Tile Inserting & Block Editing Tutorial

Netis Tile Inserting & Block Editing Tutorial


Introduction

Since many People seem to have problems inserting Tiles and editing
Blocks i thought it would be a good idea to make a Tutorial about it.
Also, i planned to release a rombase with Ice and Desert Tiles, but i
canceled it to save the originality of dshayabusas, .Aarons and my
Hack. People should learn to insert stuff on their own instead of using
other peoples data.


Understanding the Block Editor
this is necessary for both parts of the Tutorial!

First, you have to open Advance Map (Im using Version
1.92) of course, your Rom (FireRed BPRE in my case) and a map that uses
the tileset you want to edit. Then open Advance Maps Block Editor, it
can be found over the main part where you edit the map, movement
permission etc.
The symbol is this one:

Now a window will pop up, ill explain all of its parts now.



The first square is the Block-Palette which is used for building the
maps. Each block is a 16x16 pixel square consisting of 2 layers, the
top and the bottom one.
Each of those two layers consists of 4 tiles.
The tiles and the block editing options can be found in square two.
The upper part is for editing the blocks (ill explain everything about
it later) and the lower part are the tiles. you can view the tiles in
different palettes. There are 12 possible palettes, each palette
consists of 16 colors, which can be changed using advance maps palette
editor, but thats not part of this tut.
And the third square are the baviour and background bytes.
Ill explain what to do with them in the seccond part of this Tutorial.
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Tile editing or inserting
[size=16]
Step 1: Choosing the corrrect palette

[size=9]First, you have to choose the
correct palette for exporting the tiles. Try out different Palettes
from the dropdown list above the tile window. When you found one that
has the desired colors for the tiles youre going to edit/insert, go on
to the next step.
Just to give you an example:
In Tileset 0, which is the main outdoor tileset, Palette 0 has many different greens: it is for the vegetation.
Palette 1 has many brown colors, so it is used for the rocks and mountains.
Why not insert a new Rock? So i choose Palette 1.

maybe you should know the following: The first 6 palettes belong to the
first tileset of the map and palettes 7-12 are from the second one. You
can change the first and second tileset in the header tab.
So: Each Tileset has 6 Palettes.

[size=16]Step 2: Exporting the Tileset

[size=9]Now that you have chosen your
palette, click on picture in the menu and select "Save Tileset X" X is
1 or 2, depending on whether you want to export the first or the second
tileset. For this Tutorial i was going to change the normal Rock, so it
would be the first Tileset.

Now a normal save dialogue pops up letting you choose the filename and destination.
You can also change the filetype, but i recommend using .dib (standard)
or .bmp if you are using graphic programs that dont support .dib (like
i do).
Save your Tileset Image and open the destination folder.

[size=16]Step 3: Editing the image

[size=9]When you found the tileset
image you just saved, open it with any graphic program you want. Im
using Paint.NET (It is freeware, you can get it from getpaint.net), but
for this Tutorial ill use MS Paint since nearly everybody knows how to
work with it and it supports .dib files.
Now you should have something like this:

You can edit it however you want, you just have to make sure that you
use the original palette! if you use other colors, they will be
replaced by the second color from the palette and it will loook stupid.
In order to only use correct colors, use the color picker tool:

Now just draw the desired tiles or change the old ones.
btw, the first color of each palette will be invisible ingame, in this case it is the dark black.

You cant resize the tileset image, it just wont work ;-). Well it will work, but you wont be able to import it correctly.

If you want to import tiles from somewhere, open the the image of the tiles and copy them.
If you dont know how to do that:
First, use this tool and mark the part of the image you want to copy. then right click on it and choose "copy" or "copy to clipboard".

Im german so the menu is german as well... kopieren is the german word for copy.
Now that you have done that, the image has been copied to your clipboard.

Go back to your tileset image and paste the copied image in there, using the menu or CTRL+V.
Content hidden:
Click here to view.








The pasted image will appear at the top left (when you use MS Paint).
Now you have to move the new tiles to the place where you want them to be.
I want to replace the stone, so i move them above the stone.
[/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size]Content hidden:
Click here to view.






[size=21][size=16][size=9][size=16][size=9][size=16][size=9] Just drag and drop the pasted image on the desired spot.
You should know that each tile is 8 pixel wide and high, so the stone for example consists of 4 tiles.
Make sure not to overwrite other tiles when pasting the image in or the
block you created with those will contain your new tiles. If youre
going to replace something like i do, its ok. but dont overwrite other
tiles than the ones youre going to replace.
Btw, the order of the tiles doesnt matter, you can reorder them later when making the block data.

Ok, what do we have to do now? Weve got to make sure that the palette
of the pasted tiles is correct. Just use the color picker and the
filling tool for this.
My stone already has correct palettes, so i only have to replace the
white background with black which will be invisible later on.

When youre done, save your image.


[size=16]Step 4: Importing the Tileset Image

[size=9]Alright, go back to Advance map and your map with the tileset youre going to change and open the Block Editor.
Choose "Load Tileset X" from the Picture Menu. X depends on whether you
exported tileset 1 or 2 before. I exported Tileset 1, so now im going
to load tileset 1.

At this point the palette chosen in the block editor is not important.
Advance Map will automatically detect the palette used in the image via
a file that has the same name as your image, but the filetype is .pal
This is a palette file^^
Just make sure you did not rename your image and did not move it to another folder.
The Palette file has to have the same filename and has to be in the same folder!

Now a window Pops up letting you chose the tileset image you wish to import. Chose the one you edited.
It has to be a .dib image at this point, .bmp wont work!

Now that youve done that, the new tiles will be in there, but sometimes
you cant see them. They will be all black or something like that.
If you have that problem, close Advance Map, reopen it, your rom and the map and look: The Tiles have been changed!
If you do not have that problem, go to the Picture Menu and select "Load new Blocks". This reloads all blocks.
Now you should see your Blocks with the new tiles.

As you can see there are palette errors at the bottom of my rock. They were caused by me believing the palette was correct.
So always check the palettes of new Tiles before inserting them!
Those Errors can easily be fixed by exporting the image again, fixing them and reimporting it.

The first Part of this Tutorial ends here, you know how to insert/make new tiles now.


[size=21]Editing the Block Data

[size=16][size=9]Ok, I think this is not that hard.

When being in the Block Editor you see the Block Palette at the left. Select the Block you want to edit by clicking on it.

Oh, see! The things at the center and right part changed!
Ill explain all of them now.
The Blocck which Im going to edit now is marked in the Blocck Palette.
You see that the block with the tree in front the grass consists of two
things: the grass at the bottom layer and the tree top at the top
layer. The Bottom Layer are is the left 4x4 Tile Square at the Block
Field i marked with 1. The Top Layer is of course the right 4x4 Tile
Square of it. Everything on the top Layer will be displayed above the
hero and other persons ingame, as long as the movement permissions on
this block are Level 2 or lower (that means all bytes between 0 and D).
There is an exclusion from this, but ill come back to that point later
when i explain the behaviour bytes.
Of course, everything on the bottom layer will be under the hero and other persons.

The stuff in Square 2 gives you information about which tile and which block youre using and what its offset is.
The Stuff in the Third Square are the background and behaviour byte.
Behaviour Bytes normally define what happens when the hero steps on the
Block, and background bytes define different stuff, like wild pokemon
or animations.

Now were going to edit this Block, so that theres a Mountain in front of the grass, not a tree.

[size=16]Step 1: Removing the old tiles

[size=9]When you use blank tiles which
are supposed to be invisible later on, i recommend using the first tile
in the tileset, which is most often blank, while the others might be
changed later on.
Just click on the tile and it will be selected. Now draw with it by
clicking or holding the left mouse button in the block field where it
shows the tiles of the bottom and top layer. It is just like normal
mapping basically.

As you can see, the top layer is all black now. But its not empty, it is filled with the first tile of the tileset.

[size=16]Step 2: Adding the new tiles

[size=9]For Addding the mountain you
first have to choose the correct Palette. In the image above it is
already chosen. For Mountains you should use Palette 1.
Now just click on the mountain tiles and then on the block fields top
layer part to add the mountain tiles. you can also use big blocks by
holding down CTRL, right click on a tile and hold it. then drag the
mouse along the tiles you want to use and release the right mouse
button and CTRL.

The square with the number 1 is a preview of the big Block you chose.
As you can see i have the Mountain in the Top Layer now.
Now click save and the Block will reload and show you how it turned out:


When using single tiles you also have the option to X or Y invert them. That will reorder the pixels and view the tile inverted.


[size=16]Step 3: Adjusting the Bahviour

[size=9]Behaviour and Background Bytes
are really usefull since theyre needed to make wild Pokemon appear,
Doors open, water being animated or Warps in general work.
I dont know what to explain about them since there is a dropdown list which lets you choose the effect you want.
I can only tell you a few usefull things which you will need often or whcih are not in the list:

Behaviour Bytes:
00 00 Nothing/Normal
02 02 Grass Animation when walking on it
69 00 Door Warp
61 00 A Warp will be used when the hero steps on the tile and theres a warp on it
38 00 to 3B 00 ledges
2a 00 Stairs, The Hero walks slow when going up or down

Background Byte:
00 00 Nothing/Normal
01 01 Wild Pokemon (Grass)
00 22 Wild Pokemon (Water) -> didnt test this one yet...
00 20 The Top Layer of the Block will be covered by the Hero or other persons too


[size=21]The End

[size=12][size=9]Now you
can insert or make own Tiles and make own Blocks! I hope you all
enjoyed and understood this Tutorial and keep on hacking.

Thx to Lu-Ho for making Advance Map!

Neti[/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size][/size]

This tutorial was made by Neti
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