Table of Contents
Edge Effects
Tiler, Wall and Poly layers can all have edge effects added to their layers. An edge effect will treat the entire layer as a single painting and add pixel effects to both the interior and exterior edges of that layer based upon where the transparent edges on the layer are. This can be used to create glow effects (exterior), shadows (interior) and a host of other effects.
Edge Effects render slowly so sometimes when you are editing you will notice that Dungeon Demon temporarily disables rendering Edge Effects to keep your editing speed high. Don't worry, as soon as it can, Dungeon Demon will render your edge effects again.
Looking at the above image we can see a check box to turn Edge Effects On - by default EE will be off. The Exterior Width refers to how many pixels around the edges of the layer are to be rendered with an edge effect. Exterior Color 1 will be the color that the pixels closest to the layer will be painted. Exterior Color 2 will be the color that the farthest out pixels (as determined by the Exterior Width value) will be rendered. Pixels in between will be an interpolation between these two colors. The Alpha channels will, as usual, detemine how translucent those colors are with 0 being translucent, 255 being opaque and the values in between going from translucent to more opaque.
Interior Edge Effects are typically used for creating shadow type effects on floors and different effects on walls. In the example shown I have used an interior edge effect that is 12 pixels wide and which goes from medium translucency (Interior Color 1 Alpha: 150) to completely translucent (Interior Color 2 Alpha: 0), both colors set to black, to create a soft edge to a hedge wall.
Wall Parameters
Wall parameters allow you to control how wide your walls are as you tile them out. Additionally you can add wall lines and control the size of the bricks that are created by these lines as well as the color and translucency of those lines.
Interesting brick types can be creating using a brick width that is twice the wall tile width. Much like a good brick layer, you will need to lay these bricks down with some care if you are to not end up with lots of small end pieces - ideally you are creating as many lengths of wall that are evenly divisibly by your brick width as possible. To do this, set up your wall tile and brick sizes before you begin laying your walls so you can use your brick lines to help make wall chunks that divide up neatly as much as is possible. If you end up with a few half bricks being rendered at the end... it's not the end of the world, much like in the real world you will just end up with half bricks in your walls. Here is an example of a poorly constructed wall:
Note all of the extra brick segments that are squares instead of rectangles? If those wall lengths are constructed with lengths that are divided evenly by brick length then this can be avoided! Here is a rebuilt version of those same walls where I was more careful with the wall lengths that I was constructing:
Stamper Shadows
Stamper Shadow settings are used to create simple shadow effects for object layers. If Stamper Shadows are enabled then every object on that layer will render at an offset and in the color and translucency described by the Shadow Stamper settings for that layer. For example; to create a translucent dark shadow that ahngs below and to the right of all objects on that layer you would select the color black, set alpha to 128 (remember alpha values run from 0..255 with 0 being fully transparent and 255 being fully opaque) - 128 is half translucent. X and Y offset settings of 5 mean that all objects will have their shadows rendered 5 pixels to the right and 5 pixels below themselves.
You may find that you would like to have longer shadows on taller objects (trees, houses, etc.) than on others. To create this effect will require two layers so that each layer can have their own Stamper Shadow settings. I would typically put the taller shadowed objects on the lower layer and might choose X&Y offsets of 20 while using X&Y offsets of 4 for the layer containing the shorter objects.
In the above map I have created 4 different object layers. The buildings have taller, softer shadows than the foreground objects like the barrels and fire. The clouds overhead have an even larger offset shadow with a low alpha value so they are mostly transparent. I have also added a bit of a shadow to the grass object layer that I have created so that I could use grass patches to turn the straight line edge between the bricks and the grass into a more natural looking irregular edge.
Edge Effects Case Study
Here's an example of some of the kinds of things that you can do with edge effects.
First, I have created a simple floor layout.
and added some surrounding walls to the wall layer. NOTE: both of these textures are from the free David Johnston art pack that can be downloaded here.
Next, I have pulled up the Edge Effects dialog box for the floor layer (Edit Layers/Edge Effects from the main menu bar) and added a fat shadow around the interior of the floor layer. You can see the interior settings that I used in the dialog in the image.
Next, I have pulled up the wall parameters dialog and added a fat black line between the walls to create a brick effect (Edit Layers/Wall Parameters). I also turned off the master grid so that I could see my results better (Tools/Master Grid and deselected the Display Grid check box).
And, to finish, I have applied some more edge effects to the wall layer.
Here is another variation where I have fattened up the interior edge effect to create a mossy parapet top. I have also use a little bit of exterior edge effect to sharpen up the edge of the wall. A nearly endless supply of variants can be created by alternating the interior edge from translucent to solid and vice versa, changing the thickness of the edge effect and also playing with different color combinations. Have fun with experimenting, you never know what you will find!
