Making a basic grass Tilemap
A Tilemap is basically a collection of tiles created that can be used to build your game world or your level map. It’s a popular technique that is used in 2D level design.
Here is an example, of a basic beach and grass area Tilemap I created previously.
And here as an example of how I used those tiles to make part of a beach map:
You can see how the different edging pieces are needed to be put together to create the inlet. Now I’ll explain how to create a simple Tilemap.
Basic Grass Tilemap
The software I found most useful for creating Pixel Art is Aseprite. It was easy for me to understand, and once I got the hang of it, I could create the different Tilemaps and Sprites I needed.
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Below I will create some basic grass designs, and show how they look as a world map.
To keep it simple I’ll create four. As the game I’m creating I’m using a 16x16 pixel design, I have made a Tilemap 32 x 32 pixel where I am able to make my 4 tiles.
First the first 3 I’ve kept it rather simple and pretty basic to show how effective it can be. The top left, is just my basic base color, to the right is just a few grass blades. I’ve seen this used often in games and its super easy for when you’re starting out. The bottom right I added a little to it, simply by adding a black border around the blades of grass and changing the shape of one.
And the last tile I had some fun with. I chose another simple shape for grass I really liked and decided to add some shading to it. Being very new to Pixel Art, my shading probably isn’t the best, but you can see the difference it does make compared to the others.
Now, let me throw it into Unity and we’ll have a look how we can use this Tilemap to make a nice grassy area for our character.
