Tileset help

[Blue Falkon]

I changed my mind and decided to go a lot smaller on my game, so I'm going to just create a standard RPG you may find on the SNES or GBA with just a couple of people. Design and art is currently going great but I'm extremely stumped on one of the biggest parts: making graphic tilesets.

Each tile is 32x32 and there are three layers. One for ground, one for objects, and another one for overheading objects. Now, I'm not an artist. I'm also not a tiling expert. There's only one spriter at the moment (and probably one more soon) who can handle doing all of the sprites and artwork for the game but I do not want to pile the tilesets on top of her as well as they're so time-consuming.

I have Adobe Photoshop 6.0. I would appreciate it if I could get some help on how to make a tileset. From how to constructing the shape of objects to shading. I'm going for Tales of Phantasia GBA quality. I do not want to go on a hunt for tilers so I figured I may as well take up the job as long as I learn how.

[spellcaster]

Well, it's quite easy.
First you need to think of your environment. Say a city. Then you imagine the look of the city from above. Now you transform that image in your mind into the pseudo perspective used in these games.

Use your inner eye to walk around in this city. Now overlay your imaginary tile grid. Now would be a good time to get your pencil and graph paper to do a first sketch.
This will allow you to get a feel for the required number of tiles for floor sets, objects, buildings, etc.

All you need to do now is to open your graphic program of choice and start to pixel. Afte your first attempts at a tile set, you should show them to some other pixel artists to get some feedback.

Listen to them, and try to incorporate their suggestions. Repeat.
After a couple of years (+/- a couple depending on your artistic talent) you should be able to get the quality you are looking for.

;)

Don't get me wrong, but I think you have no idea what kind of work is needed for a good tileset. Saying "I have Photoshop and want Tales of Phantasia-style graphics - what should I do?" is pretty much like saying "I just bought some pens and I want some Dürer quality drawings - what should I do?"

You should play some of the SNES RPGs you seem to like and then watch the credits. You'll notice that the credits will take some time to scroll by.
;)

[Blue Falkon]

;)

Don't get me wrong, but I think you have no idea what kind of work is needed for a good tileset. Saying "I have Photoshop and want Tales of Phantasia-style graphics - what should I do?" is pretty much like saying "I just bought some pens and I want some Dürer quality drawings - what should I do?"

You should play some of the SNES RPGs you seem to like and then watch the credits. You'll notice that the credits will take some time to scroll by.
;)

Well, I do agree with you to some extent. I count 30 on many games (do note that those games are old and the knowledge and ability was far less at that time than it is now). My spriter can make a spritesheet in an hour, more-or-less and the sprites, IMHO, compete with many you could find on Playstation sprite-integrated games. Also, I've seen many people make tilesets in a couple of hours that look astounding.

You are probably correct by how long it would take to learn it for the average person. My strength is, I can learn anything hard in hours-days. My weakness is, I have an extremely low attention span and if I try to focus on an artistic thought in my head (as you mentioned, walls of what a city would look like or what have you) it will fly out the window before the pencil hits the paper.

[papillon]

Look at existing tilesets?

Read existing pixel art tutorials?

(http://www.zoggles.co.uk/asp/tutorials.asp?tut=17&comments=yes)

There are some good basic instructions out there for getting started with. Photoshop won't help you at all with those, though. At least, I don't *think* anybody uses Photoshop to pixel with.

But seriously, if you want to at least attempt it on your own, find an existing tileset. Look at the pieces they use and build your own version of these common elements. Corners, fences, trees, buildings, roofs...

(Or, y'know, buy a license for RPG Maker XP and save yourself a lot of trouble? :) )

[Blue Falkon]

Look at existing tilesets?

Read existing pixel art tutorials?

(http://www.zoggles.co.uk/asp/tutorials.asp?tut=17&comments=yes)

There are some good basic instructions out there for getting started with. Photoshop won't help you at all with those, though. At least, I don't *think* anybody uses Photoshop to pixel with.

But seriously, if you want to at least attempt it on your own, find an existing tileset. Look at the pieces they use and build your own version of these common elements. Corners, fences, trees, buildings, roofs...

(Or, y'know, buy a license for RPG Maker XP and save yourself a lot of trouble? :) )

I'm doing all of what you just said. That tutorial, everything... in fact, I'm using RPG Maker XP as well. This project is one huge practice thing for me and my company to see how well we can do with creating 2D resources. I'm also studying Ruby (though I ran out of tutorials to proceed further).

I'm using tilesets that people created from scratch for RPG Maker 2000 and I'm also looking at games like Tales of Phantasia and Seiken Densetsu... perhaps I'll get used to it. For now I'm having trouble.

[spellcaster]

Well, in that case, all you have to do is to actually create the tiles. Shouldn't be that hard for you.

[Blue Falkon]

Thanks for the advice. I'm surprisingly kicking ass.

Photoshop does make things a lot easier than Paint. Instead of drawing in each pixel you can just use Dodge/Burn tools to shade textures for you. I'm already really good at doing it now.

[Sysiphus]

hehe

That's self motivation.