches. of course you can use general rules like  “well the head is supposed to be 5 eyes wide” or “the body is in general seven and a half heads tall” or what have you but personally i find those kinds of rules inflexible and it’s easier for me to see things for what they are: shapes.

i often think in terms of “well there is about this much shadow between the eye and the nose” when placing my blobs down

i’ve seen too many artists who, for example, only focus on the head to start off and then struggle getting the proportions together for the rest of the body because 1) they didn’t map it out first and 2) since they already “finished” the head they don’t want to “mess” with it and the rest of the painting is forced to conform around the positioning of the only part you’ve completed.

another example is the sentiment a lot of beginning artists have where you “draw really one good eye but can’t draw the other”. this is because if you focus too much on one eye from the get-go, the other eye is forced to complement the eye you’ve already drawn, rather than exist as the other half of a whole

anyways tldr; break down shapes until you have smaller shapes and keep doing that until the smaller shapes become final details

[theshopislocal]

corinth rains

New and improved Heaven may well be the Happiest Place (not) on Earth. But Dean, it turns out, is still Dean.

(also on AO3)

chapter two

Heaven is warm, bucolic, and perfect. And it gives Dean the damned heebie-jeebies.

He recalls a memorable night spent with Pamela - well, as memorable as it could be after a fifth of Macallan. Sam had said ‘So get this...’ and then fucked off to the local library, leaving Pam and Dean at the hotel bar. They’d drunk til the lights got fuzzy, and Pam had leaned back against the barstool, arching one dark eyebrow.

She’d had Dean supine across the foot of the squeaky queen, sitting astride him and working some kind of magic. She’d settled his hands on her slim waist, tugged at his hair, bitten his lips; he’d had nary a moment to want something before she gave it - the craving coming on the heels of the having.

Heaven is much the same - perceptive and generous - and it leaves Dean feeling just as he had that night with Pam. Vulnerable, flayed open. Seen.

He assumes it’s heaven’s off-brand kind of ESP that’s landed him here, seated at a teakwood dining table in a house over yonder.

There are soft sounds from the kitchen - cabinets opening, a gurgling coffee maker, a substratum of tuneless humming. Dean hunches over his plate and shovels another forkful of pie into his mouth. It’s sweet and rich, tart and crumbly, and he barely tastes it at all.

“You alright?”

Dean looks up to find Mary seated across from him. She’s a little younger than when he last saw her, but otherwise she’s just as he remembers - her yellow hair falling in waves over her shoulders, her eyes a soft Carolina blue.

She stares at him, calm and unconcerned, the bow of her lips turned up in a tiny smile.

Dean shakes his head and gives a little shrug. “Yeah, ‘course,” he says, gruffer than intended.

She notices, he’s sure, but she only tips her head in a nod. “Okay.”

A quietude stretches between them, peaceful but gravid. Mary tilts her head, face serene and mildly expectant, and she inches a pale hand forward on the table. His fingers clench around the little dessert fork, and he takes another bite.

She’s waiting, he realizes, for him to speak, to get there. Though where ‘there’ is, Dean’s got no damn idea.

“You know,” he says, to fill the silence, “Sammy asked me if I remembered anything,” he swallows, throat dry, and looks down at his plate, “‘bout bein’ a kid.”

Mary’s eyebrows pop up, and she smiles a little wider. “You remembered me,” she offers.

Dean’s eyes alight on hers, and his lips purse. There’s something something fragile in her face, a budding hope that he doesn’t want to crush. You made me sandwiches, he wants to say. You told me bedtime stories.

His stomach clenches. You burned alive, gutted on the ceiling.

Dean looks away, brow furrowed. “‘Course I did,” he grunts out, throat tight.

She gives him a look that goes right through him - compassionate, or maybe pitying. Her mouth turns down like she can hear his thoughts, and he bites his cheek, shamefaced.

“What else do you remember?” she asks, and her voice is mild and curious, lacking the censure Dean expected.

Dean reins in his surprise and dips his head, summoning a wry smile. “Well,” he says and points his fork at the plate of pie crumbs.

She rolls her eyes and nods, smiling once again. “Yes, obviously pie. What else.”

He stares at her for a moment, feeling wrong-footed and a little short-changed, then peers through the open French doors toward the mountainside. He scans his memories, steering clear of the ugly ones that present themselves first, looking for something - anything - to keep her smiling.

...Weedy grass and buzzing bees.

“Our backyard,” he murmurs, and feels his lips quirk up.

Mary’s smile grows soft, warm like the spring air. “Mm,” she hums. “Always overgrown. Your dad never wanted to mow it.”

Dean withholds a wince at the mention of John, and a muscle twitches in his jaw. “I liked it how it was.”

Mary’s eyes dart up to his, and her soft laugh lines deepen. “Yeah, you did.”

Dean’s eyes trace over her face, searching for something, though he’s not sure what. She’s still the girl who made a deal with a yellow-eyed demon. Still the woman who left, and left, and left again. She’s no more perfect now than she ever was, but...

She has laugh lines, and yellow hair, and Carolina blue eyes. And she’s looking at Dean like she’s missed him forever. Damn, if he hasn’t missed her, too.

Something loosens in his chest, and his fists unclench. He smiles, wan but sincere, and leans back in his seat, crossing his ankles under the table. “Coulda done without the bees though.”

She huffs a little laugh and shakes her head. “You loved the bees,” she counters.

Dean raises a doubtful eyebrow. “Did I?”

“Mhm,” she hums, nodding sagely. “You’d chase ‘em around, flapping your arms like little wings.”

Dean squints, searching his scattered memory. He remembers the yard, the foliage, the window into the kitchen. He remembers thunder and lightning and torrential downpour. He doesn’t remember himself.

“Huh,” he says, and folds his arms over his chest.

He stares across the table at Mary. She’s silent but smiling, her eyes far away. It’s a familiar look, one he’s seen on nearly everyone he knows in Heaven. Like they’re lost in a beautiful memory - a moment in their past lives that they didn’t regret.

Dean doesn’t think about his human life. He’d lived it, after all. That was enough.

“You drew me a map once.”

Dean eyes flick up from where they’d settled on his dirty plate, and his brow furrows. “A map?”

She nods, still staring glassy-eyed into the middle distance. “You followed one little bee all day long,” she murmurs. “Counted all the flowers she landed on. Then you,” she swallows, and her eyes go shiny, “you raced inside and scribbled it all out on the back of a—” a startled huff of laughter, “—a takeout menu.”

Dean watches her, the way her eyes flick back and forth, like she’s watching the scene unfold before her. There’s an ache near the center of his chest like a bruise. “I don’t remember that,” he says, voiced pitched low.

Her head tilts up, absent eyes meeting his as she pulls herself from reverie. “You were... three? Maybe four?” She looks down and brings a hand to settle over her heart. “It was beautiful,” she whispers, and tilts her head. “Wish I still had it.”

Dean nods at her, though she’s still looking away, and he feels a hot coil of guilt in his stomach. Mary had adored him, he knows that much, and she’d lost him as surely as he’d lost her. He remembers the expectant way he’d looked at her in the bunker, wanting something she couldn’t remember how to give. Something he barely even remembers himself.

There’s movement behind Mary’s head, and Dean’s eyes snap to it.

Something is... growing on the wall.

Dean’s fists clench up, and he watches with hawk eyes as the thing manifests, forming itself into a vaguely rectangular shape. He feels his lips purse tight and his spine straighten like a rod.

Mary senses his sudden tension and looks up, following his eyes over her shoulder.

“Oh my god,” she whispers in awe.

She unfolds herself from her chair and stands up slowly, as if in a dream. She walks the four paces to the wood-paneled wall, reaching out a cautious hand. Her fingers close around the frame of the thing, and she gives a soft sigh.

Dean stares at her back where the knobs of her spine meet her neck, her shoulder blades distorting the periwinkle plaid of her blouse. She turns around, her eyes fixed on her prize, thumbs smoothing over the simple wood frame.

She comes around the table, sliding into the chair at Dean’s side, and when she finally looks up at him, her eyes are bright and red-rimmed. She takes Dean’s hand in hers, her skin smooth and cool, and slips the little framed drawing into his palm.

He peers down at it and gives a startled bark of laughter.

The drawing is entirely ridiculous - an indecipherable riot of squiggly pen lines and waxy crayon color. There’s a messy bed of green near the bottom, which Dean assumes is grass, and it’s speckled with tiny blobs of vibrant pink and deep red - flowers, Dean thinks. Near the center of the page is a single white daisy with a bright yellow bumblebee hovering over it. A swirling purple line trails behind its black-striped body, making loop-de-loops around every flower. The sky is a strip of electric blue at the top, just above an empty field of white - the landscape drawn as children often do, with the heavens separated from the earth.

His fingers hover over a grease-stained corner, illegible text bleeding through. “Jeez,” he breathes out. “Clearly I missed my calling.”

He hears the broad smile in Mary’s voice. “Coulda been the next Da Vinci,” she says, nudging his shoulder.

Dean huffs and raises an eyebrow. “More like Picasso.”

She laughs at that, as he knew she would, and it sounds like Corinthian bells, chiming in harmony on the breeze.

Dean smiles to himself, eyes roving over his apparent masterpiece before alighting on a strange scribble in the corner.

“What’s this?” he murmurs, pointing a finger at the tiny black and blue squiggle.

“Hm?” Mary leans closer to him, and Dean’s nose twitches with the scent of tart apples clinging to her hair. She looks at the little scribble, frowning for a moment, before her eyebrows pop up. “Oh, wow,” she sighs out, leaning closer. “I forgot about that.”

She reaches out a hand to grasp the side of the frame opposite Dean’s, the small weight of the silly little drawing shared between them. She’s got that look again, like there’s an old Super 8 projection playing in her head. Dean wonders what’s on the reel.

She chews her lip for a moment, then tips her head toward Dean. “You remember what I used to tell you before bed?” she asks, peering up at his face.

Dean frowns. “Brush your teeth or they’ll turn green?”

She gives him a look. “That was Dad.”

Dean tips his head back in a nod. “Right. Uh...” Dean trails off for a moment, unsure. Nearly all of his childhood memories are of Mary, but they’re weathered and vague, filtered through the consciousness of a toddler. He barely remembers the words she said, only the lilting strains of her voice as she calmed him, soothed him, protected him—

An image flits across his mind, and he sucks in a breath: a tiny figurine that sat on the mantel, with fluffy little wings and a crown of white roses.

Dean blinks and shakes his head. “Angels are watching over me,” he intones.

He sees Mary nod in his peripheral vision, and her finger taps on the little scribble near his thumb.

“It’s—” Dean starts and frowns, askance, “...an angel?” he guesses.

“Mhm,” she hums, giving another slow nod. Her finger slides across the two tiny black scrawls, vaguely triangular and joined at the middle. “Wings,” she says, then taps the blue oval just above, “halo.” He sees her smile out of the corner of his eye. “You drew it all the time.”

Dean stares at the squiggle, a frown etching across his forehead. The figurine he remembers was nearly solid white, the only deviations its pink skin and dark eyes. There’s not a speck of white in the little scribble, no cherubic cloud-seeder to be found. Just messy black shapes and a faded blue circle. Black wings, blue halo.

Black wings. Blue halo.

Black wings.

... Blue—

The painting slips from his fingers as Mary takes it back in her hands. She holds it gently, reverently, as she stands and walks around the table. Dean shakes his head to clear it, and watches as she replaces the little picture on the center of the wall. It looks, at once, as if it has always hung there, and like he’d drawn it but a moment ago.

A shiver climbs up the back of Dean's neck. He shrugs it off.

“How’s Dad?” he asks lowly, and regrets it immediately.

Mary turns around, her eyes a little wide, eyebrows climbing toward her hairline. Dean isn’t sure why he asked. He backtraces his train of thought, only to find he hadn’t had one at all; seems he’s done his usual shtick of putting his foot in his mouth the very moment he opens it.

Mary seems to sense his imminent retraction, and she settles her face into a genial smile. “He’s good,” she says mildly and comes back to her seat across from Dean. “Wasn’t sure he’d like it here, at first. But,” she settles into the worn wooden chair, “I think he does.”

Dean represses a scoff at that. “Why wouldn’t he?” he says and picks up his fork, eyes downcast. “He’s got you.” He slides the crumbs around on his plate, shoulders hunching forward. “All he ever wanted.”

Mary is silent for a long moment, and Dean doesn’t look up - he can picture her face well enough. His fork scrapes against white porcelain, the sun a bright glare on the stainless steel tines.

Mary sighs, barely audible. “You ever gonna talk to him?”

Her voice is soft and ambivalent, as if she’s already accepted his answer. It gets Dean’s back up, and he peers up at her through flinty eyes.

She’s staring at him, face guileless and open. There’s a spark of curiosity in her eyes, flavored with a sort of tempered sadness. But there’s no reproof, no expectation, and Dean gets the strange feeling that there isn’t a right answer. Or a wrong one.

Dean’s jaw goes a little slack, and for a moment, he thinks he might simply say, No.

Mary tips her head to the side, eyes going soft as her lips turn up, and the moment passes.

“‘Course, I will,” Dean grumbles, casting his eyes back to his empty plate. He shrugs. “Not avoiding him, just...” he trails off and shakes his head. Best leave it there.

Mary takes a slow breath, and Dean sees the vague shape of her leaning forward in her seat.

“Well,” she starts, lacing her fingers on the tabletop. “I won’t speak for him—”

Dean snorts. “But.”

Mary sighs, amused and resigned. “But... I know he’s got a lot to say. He just...” she pauses for a moment, then shrugs her shoulders. “He doesn’t really know how to say it. He knows he—” she cuts herself off with a quick shake of her head. “Well,” her hands raise in a brief shrug. “It’s his truth to tell.”

Dean nods absently, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. He’s known since ‘they live over yonder’ that a reckoning would come for him and his dad. Dean just isn’t quite sure if he’s ready for whatever truth John might tell - or if he’s even inclined to listen to it.

Dean clenches his jaw and drops his fork onto the plate. It clatters loud in the calm of the spring afternoon, and Dean barely restrains a flinch.

Mary leans further forward, hand sliding halfway across the table.

“Dean—”

“Think Sammy’s gonna join the Arch,” Dean says overloud, settling his elbows on the tabletop.

Mary pauses at the abrupt change of subject, but deftly lets it slide. Her eyes flutter a bit, and she pulls her hand back. “Yeah?” she asks, giving a slightly awkward smile.

Dean feels a twinge of guilt in his throat and swallows it down. “Mm,” he nods. “Eileen’s gonna join. And lord knows wherever she goes—”

“Sam goes,” Mary finishes, her smile seeming to widen and soften at once. “He loves her,” she murmurs.

Dean’s stomach clenches taut, even as a smile comes unbidden. He remembers Sam peering over his shoulder as they’d stood on the bridge, his mouth slack and eyes liquid. Dean had known without looking who stood behind him. Sam had gone to her on shaky legs that crumbled beneath him as he reached her. Dean’s vision had gone blurry, and he’d turned away from them, eyes squinting out at the sunlit mountain.

“Yeah,” Dean says, voice a little thick. He clears his throat and nods. “And I get it, ya know. He—” he interrupts himself on a wincing inhale. “He lost her before.” A dry swallow. “Twice.”

Mary makes a little noise in her throat. “Three times,” she whispers.

Dean frowns, confused, and glances up at Mary. Her eyes are shiny, mouth screwed up in a tiny sad smile.

Oh. “She... she went before him?”

Mary’s eyebrows scrunch together, and she sniffs. “She stayed with us. Til he came.”

Dean’s brows rise at that. Offering comfort in a time of need isn’t really his parents’ bag - at least, not that Dean can remember.

Then again, he can’t think of anyone who knows grief better.

“Huh,” he grunts in lieu of a response, and glances up.

Mary is still staring at him, but the melancholy has given way to a sharp sort of consideration. Her eyes dart over his face, slightly squinted, and she looks so much like Sam that Dean turns to stare out at the sun.

Here in Heaven, Sam and Mary are quite alike: happy, whole, and ready for a new life - a new fight.

Dean is just... tired.

“You know,” Mary begins, and Dean’s eyes flick to her hands, still resting on the table. “He’s not going anywhere,” she says, and Dean’s eye twitches in a wince. “You know that, right?”

Dean nods and swallows, looking down at his own hands. “Yeah, I know.” And he does know.

“Even if he joins the Arch,” she continues as if he hadn’t spoken. Her voice is ardent but still gentle, and she leans forward. “He’s not going anywhere. He—” she huffs and tips her head side to side. “He might get a little banged up, maybe, but—”

He knows. “I know.”

“—he...” Mary trails off on a sigh, stretching her arm across the table. Her fingers brush his, and he holds himself still. “No one’s gonna take him away, Dean.” She runs her thumb over the knuckles of his fist. “It’s work,” she acknowledges. “Dirty work, even, but... it’s not life or death,” she murmurs with a tiny smile. “Not here.”

Dean knows this. He knows all of this, but... But that doesn’t stop him from... It’s not the same as... 

It doesn’t make him—

“I know,” he intones, giving her a tight smile.

Her eyebrows make a sympathetic shape, and she pulls her hand back. Dean’s shoulders relax, just slightly.

“You know, your dad thought you would join,” she says with a little smile.

Dean huffs out a chuckle, bitter and resigned. “‘Course he did,” he grunts, pressing his thumbs together.

“Dean,” Mary sighs, tone somewhere between chiding and apologetic.

Dean’s lips turn down, and he shakes his head. “Sorry,” he mutters, mostly sincerely.

“It wasn’t an expectation,” Mary says, then gives a little shrug. “He just... I think he figured all the—” she shakes her head, as if searching for the words, “-the soul-searching would...” she sighs. “I dunno... Make your teeth itch,” she finishes with a wry smile.

Dean gives her one back, though he feels a headache coming on. His teeth do itch. Everything itches. Everything chafes.

“Well,” he starts and swallows again. His throat’s gone bone dry. “Still searching, I guess,” he says, and he supposes it might be true, but- “Not sure what for, though.”

Mary reaches her hand out again, and Dean goes tense for a moment. His eyes flit to hers, and he finds them crinkled at the corners. She’s smiling at him as she’d smiled at his little drawing, as she’d smiled when she sat him down, as she’d smiled while he ate his pie. She’s smiling at him now, as she had when he was a boy, as she always has.

Her skin looks like clouds, her eyes like the sky. She laces her fingers with Dean’s, and the tension across his back fades away.

“I think,” Mom murmurs, “you’ll know it when you find it.”

chapter one | chapter three

table of contents

[browndragon]

Liquid Tiles and State Machines

Hello again! I got stuck in a rabbit hole, but I had fun.

One of the things I built is strictly less fun than the other, so I'll lead with it even though it's not what you wanted. The other is the pretty video above.

State Machines

TL;DR: See https://www.npmjs.com/package/@browndragon/sm .

I got annoyed that the big state machines in javascript were too verbose for what I wanted, so I wrote my own. I think I've already written this post, but this time it's even better.

Each "state" (inconsistently called a node) is a function that returns another node. You load some initial node up in a state machine (here called Cursor). The Cursor invokes its current node whenever you call next (and whatever it returns is the next node). However! It's invoked in the context of the Cursor itself, so you get some interesting bells and whistles automatically: this.here is the current node, for instance -- normally it's hard to get access to that in javascript, but not so here. Since they're each function objects, they're less prone to object equality stupidity of certain sorts, and more prone to it of other sorts. There is no method to predeclare the set of states that exist, so your states can create states (by returning inner functions for instance). These are all features I thought I'd need ;).

You can write nodes that assume they're useful for their side effects, or nodes that assume you'll examine the state machine's here. Cursors implement the iterable & iterator interfaces, so you can use them in loops and such also.

However, for more power you need the full Machine (which extends Cursor). This does things like track state for every node (which is why the nodes are not called states...), with advanced features like history, traps (so that if a node returns undefined it can be rebound to actually go to handleUndefined()), and similar. This makes them O(n) in the number of nodes (and indeed, O(n) in the number of calls to next), but sometimes that's the featureset you need!

Give it a try. Or don't!

Liquid Tiles

TL;DR: The demo above, but the code isn't published anywhere [yet].

I kept playing with dough connected by springs, but I think I'd need to do tile deformation or shader tricks to make the dough look good. As written, the arbitrary offsets allowed glue tiles to shift, leaving gaps. Ensuring coverage would require stretching the tiles or having additional backing color. Or: a change in scheme.

Dough is just a really thick liquid, right? (Over a long enough timescale, aren't all solids?) So how would I model a liquid? I might do it with freely chosen blocks connected by links (the current dough system), but that would likely be too chaotic. Instead, I'd probably split the liquid up into regular domains and analyze each domain. So I did that! Liquid tiles are the result, a system similar-to but different-from phaser Tilemaps, but providing a similar grid-based interface to the world.

First, the data structure

I'm continuously at a loss for high quality datastructures, so instead I write my own low-quality ones. I needed a store of tile information -- unindexed integer 2-tuple keys, arbitrary1 values. Easy enough; I wrote a dense one which uses an allocated array of fixed size (so that array[y*width+x] is the value for (x,y)) and a sparse one which uses fully arbitrary (x,y) pairs and stores points under their stringification. As I write this, I realize that these data structures are not so very different in javascript, where arrays can arbitrarily allocate keys, but what's done is done.

I called the keys in this datastructure x,y tuples, but that's not entirely true: they're really u,v tuples; I wrote a little tilemath class to hold the geometry for mapping between an XY space (like phaser) into the UV space of the tiles (like the tilemap indices) and vice-versa. I am pretty sure it still has some ugly edge effects (tiles do nothing to fix the default anchor(0.5, 0.5), potentially favoring the top/left sides! etc), but it's functional by visual test. The naming scheme (xy space vs uv space) provides very sensible method names -- u(x) is pretty unambiguous. There's no obvious uv analogue to width and height, so I settled for uCount and vCount, which is what it is.

Second, a dip in the Pool

Obviously, we need a Pool of tiles (where tiles are just managed instances of Image, Sprite, or subclasses). A Pool is obviously a Group2, providing mechanisms to manipulate its managed contents -- putTileAt and removeTileAt for instance. But then the next question: what are you putting in these tiles; how are you passing the grid-based information which you need to pass to them into them? I say that Tilemap got this right, you're passing them a tileId (whatever your arbitrary first parameter to putTileAt is); I say that Tilemap got this wrong in that it knew that tileIds were lookups into arrays which were preregistered along with spritesheet geometry etc.

Everything else: mappings and shadows

Anyway: I created Conformers to address the problem of how to map tileId onto actual asset. Conformers are functions which take a tile entry (a gameObject, uv coordinates, tileId, maybe other stuff) and makes the game object conform with the other parameters. A simple one can setFrame(someTexture, someFrame) by just looking the tileId up in a big array; a more complex one might play(someAnimation) or do wangId calculations or whatever. This is also a great place to put state transition logic, since you can detect whether this conformation is a change from a previous state, or a put for a state that the tile was already in.

Okay! Now we're ready: since I know I want this to follow dough blobs around, and the doughblobs are acted upon by the rest of the physics system, I needed some ability to have a sprite "cast" an effect into the dough tile system. I called this a ShadowPool (which extends Pool extends AutoGroup extends Group). Every element of the shadow pool's WatchGroup casts a shadow into the pool made of tileIds; each tile's tileId the bitwise or of its place within the element's boundary (so for instance the upper left corner of an element's boundary is 0b0010, the bit for the lower right corner set.) That, at long last, is what the video above is showing, with fancy transition effects.

Next?

The animation of specific dough elements remains tricky; doughjiggle is still going to look bad under this new quantized regime, even as the interior of the dough looks better. But now I can emulate slugs, and spilled paint, and footprints, and other mass nouns without feeling like I've got to pay the cost of a full tilemap. Indeed, since tilemap layers render in one pass, using a pool even for walls might let me do the fabled "figure in front of bush & behind tree" 3/4 view I've been after this whole time. Certainly the ability to "layer" collisions by material type is very valuable to me, and missing from the current tilemap classes.

I'm now imagining a hybrid scheme: dough is drawn as nodules (free moving spheres of dough with weakly drawn borders) on top of a ShadowPool which draws the base of the nodule, thus the outline of the dough group (wang tiles with strongly drawn borders). Dough regions which quiesce could remove the nodule and mark the tiles from the shadow pool as "permanent", so that they can take over the nodule's mass. Animating the movement of the base can add more detail to this, since it can theoretically hide the quantization by masking portions of the tile and sliding it out in the (known!) direction of change. For instance, if the tile had been undefined and now has the bottom right set, it is clearly sliding in from the bottom right. This will cause slightly strange initial effects (of course), but edge effects are to be expected.

Fast moving dough would be represented as nodules (large borders). Slow speed dough would be thin-border nodules on top of a ShadowPool, sticking-and-unsticking the dough and an unstable equilibrium. Stopped dough would be pure ShadowPool entries. Dough spring would be provided via interaction with the shadowpool.

I mean, arbitrary at first. Obviously they're gonna be tiles. ↩︎

As an implementation note, each Pool is actually a singleton group; that's just more convenient to my way of thinking about these things. ↩︎

[princesses-and-pioneers]

Santicorn 2019: Tarot Dungeon

The OSR Discord is conducting its second annual Secret Santicorn, a Secret Santa event but with OSR creators and content requests. I’ve received a lovely dungeon, the Temple of Lethe, from SherlockHole at The Mimic’s Nest. In turn, my gift to AuraTwilight of Paimon’s Silver City is a dungeon based on tarot arcana.

To Aura: Sorry I couldn’t do the greaser! I’ll write some magical girl stuff to make up for it. Also sorry it’s so late, I got stuck a bunch of times so this is more a collection of ideas than a cohesive dungeon. Hope you enjoy it, and Happy Holidays!

The Hand of Fate

An ambitious scholar made it their life’s work to understand the secrets of fate, how to predict it, and how to change it. After years of collecting knowledge, they built a wondrous palace in the mountains and invited visitors from far and wide, both seeking new secrets to add to their research and offering their divination services for a fee. The palace is interwoven with their fate-altering magic, said to look different to each visitor. Now the scholar has vanished, but their palace still stands, home to invaluable knowledge and valuable treasure alike.

An idea for the dungeon entrance:

Bridge A pair of stone columns sit 10’ apart at the edge of a canyon, forming a doorway to a sheer drop. Between the columns lies a large bindle containing a statue of a small white dog, with a piece of paper attached reading “Seekers of truth, pay your toll, and let the light be your guide”. When fed money, the dog comes to life and glows like a soft flame (3 hours on 1 gp), shedding light that materializes ethereal things within 10’. The dog is friendly and will follow basic commands.

An ethereal stone bridge spans the canyon between the two columns, ending at an ornate wooden door painted with a white rose. The rest of the palace becomes visible when the door is opened-- a grand, lofty structure of stone columns.

(Buxian Bridge, Huangshan, China.)

A room idea for each major arcana card. Rooms can be rolled for randomly, either on a set map or in a nebulous, shifting space like the Gardens of Ynn.

Room Contents (d22)

Chasm. A bottomless pit bisects the room, too far to jump.

Workshop. A table inlaid with a magic circle. 4 paints sit next to it, each labeled with an element (fire, air, water, earth). Shapes drawn in the circle will transform into objects made from the chosen element.

Veil. A thin veil hangs between a white pillar and a black pillar, completely dividing the room. Both pillars are made of a chalky pigment that rubs off easily; the veil is intangible to anything marked with white pigment, and solid as stone to anything marked with black pigment.

Garden. Beautiful trees, crops, and running water. The garden has a calming, nurturing atmosphere, and here living creatures heal 1 HP per turn.

Throne Room. A grand room with a regal, gilded throne. While sitting on the throne, any command you give to another creature must be followed, but you must make a Wisdom save to stand up, with a -1 penalty for every command you have given.

A locked cabinet containing a golden staff and 56 keys, each assigned to a specific fateworker (4 models, 14 units each). The wielder of the staff sees through the eyes of every fateworker whose key is attached to the staff.

Fruit Tree. 2d6 delicious-looking fruits. Eating one gives you a random unusual sense, and encounters in the dungeon have +1 morale when fighting you specifically.

Palanquin. The size of a wagon, with solid walls and locking doors. The person in the driver’s seat can mentally direct the palanquin to hover 5’ in the air and move as fast as a horse. The driver takes 1d6 damage per turn from the strain.

Statue. A woman holding both hands out in a pacifying gesture. Any creature within 10’ of the statue must Save to do anything aggressive or violent.

Wasteland. A vast room shrouded in magical darkness. Takes 2 turns to cross.

Wheel of Reversal. A raised stone wheel with two pedestals on opposite ends, turned by a crank on the wall. When turned 180 degrees, anything on the two pedestals will have their most opposite properties exchanged. Ex: dagger and torch switch material, fighter and wizard switch classes, identical twins switch personality.

Scales. Each hanging pan is large enough to hold a person comfortably. Weighs contents depending on how moral they are.

Gallows. If you hang from them upside-down (the way that kills you slower) for a turn, you can ask the GM one question about the dungeon or something in it.

Graveyard. Several coffins containing a variety of perfectly preserved humanoid bodies. In the center sits a suit of black plate armor with the word “Rebirth” carved on the skull-shaped helmet. Anyone who puts on the armor drops dead, and their soul reawakens in a random one of the bodies.

Canal. A wide raft floats slowly down the deep channel. High ledges on either side are piled with treasures, but standing close enough to reach them will tip the raft and cause it to start flooding.

Altar. A sacrificial fire burns atop it, magically compelling anyone who sees it to throw themself in. Shadow copies of anyone who has touched the fire appear to drag others in.

Tower. Several stories tall, with a good view of several other rooms in the dungeon. Thunderclouds hover over it, and once per turn a lightning bolt strikes a random spot on the tower (4d6 damage, Save for half).

Reflecting Pool. The room is dark, but the pool reflects the light of 2d6 small stars and one large one. The stars are embedded in the ceiling; small stars are precious gemstones and the large star sheds light like a lantern and boosts nearby magic.

A stone well, with a dim, foreboding light suspended above it. Anyone who focuses on the light for more than a few seconds must Save vs. fear or fall into a deep sleep. Nightmares of sleeping creatures emerge from the well every round.

Sunflowers. A dense field of flowers, taller than a person. The heads face upward, allowing a careful person to walk across them. The flowers radiate uplifting energy, and eating one can heal a minor injury or curse.

Crypts. Rows of coffins in alcoves along the wall; a trumpet rests on a central one. When you blow it, the nearest body rises as an undead under your command. After the first use each day, you must Save or the undead will be hostile towards you.

Dungeon Map. A large spread of purple cloth with the dungeon layout traced by glowing lines. Two wands sit next to it; one draws on the map and the other erases. Any changes to the map manifest in the dungeon.

A dungeon denizen, based on the minor arcana. Fateworkers are the palace staff, meant to perform maintenance and serve visitors while the scholar is busy perfecting their research.

Fateworker 1 HD (5 HP), unarmored, move normal, morale 8, punch 1d4 OR attack varies by model Human-sized clockwork automaton. Wheels for feet, white sash with logo indicating model type. Tinny, synthesized female voice. Wants to assist guests and eliminate disruptions in the dungeon. Logical and calculating, but somewhat gullible.

W-model: red flame logo, carries wand, 1/day spells: firebolt, light, minor illusion P-model: gold coin logo, carries toolkit, can repair broken object or fateworker in 1 turn C-model: blue goblet logo, carries pump and internal tank that holds 1 gallon of liquid S-model: silver sword logo, armor as leather, carries longsword (1d8) and shield

(A cross between Light Hope from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and IG-11 from The Mandalorian. These shows are both very good.)

Bonus: Tarot Encounters

These probably don’t fit with the dungeon rooms above, but I also statted up a few creatures based on the tarot-inspired JoJo stands because that seemed like the kind of thing to do. Disclaimer: I knew nothing about JoJo before starting and know nothing about JoJo now, all information used to make these statblocks comes from the wiki.

Sand Guardian 2 HD (10 HP), unarmored, move 1.5x normal, morale 12, bite 1d8 Sand animated in the form of a quadruped wolf-like creature, with a feathered, beaked mask. Growls like blowing wind. Wants to be left alone and to protect its mask. Wolf intelligence and instincts.

Living sand: Regains 1d6 HP each round as long as there is sand or dirt nearby to patch its wounds. Mask bound: Dissipates into sand if its mask is removed. The mask can be used once per day to form a new sand guardian from a sufficient quantity of earth.

Scarlet Inferno 4 HD (20 HP), unarmored, move normal, morale 12, punch 1d6/punch 1d6 OR fire blast 2d6, 10’ radius, Save for half A muscular humanoid, barely visible like a heat shimmer. Roars like crackling fire. Wants to burn things. Near-human intelligence, but single-minded.

Pure heat: Invisible unless someone spends an action looking for it. Attacking it with things that would put out a fire, like water or smothering foam, turn it visible.

Sludge Shifter 0 HD (2 HP), unarmored, move normal, morale 6, bite 1d4 A fist-sized blob of gray goop with limbs and teeth. Cackles like a high-pitched garbage disposal. Intelligence of a malicious child.

Conglomerate: Can merge with others into harmless gray sludge piles. Mimicry: The pile can return an exact duplicate of any inanimate object submerged in it. The duplicate is actually one or more sludge shifters, waiting for the right moment to transform and bite someone.

Parasite Queen 0 HD (1 HP), unarmored, move none, morale 10, punch 1d2 A brown wart that grows into an ugly brown growth with a face and arms. Screams in an angry gurgle only the host can hear. Wants to find a new host and ruin the current one’s life in the process. Cunning but bastard intelligence.

Symbiosis: Forms where a spore infects a creature’s open wound and grows to full size over a week, reducing the host’s max HP by 1. After another week, buds off into dozens of tiny spores to infect new hosts.

Royal Revolver A sentient magic revolver with +1 to attack and damage. Wants to do impressive tricks and be recognized.

Trick shot: Once per day, its bullets can deflect off of or around objects.

Web Emerald 1 HD (5 HP), unarmored, move normal, morale 8, constrict 1d6, any adjacent targets, OR acid spray 2d6, Save for half A network of interwoven green veins formed into a humanoid mass. Whispers like sizzling acid. Wants to grow and discover new things (by pulling them apart). Predator intelligence, but plant-like.

Unravel: Can unravel itself to about 100’ of rope-like vein, or unravel further into thin strings. No movement speed and can’t spray acid when fully in these forms. Web sense: Can sense anything that touches it, in any form.