With RMVX coming out soon, I figure some people might not want to stick to the square RTP and might try something custom. So, let’s get to it!
Most of what you’ll be dealing with will be auto-tiles. Check out my previous auto-tile tutorial if you want, it could help.
First, determine what you’re going to make. That will help you decide which Tileset you want to work on. There’s TileA1 through 5, and TileB-E. So, while you don’t have the unlimited size as you did with RMXP, there’s a lot more auto-tiles, and you don’t necessarily need to use all those tilesets.
TileA1 is for water auto-tiles.
TileA2 is for grass and terrain auto-tiles. It also includes fences, carpets, and desks.
TileA3 is for making houses. There’s houses and roof auto-tiles there.
TileA4 is for walls and ceilings. This is what we’ll be working on for this tutorial.
TileA5 is for for floors and stairs.
TileB through E are for upper tile stuffs.
Here’s a template for the TileA4 section. There are more templates in the Forum Guide, so check there.
1) I started with the original template up there in Template 2. I picked a 16×16 grid to work in.
2) I made my own after observing how the auto-tiles work for the other TileA4 stuff. So, the grey part is for the ceiling, the blue is for the corners and single ceiling tile, and the red is for the walls. Since the walls are auto-tiles, I divided it up differently. The left and right 16 pixels are for the sides, and the middle 32 pixels are repeating. Same goes for the top and bottom.
-In Step 5, I stopped focusing on the ceiling for a bit. Right now it’s just the wall that I’m concerned with.
-At Step 11 (3rd image in the 3rd row), these wall decorations could go in an upper tile instead of being built onto the wall. However, I did not want to start with the upper tiles right now, and I wanted to check to see how it tiled.
-For the ceiling auto-tile, I arrange it using the corner 16×16 pieces so I can see how I can connect them. Refer to the last row for this. Unfortunately, you’ll be seeing the panorama this way, as you can see from the ceiling top. One way you can fix this is to put the floor tile you’ll be using in the area under that ceiling part.
-There is another way you can go about this. Instead of the top row of the ceiling auto-tile, just continue the middle of the sides, and bring that top row of the ceiling auto-tiles onto the upper tiles B-E.
Resulting chip:
Tileset Tutorial 
Do you think the tileset limitation in RMVX is a problem? It seems to me like it’s an issue, but that’s probably because I like, and want to use, some of the RTP tiles but want to expand the tileset, using that same style, and don’t have the space for it.
Also, in your experience creating tilesets for various games, is what RMVX comes with a normal amount of tiles for a game or is it limited? I’ve never made tileset graphics for a completed game before, so I have no idea what a realistic number of tiles for a game that features 40-60 hours of gameplay would be.
By: Ceric on April 2, 2008
at 4:17 pm
For the projects I’ve worked on, tileset size was not a restriction, nor was the amount of them. Only the width was restricted, and that’s not a big issue. For one project, I did 18 tilesets for the whole game. There are a lot of repeating elements (like grass, dirt, water, trees) throughout the tilesets though. You would have to convert a lot of stuff into autotiles for RMVX though.
If you do ever run out of tileset space in RMVX, you can use panorama maps instead, if you really can’t cut something out. Upper tile things can go into charactersets, so you could use that saved space for other tiles. I believe it does have enough space for tiles for a whole game, but you’re going to have to be careful with what you put in there, and have to try to conserve space whenever you can, so that means a lot more emphasis on tiling. If not, then you’d have to go back to what I said in the beginning of this paragraph.
I want to make an alternative RTP for RMVX, but due to university+work takes a lot of free time away. I have to update this blog sometime.
By: oceansdream on April 2, 2008
at 9:41 pm