<![CDATA[Tilesets From Roof Tiles]]>
I’ve been doing a little research into Japanese roof design! It’s amazing what you can find on the internet, for example articles like this one explaining the history of the Japanese roof. Originally, the Japanese got the idea for roof tiles from the Koreans. However, these tiles consisted not only of flat tiles, but tubular tiles too and were fairly expensive. They were placed mainly on top of important buildings and shrines etc. This later devolved into the wave shaped tiles which are a common site in Japan, being much cheaper but almost as nice to look at. I’m not sure what the practicalities are of having waved tiles rather than flat ones, but if I was given the opportunity to have a roof that nearly resembled that of a Japanese temple I guess I wouldn’t pass it up. The image below is of a more ornate example, although there are obviously those that are more simple and others that are much more complex.
For my Ryokan roof, I originally fancied the original roof (as demonstrated at the top of this post!) But not only is it unlikely that a B&B would have such an ornate roof, it doesn’t seem to come out well in 2D form. Despite my gradient-effect efforts, the tile simply appeared to be flat.
The most left red tile is my attempt at the tube tile, abandoned fairly on for the wave tile which just works brilliantly. You can imagine the tile sloping at a 45 degree angle, even from a straight on perspective like this one. Being tiles, they repeat effortlessly. All I had to ensure was that they aligned evenly.
The colour of the roof has changed from blue to pinky-red, this is due to the out-doors colours scheme I’m currently conjuring. For the first level of the game at least, I want to use a lot of pinks and reds- similar colours to the Sakura blossom object. This is my way of saying “you’re in Sakura country now, Player1!” Plus, I want the outdoor world of Hanami to accurately represent a Japanese spring time.
After applying the new red tiles to the roof, I re-worked the wooden frame of the building using a new set of flexible tiles. Wood is a traditional building material which can still be seen today, especially in Kyoto which used to be the capital of Japan. They tend not to exist these days in many urban and even in rural areas, however I’ve chosen to create a tileset for wooden houses because it is a symbol of something that is traditionally Japanese.
I haven’t tried to accurately represent the layout of wood in a wooden Japanese house with my tiles, but give an impression of a wooden structure which has been cross-sectioned for the inside view of the Ryokan. To give you an idea of the scale of the building, I’ve placed Hana in the middle of this newly constructed space:
Kyoto Machiya.com is a great resource for images of traditional Machiya (Japanese wooden house), specifically Kyomachia which are Machiya located in Kyoto! The site’s galleries include photos of inside and outside various famous Machiya, which will be useful for the next step of the Ryokan construction, which will be to build its walls and inside!
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