cel-shade-ish(?),cartoon-ish terrain effect

hi fellow constructors!

just a minor thing, im not sure if i have seen anyone post something like this, maybe there is, but anyway here goes:

i was just fooling around with quazi's brilliant blob_test effect and tried to make it as a layer effect and it seems to work pretty nicely to get a cartoonish look and it also makes terrain look very smooth, if you dont want to use traditional blocky tile based terrain. for more detailed environment, you can simply use overlay sprites/graphics on a different layer. you also get a nice merge and outline effect. if you want a separate outlined object,just put it on another layer.

you need the blob_test effect if you want to open the .cap i presume.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11157144/terrain-example.cap

here's also the exe from the .cap if you dont have the effect or just want a quick look.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11157144/terrain--example.exe

just a little note:

if you encounter stuttering in the .cap/exe, its probably due to me being lazy and using just the basic per pixel collisions, i tried making a custom collisions using sprites with bounding box collisions and it seemed to run smooth. anyone correct me if im mistaken.

I know, I might sound childish now, but while Quazi was the first to do the comic look fluids and therefore should be called the inventor of the blobs in Construct, it was me who created the blob_test.fx (btw, I never really published it, hence "_test"^^). In fact, I created the effect after I saw a video with quazi's creation. I wanted to recreate it, but at the same time making it a bit easier to use (it's now just one effect, instead of several ones).

Anyway, nice example of usage. I also still use the blob shader in a td concept, where all the paths are created in realtime via sprites that build a nice looking road, thanks to the effect:

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11182740/pictures/td.png" border="0" />

ugh, i posted 3 repliess and i got a weird error. now im exhausted and dont want to write all that stuff for the fourth time. but anyway, thanks for clarifying and sorry if i gave credit to a wrong person,i just wrote that out of memory.

few questions:

is there any newer versions of the blob?

in that road example pic you posted, did you use some overlay sprite or is that just a textured sprite?

anyway, thanks for clarifying!

is there any newer versions of the blob?No, you are working with the newest version. But I'm always willing to help. So, if you happen to have any idea or feature request that's within the possibilities of an effect, I'm more than happy to try implementing it.

in that road example pic you posted, did you use some overlay sprite or is that just a textured sprite?The structure is as follows:

1) Background layer (contains one tb with a texture)

2) Blob layer (contains several instances of a white "blob"-sprite with radial gradiented opacity). The layer has the blob shader applied and on top of it the Burn shader.

Hope, this helped?

> is there any newer versions of the blob?No, you are working with the newest version. But I'm always willing to help. So, if you happen to have any idea or feature request that's within the possibilities of an effect, I'm more than happy to try implementing it.

> in that road example pic you posted, did you use some overlay sprite or is that just a textured sprite?The structure is as follows:

1) Background layer (contains one tb with a texture)

2) Blob layer (contains several instances of a white "blob"-sprite with radial gradiented opacity). The layer has the blob shader applied and on top of it the Burn shader.

Hope, this helped?

i just tried that and it works perfectly! thats really nice. only thing is that id like to use different texture for the road (think BG grass and sand road on top for example), but i guess there could be some kind of simple workaround..?

i'll keep that request thing in mind, if i can come up with something that could possibly be achievable.

one thing that ive always wanted is some kind of realtime mesh editor (in the editor,that is. i know theres a separate editor in the construct folder), since i have never really liked doing tiled sprites. i remember seeing some video of some game creating software,that had this ability and it looked interesting, but i really dont want to start using any other program than construct, cuz i like it so much. i always use just textures that has a some form of transparency at the sides,so i can merge them together,while still looking adequate. but i know that mesh editor isnt probably the highest priority for construct,and i guess less so with classic construct. something like the terrain creation used in little big planet would be more than welcome though,only in 2D, pretty much the only thing i like about the game :)

anyway, thanks for the tip, its really awesome!