|
|
In this tutorial you will learn…
• About autotile expansions
• One of the many wonders of the Print Scrn key
• How to use non-auto autotiles
Hi there, and welcome to my tutorial on non-auto autotiles! You may think that the title is a little strange, but all will be revealed throughout this
tutorial! Before we begin, I'd just like to say that it would be helpful if you have read the previous tutorial
on extending tilesets before we go into this; a lot of the same techniques are used.
So, what are we going to be doing in this tutorial - and what are non-auto autotiles? Well, officially, non-atuo autotiles aren't anything; I just gave
them that name to try and explain what they are. Basically, you will know that across the top of a tileset, you'll have seven autotiles that can be used to
create patterns of tiles on your map. However, you can only have seven autotiles per tileset, and, with the growing tilesets that you can now make using the
extension technique, you'll probably want more than seven autotiles on your tileset. There is no official way to do this - but I have come up with a relatively
simple method that will hopefully allow you to, in a sort of round-about way, have more than seven autotiles on your tileset - and this is what I am going to
show you in this tutorial.
Note: This technique only works for stationary autotiles - I.e. You can't do this with the water autotiles that have animation frames. Leave the space
at the top of the tileset for the animated autotiles, and use this technique for others.
Right. Open your graphic editing program of prefence - I am going to be using Paint Shop Pro 8, but it's up to you what you use - Photoshop mostly works just as
well. Open the tileset that you would like to add a non-auto autotile to. If you are using one of the RTP tilesets, it will be found in
C:/Common Files/Enterbrain/RGSS/Standard/Graphics/Tilesets (if you've installed the RTP in the default place). If you are using one of these, I would highly
recommend saving a copy using the Save As… feature of your graphics program; replacing the RTP graphics can be a bit of a pain.
Once you've opened your tileset in PSP or Photoshop, convert the graphic to 16 million colours if it needs it (see the beginning of the
previous tutorial for more information on that), and then go back to RPG Maker. Find a tileset that has the
autotile you want to add to your tileset, and set it to be used in one of your maps
using the Map Properties option (for more information on this, see my Simple Map Building tutorial). Now,
find the autotile that you want at the top of your tileset, and double-click it. You'll get this (I am using the RTP's 004-G_Ground02 as an example)…
Wow, snazzy, eh? That's an autotile expansion. That graphic there contains all the tiles that are created by RPG Maker when you use the autotile in your map, in
any possible formation. Now, we want to add this to our tileset. But, I hear you say: there is no save feature! Fear not; this is where the wonder of the Print
Scrn key comes in. Most of you will have used this key at some point - but, if not, you're in for a treat. Make sure that the autotile expansion window is
active, and then press Alt + Print Scrn on your keyboard. Go into PSP, and go Edit > Paste, or Ctrl + V. You'll get this…
Pretty cool, huh? So, now we're going to add this to our tileset. If your observant, you'll notice also that the tileset expansion is in a 8 × 6 32-square
tile box - which, handily, fits exactly into the width of a tileset.
Just a tip, here. You may also notice that the last two tiles in the expansion are exactly the same. I'm not sure of the purpose myself; maybe they just did it
to fill a spare tile. However, we can use this to our advantage. You'll notice that with the Print Scrn method, the white box gets captured along with the rest
of the image. If you make sure that your white box is on the last image when you take the Print Scrn, you'll be able to paste over it with the tile next to it.
See what I mean here…
When you've got this into your graphic editing program, you can copy the 32 × 32 tile next to it and paste it over the white box to get rid of it.
Right, now to get this autotile in your tileset. Zoom right in on the top-left corner of the expansion image, and, using the rectangle select tool, select only
the image, and none of the surrounding box, like this…
Making sure that you select only the autotile. The other edge should look like this…
Okay, once you've done that, you can either crop the image to that selection by going to Image > Crop to Selection or pressing Shift + R. Now we need to prepare
the tileset graphic for having the autotile pasted onto it - and, to do this, we're going to have to extend the canvas. Go to Image > Canvas size and, in the
height box, write in the value of the height of your tileset (displayed above) added to 192 (this is because the height of any autotile expansion is 192 pixels:
6 × 32 pixel blocks).
Now we can paste on the autotile. Go back to your autotile image and go to Selections > Select All (or press Ctrl + A). Then, copy the selection by going to
Edit > Copy or pressing Ctrl + C. Now, go back to your tileset and go to Edit > Paste > Paste as Transparent Selection (or press
Ctrl + Shift + E). Your autotile will now be floating over the tileset. Zoom in and align the top of the autotile with the bottom of the tileset, and you should
have something that looks like the following…
Okay - now, save your tileset and import it using the materialbase (see Simple Importing if you're not sure how to
do this). Now you can start building using your new tileset! To use it, you just have to insert the individual tiles onto layer one on the map (unless you've
converted a higher-layer tileset). Make sure that, especially with inverted corners, you get the right tile! In some non-auto autotiles, it's a bit hard to see,
but hopefully you'll get used to it. Admittedly, it does take a little more thought and a little longer than usual autotile-building, but it's worth it for having
more than seven autotiles, I think.
Thanks for reading this tutorial - I hope it's helped you. If you have any problems with your graphic program, drop me a line
and I'll see what I can do!
:: << Previous Tutorial ::
:: Home ::
:: Next Tutorial >> ::
|
|
