Computersight -

Does anyone know the old 2D side-scrolling game Jazz jackrabbit? The people who do, would know that you can make your own levels with a program called “Jazz Jackrabbit Creation Station”. I’m not going to teach you how to make your own levels, but I will teach you how to make your own tilesets!

(I recommend that you first get the hang of CS and then start making your own tiles…)

Programs that can be used to make a tileset

You can use almost any image manipulating program the is on this planet, you can use MS paint (which is standard on all computers with Windows on it) or you could use advanced programs such as paint shop pro (psp) or the super-kick- ass Adobe Photoshop (which has a super-kick-ass price to match it, he he…).

Image via Wikipedia

because you have to save your tileset as a 256 color .bmp file, there’s a limit to how much colors you can use. In the advanced programs you can edit the 256 pallet to your needs. Paint has a premade pallet and this can’t be edited. It sucks, but you can do this:

Things you should remember:

• A tile is 32 pixel wide and 32 pixels high.
• The with of the tileset is 32 X 10 = 320 pixels (this means that you can put 10 tiles in one line).
• The top left tile is ALWAYS blank, so don’t put anything there!!
• The height of the tileset doesn’t really matter (when using the latest version of cs).
• The color black is transparent (in MS paint).

How to start

When you make your tileset in paint start by making the image 320 pixel wide and about 1000 pixels high (height doesn’t really matter…). then make a square (32 by 32 pixels) in the top left corner. This tile will always be blank. DON’T put anything here! Use this tile as a guide. copy this tile and paste on a blank spot:

Then start drawing something. It can be a simple block (1) or a very detailed piece of ground with lots of grass on it (2) or whatever… When you’re on my level (I’m not that good…) it would look something like this:

(please do not use without giving credit to me —-> Algnoro. Every pixel was drawn in paint and it was allot of work to make it (it’s also incomplete)

What you make is up to you! People like details and eye candy: If it’s a simple block then people won’t use it. Choose colors wisely and try to make it look real. (but don’t try to make it look 3d… Then it will get a weird look). Also try making tiles for background layers and foreground layers.

Animations

Moving tiles are even cooler!! It’s eye candy level 2. By looking at this picture you will understand how it works:

Get it? these tiles will be shown after another which creates “movement”.

You can make moving toadstools or spikes. Or a beautiful waterfall…

Masking

The reason that I added this at the and of my article is because it’s the last step of making a tileset. Save this until you are sure you won’t make any changes in the tileset… otherwise you will have to update your mask each time you want to compile your tileset.

A mask is the part of a tileset which tells the game what the sprites (all moving objects: the player, enemies, etc…) can bump into and what they can walk past.

You won’t need a mask when you have a tileset with smooth tiles (squares, triangles, etc), then you can use auto mask.

to make a mask you make a copy of your tileset and save it to something like “*tileset name* mask”. It doesn’t really matter… Just make sure you can find it (when you need it), he he… OK! Open the image and erase everything that has to be masked (with “erase”, I mean you have to make it black). You can also pick other colors, to make invisible walls and stuff…

Saving your work

When you save your tileset you have to save it in the tile(s) folder (you can find this in the jazz jackrabbit folder…).> make sure it’s a 256 color .bmp file. don’t save as .png or .jpg (jpeg), it won’t work! Also save your work now and then when you’re drawing it. then you have some sort of backup when something goes wrong. You don’t want to start all over from scratch when your PC crashes…

Compiling

Now you’re ready to use it!! ohw, wait: you still have do one thing to use it in cs:

start cs and click on “Set”, click on “Add” and select your tileset and the mask. Give it a name and click OK. Then click on build. You’re done!!!!