Creating Tilesets

I need help with creating tilesets. 
Where do i start?
Do you start from scratch?
How are you guys able to make them so pretty??
Any tips for creating clean, organized sets?

Any help would be much appreciated.

You can start with copying Tileset 0 as a template. Then, draw your pattern for the ground (most tilesets do) in the square that's one right and two down from the blank one (top-left). Then, copy that and paste it to all the touching squares, including diagonals. Then, draw a box around the far edges of that 3x3 square. That's your ground maker. Then, if you want 1x1 squares or 1xWhatever or Whateverx1 ground, copy the middle one again and paste it to the square to the left of the blank tile, the one to the left of the one you just pasted to, and the one next to that one. Then

Forget it. Just make sure you have some idea of what you want to do, then do it. *shrugs* And to make it orderly, put the things in a way so you everyone else can tell what's what and where it's supposed to go. That's all I can really say.

Try shading and borders. Make them look stand out as much as possible. 

Here's the template.



Erase the checker box pattern after you've finish the tileset
If one of the boxes are fully transparent, the level editor will complain, even though it still works.
Keep the top left corner transparent.

Erase the checker box pattern after you've finish the tileset

Well, don't exactly erase it, but fill in the remainder of the square with whatever your transparency is, which is either pure black (RGB 0,0,0) pure white (RGB 255,255,255) or magenta (RGB 255,0,255)

Try shading and borders. Make them look stand out as much as possible.

A lot of shading and borders doesn't make it stand out. How well you shade and border make it stand out. Quality before quantity.

What programs would you guys recommend? Just MSPaint?

I usually use Photoshop, but Gimp is a great (and free) alternative.

What programs would you guys recommend? Just MSPaint?

Ironically, I wouldn't reccomend MS Paint, but I use it. If you know how to use GIMP or Paint.net or even Photoshop, use those. If not, use MS Paint.

GASP! Imaddo ninja'd me!

All of you are wrong!

Project Dogwaffle is the way to go! 

AHH! What color does the empty space in a tileset have to be so that it wont show up?

AHH! What color does the empty space in a tileset have to be so that it wont show up?

That's called "Transparency" and it depends. If you're using MS Paint, try pure black (RGB 0,0,0) or magenta (RGB 255,0,255)

Quote from: StaticRomantic on March 29, 2009, 08:34:19

AHH! What color does the empty space in a tileset have to be so that it wont show up?

That's called "Transparency" and it depends. If you're using MS Paint, try pure black (RGB 0,0,0) or magenta (RGB 255,0,255)

What is it in Paint.net?

Quote from: Pumpkinbot on March 29, 2009, 08:36:10

Quote from: StaticRomantic on March 29, 2009, 08:34:19

AHH! What color does the empty space in a tileset have to be so that it wont show up?

That's called "Transparency" and it depends. If you're using MS Paint, try pure black (RGB 0,0,0) or magenta (RGB 255,0,255)

What is it in Paint.net?

A program

It's the same thing, same colors.

But Paint.NET can do real transparency, and doesn't have to resort to the color options.

I'd recommend keeping the template intact and drawing on a blank layer on top of it. Then, once you're ready to use / test the tileset, you can hide the template layer and your tiles should automatically have the transparency around them.

Remember - for a tileset to be usable, every tile (except the blank tile in the top left corner) must contain SOMETHING. If any tile is left blank / transparent, the KS Editor will not let you use the tileset until it's filled with something. This is why you see the letters B, L, A, N and K on some of the public (default) tilesets. Usually, I make a second copy of the template and just cut out the squares I'm using, thus: