Drakens Epic Coast Guide

[Draken]

Welcome to the guide for epic coast lines.

Section

1\. Getting organized
2\. Creating Helper Tiles( helps with transitions)
3\. Creating Water / Sand tiles With Transitions
4\. Creating Wave Tiles
5\. Adding to your game
6\. Mapping with these tiles
7\. Ending statements

Section 1 - Getting Organized

The first thing I usually do when I start to make Custom tiles is make a new folder. In that folder I have a two Empty Tile sheets laid out with 32x32 squares. One is normally called Helper and the other Tiles. Tiles will be where we will add our finished tiles Helper is for just that Helping us make the tiles.

Ive added layouts.zip to this post download them for blank sheets.


Section 2 - Creating Helper Tiles

First you might be wondering what I mean by helper tiles. These tiles are the tiles that will help you set up Transitions. Such as Water to sand or sand to grass( sand to grass not included but see Section 3 should be easy enough to make it grass)

Okay First we need to open our Helper tile sheet. Zoom in 6 or 8x, which ever you like better. I prefer 8x since Im blind.


I Use The Circle tool to create a circle holding shift makes a perfect circle.

ALSO NOTE when I started the circle I clicked the top left cornor of the red square.


You most likely dont want the transitions to go to the end of the tiles. So to fix this we make all the red/green lines that the in the 2x2 circle tile white


Now we use the Square cutting tool to select the circle Make sure Image Draw Opaque Is Not Checked if it is like in this screen shot Un check it.


Move Circle to a point where you like the top left corner to be.


Now delete all parts of circle other then the top left corner. I use square cutter with del button.


Now we copy paste / rotate that corner into the others making once again a larger circle.


Now make a line to connect the corners and copy paste rotate it to finish the circle


Okay that's almost it you have 4 more transitions to make. I copied paste the ones from the top and place here below the other so I have room to work.
Colors - to tile from earlier
Dark Green (is South)
Light Green (is North)
Yellow (is west)
Gold ( is East)


Now make a connector like so


Now copy paste rotate that connector.


Now take the 4 connectors you just made and move them up top and colored in what would be colored on the other one we made.


This is finished for normal land transitions. BUT we need animated coast line So What we will do is the same thing but make the first corner larger Like so


Now all that's left to do here is Clean it up. Make all light blue black and anything in the black, black, and the other things be white


That finishes this section.

Section 3 - Creating Water / Sand tiles With Transitions

Okay first thing is first here. We will create a normal sand tile
Still in helper make a sand tile. I wont go into detail here. I will on the water how ever.


Now to make water first get your water pallet up, double clicking a color will open color pallet get a few nice blue colors


okay next this is to take the darkest color and fill in a square


Next add lines with the brightest color you will use on the tile. NOTE i have 6 colors 2 brightest will be used for Waves later.


delete line leaving points at end of tiles


make random lines connecting these points


next follow those lines with the next light color


Next again follow lines with next light color to finish you water tile.


Take that water tile add it next to your sand tile And make a copy of water tile rotate it 180 use that as your animated water tile.


Now We must take the sand tile and make a 3x3 square and a 2x2 square


Take your Helper tiles from earlier making black your transparent color lay it over the sand tiles. to make black transparent Right click the color black and make sure Draw Opaque is off

Will look like this


Do it again with the sand tile but with the larger helper this time


Okay now that we have the sand ready we need to make a 3x3 and 2x2 square of water1 and place the smaller sand on top of it with white being transparent this time. LIKE SO


Do the same with larger sand and the other water tile.


Now you can put these 2 sets into your tiles Dont forget to add both full water tiles as well.


Section 3 - ill add later im tired now lol

[azkanan]

You know… Photoshop can get this done so much easier... It has layers. =|... But a good tutorial, nethertheless, I can see how to make water tiles now! Thank you! :D

[Draken]

yea i know i have photoshop but this way anyone can use it :)

[evilbunnie]

omg :P Thats so awesome.

[azkanan]

@Draken:

> yea i know i have photoshop but this way anyone can use it :)

I thought that may be the reason… :P

[Gueber]

Well here's what I made so far using the help of the guide.


It's no masterpiece but I had fun making it. I hope you add section 3 I need all the help I can get.
Oh and thanks so far it has been very helpful.

[Element-Zeo]

i suggest u use GIMP…its free and way better than paint (and photoshop too in my opinion). Anyway nice tut...
4.9/5

[azkanan]

@Impactor:

> i suggest u use GIMP…its free and way better than paint (and photoshop too in my opinion). Anyway nice tut...
> 4.9/5

Gimp is terrible… There's a reason why it's free.

[Element-Zeo]

@Azkanan:

> @Impactor:
>
> > i suggest u use GIMP…its free and way better than paint (and photoshop too in my opinion). Anyway nice tut...
> > 4.9/5
>
> Gimp is terrible… There's a reason why it's free.

ohh no…its actually pretty good and very simple....if you know how to use it...

[azkanan]

@Impactor:

> @Azkanan:
>
> > @Impactor:
> >
> > > i suggest u use GIMP…its free and way better than paint (and photoshop too in my opinion). Anyway nice tut...
> > > 4.9/5
> >
> > Gimp is terrible… There's a reason why it's free.
>
> ohh no…its actually pretty good and very simple....if you know how to use it...

Anything is good, if you know how to use it. I've seen some beautiful art with letters and symbols, and pretty impressive stuff done with Paint.

[Element-Zeo]

yea i would have to agree…depends on the user and Draken is one example of a good pixel artist... :)

[Minilinkki]

Ms Paint is best of all, it's real spriters tool.
It's simple and easy to use, but if you don't have skills buy then photoshop :P

[Gueber]

Yeah I just wouldn't feel like I'm doing pixel art if I used a bunch of fancy tools to do all the work for me. MS paint all the way.

[Element-Zeo]

@~~Minilinkki~~:

> Ms Paint is best of all, it's real spriters tool.
> It's simple and easy to use, but if you don't have skills buy then photoshop :P

@Gueber:

> Yeah I just wouldn't feel like I'm doing pixel art if I used a bunch of fancy tools to do all the work for me. MS paint all the way.

no no no..my point is that,with gimp and photoshop,you can use layers which is pretty helpful in alligning and editing an armor without harming the sprite…

[Draken]

@Impactor:

> yea i would have to agree…depends on the user and Draken is one example of a good pixel artist... :)

;-d

thanks for that

Yea i just seen that today is the end of this so I should really finish this i think for the waves Just my thumb hurts xD