Need advice on creating a tileset in Game Maker

Started by quicklite November 03, 2015 05:18 AM

2 comments, last by LorenzoGatti 9 years, 4 months ago

Author

101

November 03, 2015 05:18 AM

So, I've been making a small platformer game as a hobby of sorts with a friend. The image below is an example of the artstyle and general look of the game. Friend of mine has recently asked if I could make a tileset for him for help with programming/level design. I am...pretty completely new to game design and graphic art (if you can't tell by the picture below >_>), and though I vaguely know how a tileset works, I'm not sure how to design one for this game. See, the player sprite will be a ball, and thus the game will probably need slopes of at least 4 different angles for the ball to roll down. However, I'm...really not sure how to do non-45 degree angles in a tileset. If I'm thinking about this correctly, a tileset needs to be a set of platform sprites that will tessellate in a grid (is that right?), but specific angles don't really align with the grid, making them a bit of a total nightmare to tesellate across a static square grid. Is there a trick to doing this, am I missing the point of what a tileset is, or is this sort of thing impossible to do with a tileset at all?

Oh, and I should probably mention that while the game itself is being made in Game Maker, but I'm working through Adobe Illustrator. I'm aware that a sprite editor exists in Game Maker, but I've spent a lot of time in Illustrator and just sorta prefer working through that.

[attachment=29522:Tileset Help 1.PNG][attachment=29523:Tileset Help 2.PNG]

Servant of the Lord

33,739

November 03, 2015 06:12 AM

Some games use shapes or objects that can be scaled and rotated within the editor; however, this depends on the toolset and the programmer. Since you're just making art, if you're locked into a tileset, fine. But you can still work within your technical constraints in clever ways.

The first thing you need to realize about tilesets is that you can break up larger objects into multiple tiles that fit together like a puzzle. With this in mind, your slopes can take multiple tiles horizontally (or vertically!) to reach their stopping point.

If you're smart about it, you can use specific locations where your slopes line up. For example, in the middle of the first and third slopes, they meet at 24 pixels high, which means the people making the map can mix-and-match the ramps to create more variation:

You can also create curves, not just strait lines:

(this should probably go in the Visual Arts section, where the artists could probably give you even more ideas)

quicklite

Author

101

November 03, 2015 12:25 PM

Some games use shapes or objects that can be scaled and rotated within the editor; however, this depends on the toolset and the programmer. Since you're just making art, if you're locked into a tileset, fine. But you can still work within your technical constraints in clever ways.

The first thing you need to realize about tilesets is that you can break up larger objects into multiple tiles that fit together like a puzzle. With this in mind, your slopes can take multiple tiles horizontally (or vertically!) to reach their stopping point.

If you're smart about it, you can use specific locations where your slopes line up. For example, in the middle of the first and third slopes, they meet at 24 pixels high, which means the people making the map can mix-and-match the ramps to create more variation:

You can also create curves, not just strait lines:

(this should probably go in the Visual Arts section, where the artists could probably give you even more ideas)

Hey, thanks! This really helps! I'll bear in mind to post these sorts of issues to the Visual Arts forum in advance, but I think that this pretty much answers my question.