Pyrran Frontier

Getting Started

The basic workflow is as follows:

1. Import colour palette
2. Paint fill
3. Paint the erase layer under sides
4. Paint sides
5. Paint the erase layer under top / bottom
6. Paint top / bottom
7. Paint the erase layer under outer corners
8. Paint outer corners
9. Paint the erase layer under inner corners
10. Paint inner corners
11. Export the tileset

Here is a video showing this workflow in practice.

How It Works and the Description of Layers

The standard 47-piece tileset has been broken down into separate elements like left border or top-right outer corner. Tile47 has been designed to paint each of these elements only once in order to massively speed up the creation process.

The layers are assembled like this:

The erase layers will erase everything underneath them, wherever they have been painted on. Using eraser on them will bring back whatever was underneath.

Stacking painting and erasing operations allows tile47 to assemble elements organically - corners on top of floor/ceiling on top of sides on top of base fill.

Importing Colour Palettes

While you can set active colour directly in the colour picker, it is encouraged to use predefined colour palettes. Tile47 supports the Gimp .GPL format.

You can import the palette directly using the button on the right panel, or you can make it available in the palette list dropdown by inserting .gpl files into the user data folder.

A good palette source is Lospec. You can also create them with Palette Trike, our free palette editor.

Editing Brush Presets

Tile47 provides basic presets for drawing pixel tilesets by default. However depending on your project's art style you might need something else which is why alpha blending is also supported. Following brush parameters are available:

• Brush image: in the essence these are 512x512 black & white images. You can add custom ones in the user data folder.
• Brush size: size of the brush in pixels.
• Opacity: 1-100, percentage. It works incrementally so you can reach full opacity in a single stroke. Independent of "Pressure opacity" option.
• Spacing: Distance between sprites when dragging the brush. In pixels or fractions of brush size, depending on "Spacing as pixels" flag.
• Pressure opacity: Modulates brush opacity with pen pressure. Only relevant with a pen tablet.
• Pressure size: Modulates brush size with pen pressure. Only relevant with a pen tablet.
• Angle align: Rotates the brush image to match the direction of brush movement.
• Angle random: Rotates the brush image randomly.
• Alpha scissors: Brush will only output fully opaque pixels. Turn it on for classic pixel art.

Brush graphics and presets are stored in the user data folder which makes it easy to copy them for storage or sharing.

Adjusting the Interface

You can control the guides behaviour and colour in the "Interface" section in the left panel. The offsets are a list of comma separated values in pixels and should be in range from 1 to half of your tile size.

You can also change the background colour (or pick it from palette in the right panel) which adds a great deal of context to your work-in-progress tileset.

Using a Reference Image

Currently you can import one reference image and position it using the "Move Reference" tool. This was intended to import a player character for scale reference, but a more robust system might be implemented in the future.

Exporting for LDtk

Export to .png using "Project > Export PNG" option from the menu. The exported layout matches the layout in auto layer rule assistant in LDtk. Unfortunately at the time of writing LDtk doesn't support 1 click solution to auto import from this exact layout so you will have to do the 100 clicks to make it fully functional.

Exporting for Normal Maps

Tile47 normal map export is intended to export tiles with their neighbours already set up to eliminate time consuming operation in Laigter. This needs to be done to minimise lighting artifacts between neighbours. The workflow is as follows:

1. Export PNG file - "Project > Export PNG (n-map layout)".
2. Import this file into Laigter or any other tool like this.
3. Export the normal map into file 2.
4. Back in tile47 select "Project > N-map to Default Layout.
5. Select file 2 as input and file 3 as an output. Make sure the tile size matches.
6. Click "Convert" to convert the normal map into layout matching the standard export.
7. Once imported in your engine, assign the normal map to the tileset material.

Importing into Godot and Collider Setup

Tile47 was designed to target Godot Engine. After creating the tileset graphics, the next tedious thing you will run into is setting up colliders for your tiles. It is possible to solve this using Godot LDtk Importer and a custom post-import script. Please refer to the Importer's documentation for information on how to set it up.

Once you have the importer working, the script will automatically generate colliders and light occludders.

Note: because this is a tool script, you may need to restart Godot whenever you edit the offset values.

Limitations

• Maximum tile size is 1024x1024.
• Tiles generally end up looking blocky because ramps are currently not supported. Full tile corner size to make this possible may be implemented in a future version.
• Currently only one reference image at the time is supported.

Reporting Issues and Feature Requests

Use this github repository for issues and feature requests.