Disguise's Tileset Resource

Planning

Planning is a very important part of making a tileset, and is also unfortunately forgotten or ignored most of the time. Before you actually start drawing a tileset, you need to have a general idea what you’re about to draw and how you’re going to draw it. The important thing to remember is that when you’re making a tileset you’re probably going to be doing it over a long period of time, and over this period of time you will forget things you’ve planned, I mean we’re all only human after all. It’s a good idea to write down everything you’ve planned so that you can use it as a guide when drawing the tileset. In this section I’ll give you a text file of a plan I did for a tileset (Mega Megatropolis) to use as an example and a guide to explaining the important parts of planning a tileset, but before I do there are two things you need to know first:

Mega Megatropolis was a HUGE tileset and the plan for it is even bigger, there were quite a few things I didn’t even need to draw because of the tileset limit (something to keep in mind with big projects). I do not expect your plan to be anything close as big as this, the reason I chose this as an example is because it’s very detailed.

A plan is not the definite end result of your tileset, it is only a plan and everything done at this point of the design is rough. Things CAN and most likely WILL change when you’re drawing it, don’t hesitate to change things you don’t like or won’t need anymore.

There, you can now download my plan for Mega Megatropolis by clicking the link HERE or see an html version I made for the site HERE.

Theme

Every tileset should have an overall theme and stick to it throughout production. This is the easiest thing to do and there are a variety of things to choose from so you can end up making what you like.
The theme for Mega Megatropolis (I’m going to hate typing that out by the end of this section, I can feel it) was to have a city in the middle of surrounding landscape and villages, it’s very general, but I needed lots of different stuff to draw to fill up 4000 tiles. A theme for a normal sized tileset would be more specific, but should still have a bit of variety e.g. if you’re going to make a space themed tileset add some planets AND metal pieces to prevent it all looking the same. Some other examples of themes that can be used are: Jungle, Desert, City, Underwater, Freaky Alien World, Toy Box etc.
You can draw ANYTHING you want, the greatest part about making a tileset.

Sections (Sub-Themes)

The sections or sub-themes of a tileset is what gives it variety (like the example given in the Theme section of this section of the Starting a Tileset section of this tutorial.
These sub-themes are the different areas possible for the overall theme of your tileset. Mega Megatropolis had a LOT of sub-themes that made up the overall tileset: City, Townsville, Sewers, Trees, Subway etc. and quite a few that were removed in the end: Boat, Water, Broken City Buildings. An ideal tileset would have around three, maybe four sub-themes, but even two is enough. The important thing to keep in mind when thinking of these sub-themes is that you can’t have too many, and they have to be able to link with each other seamlessly. For example, a jungle-themed tileset would have trees and the ground as its two sub-themes (or maybe an old ruined temple like in Nature’s Ruins).

Eye Candy and Extras

You’ve all heard the words eye candy before. For those of you who don’t know what it means, it’s an expression used to say how good something looks (candy for your eyes). There are two main ways of having good eye candy:

By being a good drawer.

By adding lots of extra stuff to populate the tileset (it would look dull otherwise).

Since we’re not at the drawing bit yet, we’ll look at the second one of these. These extras are everything and anything that would be included inside a sub-theme. No matter how important or how small it is, WRITE IT DOWN! These extras are the easiest things to forget, but are some of the important parts of the tileset. This is by far the biggest part of the plan for Mega Megatropolis; about 80% is just a bunch of different points that describe all the smallest details about each one of the sub-themes. Keep in mind though that these extras are the easiest thing to change in a tileset, and you can change them whenever you want.

Additional Layer Eye Candy

The additional layer eye candy is all the pieces that do not fit in layers 3 or 4. In the Mega Megatropolis plan all these pieces are listed at point 11 near the end of the plan. Usually when you make these eye candy pieces you should have enough to fill layers 5, 6, 7 and sometimes layer 2. It’s important not to make too much foreground layer eye candy as this can block the player’s view while they’re playing. As with anything else, these pieces of eye candy should fit with the theme of the tileset. Mountains are a classic example for any nature-themed tileset, while space-themed tilesets could have flying meteors or metal pipelines. Once again what you use in the tileset is all up to you.

Colours

This part of the planning is also often overlooked, but becomes extremely important when making 24-bit and/or bigger tilesets. One thing to keep in mind is that Jazz2 only allows you to add 160 of your own colours outside of the Jazz2 palette, and the more tiles you’re drawing with greater detail the harder it is to keep to this small set of colours.
The best way to prevent an overuse is to limit the different amount of colour shades used. Even though Mega Megatropolis is a huge tileset, I’ve managed to keep it fairly detailed by only using shades of green, grey, brown and a little bit of red throughout the tileset (example is point 13 in the plan). It doesn’t have to be as detailed as the one in the example, but as long as you have a general idea what colours to use you’ll be fine. Planning these colours will come in very handy later when compiling the tileset, as it prevents any nasty surprises later. You’ll love yourself for doing it.

Event Tiles

The event tiles weren’t included in the plan for Mega Megatropolis, but this doesn’t mean that they are not important, it means that they are MORE important. Every tileset MUST HAVE these event tiles because Jazz2 NEEDS them for some of the in-game events and other important parts of level making. There are also a few less used event tiles that are fairly dependant on the theme of your tileset. They will look good in some tilesets, but just won't fit in others. These events are optional and are mostly used as a means of eye candy because they barely affect gameplay.
The event tiles are:

Vine

H-Poles

V-Poles

Hooks

Sucker Tubes

Text Sign

Exit Sign

Arrows / Arrow Signs

Destruct Blocks

Hurt scenery (Spikes)

Water Block (Optional)

Belts (Optional)

This list is more important than you could ever imagine, DO NOT forget to add these things into your tileset. It should be a sticky on your monitor, your desktop background should have this list inside it and you should have it tattooed on your forearm! Ok so you don’t have to go that far with this, but if you don’t include these things some level maker out there will hate you for it. I always forget a few of these in my tilesets and I always hear people complain about it. Not scared enough to remember them all yet? Here’s a little fact that will make sure you remember.
Fact: If you don’t include event tiles in your tileset, it will get a lower rating!
GASP!
And that concludes the planning section of this tutorial, as well as all the info you need to start a tileset. The next part of the tutorials will focus on drawing (YaY!), but before I do that here’s the list for tileset planning:

Planning

Writing down a plan for a tileset is helpful in remembering all the info that’s needed.

Plans are rough and can be changed at any time.

First part of planning is thinking of a theme for the tileset.

Second part is thinking of several sub-themes.

Third and largest part is writing down all the small details about the sub-themes.

Add additional layer eye candy that fits with the theme of your set.

Planning colours is useful when making 24-bit and/or large tilesets.

Every tileset MUST HAVE all the event tiles.

Starting a Tileset

Page 1: The Basics
Page 2: Planning

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

	Theme
	Every tileset should have an overall theme and stick to it throughout production. This is the easiest thing to do and there are a variety of things to choose from so you can end up making what you like. The theme for Mega Megatropolis (I’m going to hate typing that out by the end of this section, I can feel it) was to have a city in the middle of surrounding landscape and villages, it’s very general, but I needed lots of different stuff to draw to fill up 4000 tiles. A theme for a normal sized tileset would be more specific, but should still have a bit of variety e.g. if you’re going to make a space themed tileset add some planets AND metal pieces to prevent it all looking the same. Some other examples of themes that can be used are: Jungle, Desert, City, Underwater, Freaky Alien World, Toy Box etc. You can draw ANYTHING you want, the greatest part about making a tileset.

	Sections (Sub-Themes)
	The sections or sub-themes of a tileset is what gives it variety (like the example given in the Theme section of this section of the Starting a Tileset section of this tutorial. These sub-themes are the different areas possible for the overall theme of your tileset. Mega Megatropolis had a LOT of sub-themes that made up the overall tileset: City, Townsville, Sewers, Trees, Subway etc. and quite a few that were removed in the end: Boat, Water, Broken City Buildings. An ideal tileset would have around three, maybe four sub-themes, but even two is enough. The important thing to keep in mind when thinking of these sub-themes is that you can’t have too many, and they have to be able to link with each other seamlessly. For example, a jungle-themed tileset would have trees and the ground as its two sub-themes (or maybe an old ruined temple like in Nature’s Ruins).

	Additional Layer Eye Candy
	The additional layer eye candy is all the pieces that do not fit in layers 3 or 4. In the Mega Megatropolis plan all these pieces are listed at point 11 near the end of the plan. Usually when you make these eye candy pieces you should have enough to fill layers 5, 6, 7 and sometimes layer 2. It’s important not to make too much foreground layer eye candy as this can block the player’s view while they’re playing. As with anything else, these pieces of eye candy should fit with the theme of the tileset. Mountains are a classic example for any nature-themed tileset, while space-themed tilesets could have flying meteors or metal pipelines. Once again what you use in the tileset is all up to you.

	Colours
	This part of the planning is also often overlooked, but becomes extremely important when making 24-bit and/or bigger tilesets. One thing to keep in mind is that Jazz2 only allows you to add 160 of your own colours outside of the Jazz2 palette, and the more tiles you’re drawing with greater detail the harder it is to keep to this small set of colours. The best way to prevent an overuse is to limit the different amount of colour shades used. Even though Mega Megatropolis is a huge tileset, I’ve managed to keep it fairly detailed by only using shades of green, grey, brown and a little bit of red throughout the tileset (example is point 13 in the plan). It doesn’t have to be as detailed as the one in the example, but as long as you have a general idea what colours to use you’ll be fine. Planning these colours will come in very handy later when compiling the tileset, as it prevents any nasty surprises later. You’ll love yourself for doing it.