water...

Well, you have many ways to go.

-For example, if you are looking pure animation, you can use 3D Studio MAX etc to create an animated sequence of frames.

-However, if you are familiar with the use of pixel shaders you can do your water pretty simple. For instance, from your top point of view, you'll practically see the sky reflected, so you can use it as a texture for the water. Adding a certain DuDv map will distort the reflection and when used with a normal map, it will create quite good looking water.

-You can do the previous effect to some extend with vertex shaders too if you consider pixel shaders too much for your project.

To get some of drawing mountains etc, check on Google Earth :)

Cheers

@Demus
Did you even read the post? 2D tile based.

As far as water goes, you might check This thread out, the following:

comes from there and looks pretty good.

For top-down trees and mountains, what is your scale? A realistic mountain is way too big to make a single tile for, instead you might consider making a rocky tileset and having the mountains be a full environment.

You might search google images for aerial photos of parks and forests for some good inspiration for making realistic trees. For more stylized trees, the tops of the trees in Zelda: A Link to the Past could look good alone (without the trunk) from an aerial view.

Good luck :)

Quote:

Original post by JBourrie @Demus Did you even read the post? 2D tile based.

Just because he's doing tiles doesn't mean he's stuck in the 1990s. glOrtho...

Quote:

Original post by taby Quote: Original post by JBourrie @Demus Did you even read the post? 2D tile based. Just because he's doing tiles doesn't mean he's stuck in the 1990s. glOrtho...

I guess it was just the mention of 3D Studio MAX that made it sound like you were discussing 3D techniques (it seems like an odd tool to do 2D water maps, but then again I'm a designer not an artist [grin])

I apologize

well hehe when i say 'realistic,' that can just mean 'good.' Thats a pretty good idea for the water, i can experiment myself in photoshop.

I am programming in java, so you know. I am using OpenGL, i am not familar with shaders. Also, so it would be pretty effective, since my tbs game can have day/night and seasons, you do never see the sky, but the water can kinda reflect it somehow, i can have it very faint and very transparent to make a reflection, i may need to make the sky texture somewhat shiney as well.