Beta Testing
This last little section talks about probably one of the most overlooked parts of drawing a tileset, beta testing! There are many things in a tileset that needs to be beta tested, and the tiles you draw is one of the most important. The things you look at when beta testing drawn tiles are:
  • Do they all fit together?
  • Is the colour scheme correct? (are some areas too dark, dull or colourful compared to the rest of the tileset)
  • Can the tiles improve in any way?
  • Does it have all the event tiles?
  • Are there any tiles missing?
You can let the beta tester test your tileset in more than one way. You can either send them certain tiles you are uncertain about while you’re busy drawing (always good to get another opinion on stuff) or you can send them an image of the all the finished tiles and expect a huge list back of stuff that can be changed. Personally I do both. Whenever I’m uncertain about the outcome of a tile, or if I made two versions of a tile and I’m not too sure which one looks better I always ask someone else for their opinion.

The Beta Tester
There are people that are good beta testers and some that are bad beta testers. The tricky part is trying to tell the difference between the two. A beta tester needs to be open and honest and should definitely NOT be afraid to say if something looks bad, as long as they give good advice on how you could improve it. My favourite beta tester is FQuist. Why? Because he is BRUTAL! No matter how good I think I have drawn something, he always has ideas on how to make it better, and better yet: he knows what I am capable of improving, and won’t stop pestering me until I have.
That’s for me though, and this website is for YOU, so I’ll give a few pointers on how to distinguish between a good and bad beta tester.

Bad:

  • Someone that only compliments your tileset (“Wow this tileset is great!” “I love the houses and the way you made the tiles!”)
  • Someone that only has bad things to say about the set (“This is horrible!” “I can do much better than this.”)
Good:
  • Someone that has bad things to say about the tileset, BUT also gives ideas on how to improve it (“The windows look boring and plain, try drawing them a window frame.” “Your trees don’t fit the ground properly, draw a few roots at the bottom so it looks better.”)
One of the most common mistakes people make when choosing a beta tester is that they like choosing one that compliments their work. Sure it feels good, but what does it help you if you have a beta tester that doesn’t find any problems? The other common mistake (a far bigger one I think) people make is that they don’t like a beta tester that says bad things about their work, because this is exactly what a beta tester is supposed to do. Sure you might feel bad, but it’s much better that you spot and change the bad things about your tileset before uploading it when it’s too late to do so.

However, the tricky part is finding someone that gives you good advice on how to improve your mistakes instead of just finding all the bad stuff. Not knowing how to fix a problem is just as bad as not knowing about it at all. But whatever you do, don’t ignore it! If you think there’s a problem try and ask someone else what they think would be a good idea on improving it.

That’s all there is to know about beta testing. Instead of giving a short list of what I’ve written I’ll give you a few examples of stuff that have changed.

Examples
Below are a few examples of drawings that have changed in my tilesets through betatesting:

Example 1:
Old drawing Final drawing
The hanging leaves from Mega Megatropolis, the old one was too repetitive and the leaves were hard to see.

Example 2:
Old drawing Old drawing Old drawing Final drawing
Four of the eleven different ground types I made for Persian Paradise before finally making one I like. I even ended up making a different colour scheme. You don't always get it right the first time, or the second, or third, fourth, fifth...

Example 3:
Old drawing Final drawing
The tree branches from Mega Megatropolis, randomness is always good in nature.

Example 4:
Old drawing Final drawing
The TV in Mega Megatropolis. Do I even need to explain what was wrong with this one?

Example 5:
Old drawing Final drawing
Water in Persian Paradise. Much like the ground in the same tileset, a different feathering and blending technique looked better.

Example 6:
Old drawing Old drawing Final drawing
Different types of doors to walk through in Mirrow's Kingdom. It's amazing how much better it looks with the small border in the final drawing.

Example 7:
Old drawing Final drawing
The palm tree in Persian Paradise. In this example Mirrow made the original palmtree (We both made Persian Paradise together) but wasn't too happy about the quality and asked me to see if I could improve it a bit.

Drawing the Tileset

Page 1: Drawing Methods/Feather and Blur
Page 2: Perspective
Page 3: Diagonals
Page 4: Detail
Page 5: Event Tiles/Additional Layer Eye Candy
Page 6: Beta Testing

-=Tutorials=-
[Part 1: Starting a Tileset|Part 2: Drawing the Tileset|Part 3: Making the Palette]