Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

[I know this article is extremely corny and poorly written, but there might be a fact or two if you stare REALLY hard :]

INTRO
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Face it. Tilesets are awesome. Why? They just are? ;p

Levels are also supercool, but with tilesets, the possibilities are endless. If you make a level, it’s just a level. People play on it and (hopefully) have fun, but sooner or later, it’ll get old. In most cases, it’s more sooner than later.

However, if you were to make a tileset, it’s more than just a tileset! Okay… maybe it isn’t. But the amount of use a single tileset gets is tremendous. Unless it stinks cough Cool Day /cough.

Unfortunately, tilesets are not as easy to make as levels. Levels are made in JCS, and JCS alone. But JCS was built to be easy. Tilesets are a different story because tilesets are not made in JCS.

IMAGE EDITORS
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***To create a tileset you need an image editing program. A great example is Paint Shop Pro. ( http://www.jasc.com/ ) (I use PSP 6 and it is wonderful.)***

Which program should you use to make a tileset?
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Ah… the age old question to which there is no definate answer. Some people cruise along with Microsoft’s Paint and don’t like or want more advanced programs. And then there are some more great tileset artists (and me) who love JASC’s Paint Shop Pro. It has all the features you could ever need. But of course there are always people who love the king of all image editors: Adobe Photoshop.

Adobe Photoshop is extremely expensive for most JJ2ers, but it has the most features. Unfortunately most of these features are hard to use for tilesets, so I definately do not reccommend you buy this unless you have other reasons to buy it.

That said, I should tell you most of the tutorials and such I do will be focused for PSP (6). But they apply in some ways to, more or less, just about every image program.

Before you create your first tileset, download an image editor and become comfortable with it’s features. To make your experience MUCH more enjoyable it should have these functions (and more):

-Ability to change the image size without starting over
-Basic drawing functions (line, pixel by pixel, fill, etc…)
-Copy + Paste
-Rotate
-Color replacer

And of course

-Palette support!!!!

Uses of a tileset
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A few basic uses an advantages of making your own tileset:

-When making a level while using your tileset, you can add whatever tiles you need and never be stuck in any situation without a tile!

-Express your emotions and feelings, and to show your creativity.

-Show off you are cool and “l337”.

-Make JJ2 a better place

-Get offers from companies to work on a game which will possibly be ported to Gameboy Advanced (inside joke sorta ;).

-If someone else creates a masterpiece level: BOOM! You can automatically steal some credit! ;)

-[you get the general idea :]

So you’re gonna make a tileset? Now what!?
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Stay tuned! Because next week (or whenever I feel like it), we’re going to introduce you to the very basic concepts of tileset creation and how to slap it all together.

©2000 – Ice M A N EM