I've been trying to find some good articles to show me examples on how to properly lay texture splats on a tiled grid. Forgive me if I can't make myself clear enough, I'll try and explain it as well as I can. I've created an isometric grid of a fixed size dictated by a map script file (lua). This generates a grid much like THIS. Each map script has X number of tile script files that are loaded. Within those script files: - masks are setup - tiles sets are setup. - each tile set has 9 tiles for each direction and a centre tile. (this can be changed easily to expand to more) - each tile set has a depth, flags, etc. because the map is a big array of index offsets in an array of tile set "key" values, each tile is attached to a set. What I'm trying to figure out is a good way of layering textures such that a layer with a higher depth spills over to the next tile to appear as if it's bending in without the blockyness of the grid. For example how grass would be at a higher level then mud, so the edges of the mud tile where the grass is close would have grass overflowing in. I'm getting hung on the fact that what if 3 different tile textures share an edge with a single tile, how would the layering work there? Or is it just better to use a texture splattering technique and not worry about the game going for an "old school" look?

No, that's my problem exactly. I already came to the assumption that I would have to create that many tiles. To be honest, I believed there would have been an easier way. So I'm probably just going to end up doing some texture splatting.

I'm making a "pen and paper" rts, so working with old school graphics interests me. But earlier today I was thinking, well maybe instead of worrying about height difference in 2D graphics I can just use a height map and maybe put a cross hatch look to the game. There are plenty of cool shaders I can create for a game, and your kind of limited if all your graphics are 2D.