Database - Tilesets

Now that you've made a great Map Tileset let's learn how to implement it!

Add Your Tileset

Open up the Database and switch to the Tilesets tab. Click Change Maximum and increase the maximum by at least one to start a new tileset page. Now choose a name for your tileset. I added a rose to mine, so I'll call it Rose. Then click on the arrow of the Tileset Graphic box to find and import the tileset you made.

Before we get into Autotiles and other graphics, let's talk about the most important part of tilesets: Passage. Passage determines whether you can walk over, through, or behind a tile on your map. On the right side of the Tileset window there are 6 buttons. Notice the one labeled Passage is already highlighted. If you look at your Tileset, you'll notice it has a little circle over each tile. But the preset tilesets have a combination of circles and X's. Clicking on a tile will change a circle to an X and vice versa. A circle means the tile is passable, and an x means the tile is impassable. Look at the preset tilesets as a guide for which parts of the tiles should be which. Notice that only the trunks of trees are impassable. This is half of what lets your character appear to walk behind trees, the other half is Priority (dicussed below). Tiles with squares are autotiles.

The next button on that side is Passage (4 dir) which lets you decide if you want the player to only be able to pass through a tile from a certain direction. This is useful for things like tables, where you don't want to be able to walk all the way across them, but you do want to appear to walk up next to them and in front of them.

Priority is what makes your character appear to walk behind trees, desks, and other objects. You can set no priority (which means the character will just walk over an object or around it) or any number from 1-6. The higher the number, the closer the tile is in the foreground.

Bush flag is what lets you make your character look like he's walking through a thicket of tall grass, or something else. It actually causes the bottom 12 pixels of your character sprite to turn translucent.

I'm not so sure about Counter Flags and Terrain Tags

Moving to the left side of the window, you'll find Autotile Graphics. These are the tiles that automatically tile and border as you place them. We'll cover those in a separate tutorial.

Panorama Graphic is the image that is "under" the map. If you want to make a tall cliff map with a sky scene in the background, you would leave the area blank that you want to show sky. Then the Panorama Graphic would be visible. Just make sure your character can't walk past the edge of the cliff, or it will break the illusion.

The Fog Graphic makes an overlay layer of shadow that can kind of make it look like your map is foggy, under a canopy of trees, or underwater. You can change the size, hue, and opacity of your fog graphic, and you can even make it move!

Battleback Graphic is the graphic that will be in the background whenever you are in battle on this tileset. RPG Maker comes with a beautiful set of preset battlebacks which correpsond to the preset map tilesets.

And that's about all you need to know about tilesets!