Hey Guys,
i just wanted to ask if anyone knows how to “smooth” the 2d Tiles/Textures like here in Rimworld.
For example look at the border of the “lake” and the dirt next to it.
When i generate my maps from 2d tilesets, you have the effect like in the old RPG Games where every tile has a sharp border, but I want it to look as smooth as it does here.
Is there any Keyword for this, so I can search for Tutorials?
Thanks!
Look for a vertex color shader, which may allow you to use a plane mesh, where the vertex colors of the outside cells are set up so that the alpha fades… and then overlap tiles to blend them. Alternatively just use an alpha channel on each tile and draw the scene in layers from lower to higher.
You can do that yourself in a paint program.
I think many people think using tile maps means the screen will look blocky but that is not true.
If you look at many of the SNES and Genesis games for example you will find you cannot really even tell the scene is composed of tiles.
The key is to make transitional tiles.
If you have a water tile and a ground tile then you simply make another transitional tile to go between them.
Of course, ideally, you will have several water tiles and several ground tiles to provide some variety but that is another story for another time. 
Anyway, say you have these tiles:
Look at the bottom row of tiles. The first tile is the water tile. The third tile is the ground tile.
The tile in the middle is the transitional tile. It is not very good because I just made it and I am not an artist. I would need to spend more time to make it look better. Anyway, I think it illustrates what I am saying.
Putting it together in a tile map you will have something like this:
Again, very simplistic because I just threw this together too. But notice the water transitions into the ground more smoothly than it does the grass because of that new transitional tile. If I had done a better job on it it would look much better.
Apologies for the necro. We wrote about how to achieve this for our game Feudalia. If anyone finds this in the future, we hope this helps!
Take a look: http://www.plumphelmet.com/post/edge-smoothing
The link is broken. Could you fix or post the solution here? thanks!
