Making my own tilesets

[HelenPixels]

Okay, I was starting to get a good feel for how VX works, and decided to make a few resources of my own for the game. Then I had the super brilliant idea to make entire tilesets all of my own. I've made a lovely tileset for brick and panelled houses of various colour schemes, and I am making another one for alternative settings, like a bamboo house, a snow house, a wooden shack...etc.

Since I have started making tiles, every time I play a game, especially a retro game, I am analyzing the pixel art! Actually, just today I was playing minecraft, was building a house to expand a village (you can't have too many farmers, right?), and I stopped to look at the textures of the blocks I was using, something I hadn't given second thought to until now. I thought about how the cobblestone tiles so seamlessly when you build with it and how much work and thought went into this extremely common material, and I looked at the dark oak log texture, because I have been strugging to make convincing wood textures (which would be a problem when making trees and wooden houses), so I looked at the wood in that game for some inspiration, both the logs and the planks. I've also been binge watching pixel art tutorials (and I have been learning quite a lot from them I might add). It occured to me that the people who made these minecraft textures essentially did for 3d what I am in the process of doing for 2d, creating tiles. Heck, I've gotten new respect for Mojang for bringing in such awesome pixel artists to work on Minecraft. I'd never really thought about art in games until now, but I now can't stop consciously looking at it!

Who else has made their own tilesets, and found themselves looking more closely at the art in games they have been playing since? Also, tell me what you think of my first attempt at an outdoor A3 tileset:

 

[SoftCloud]

* - * It's so colorful. It looks like a brilliant beginning to your tileset making.

 

[Magenta-Fantasies]

Creating maps and tilesets has made me think about level design in a different way.

For example, creating different pieces for my tilesets has made me realize how empty the maps in the Pokemon games looked until the 3DS era. There was very little variety in the tiles used. Though I have to say the Pokemon map designs are (usually) otherwise good. They aren't too tedious to traverse (it helps that many routes have "shortcuts" you can use to go back) and feel like logically designed towns and routes.

 

[Shaz]

I've moved this thread to General Discussion. Thank you.

(Maker Casual is where you post your Let's Plays)

 

[arsMori]

Oh same, I've been noticing the details of pixel art way more once I started working on my own sprites. I mean, I've always loved pixel art (I grew up on the earlier Pokemon games and wanted to try making my own Pokemon), but it's only now that I noticed how they would do certain textures and shapes. I've found myself looking for common patterns used too. Hell, when Deltarune came out, I spent a good amount of time looking at the art.

It goes doubly for pixel art animation, since I'm working on the SV battler sprites for my game as well. Both skills require the art to be understandable, as in animation, you would need the pose to be readable even if it was shown for only a few frames, while in pixel art, you would need to make sure the viewer can tell what it is even with such a limited resolution.

By the way, your tileset looks pretty good, especially for a first attempt! Reminds me of candy

 

[HelenPixels]

Thanks for the feedback folks, I'm glad you like my tiles! I am really getting into the pixel art now, and enjoying making my own tilesets. I know it's going to take me a few months to get all the tilesets I want, but I also know it means my game will have it's own unique look.

I haven't gotten into the sprites part of it yet, but when I do it will prove interesting, and animations in general, like water, lava and fire. The good thing is I can create anything I want to or need. I may make a sprite template and then fill in the details for each individual sprite. I am intending to make some light grey ones with 40% opacity for ghosts, because one of my ideas is an old haunted house on the outskirts of a village.

 

[mlogan]

In the future, for feedback for your specific work, please post in the WIP thread here: https://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?threads/the-resource-wip-thread-3.82717/

 

[HelenPixels]

Okay, thanks. I often have no idea where I am supposed to post stuff. I didn't even know that thread existed!