Cello's guide to everything tile insertion/placement (HUGE Guide, Tips, FAQ)

[OM3GA Umbr30n]

This should help me.
T_T and my translation of a Whack a Hack Tut got declined

 

[kesco1101]

hey, i decrease the color depth on ifranview, but when i try view the number of colors in the palette on photoshop, it says i have 19 colors

p.s. does the palette have to be forced in black and white?

 

[Cello]

hey, i decrease the color depth on ifranview, but when i try view the number of colors in the palette on photoshop, it says i have 19 colors

p.s. does the palette have to be forced in black and white?

This is what I like to call a "wow, I had a lot of colors" moment.
Ifranview will occasionally stop itself from reducing a picture to 16 colors or below to prevent the image from becoming horrible quality.

This is a easy fix, but it requires that you do all the work. Just simply open up your image in a paint program and try your best to color over some of the lesser used colors with another color that's used a lot in the tiles.

And when you index the image in photoshop, in the Forced Box just set it to None.

 

[halomarin]

great tutorial man, this will help me a lot

 

[Aljam]

I think your tut is nice, very clear and well thought out! I personally hate doing that indexing stuff cause it really confuses me o.O. I'm sticking with my eraser method :P

 

[~Gibson~]

Well, I followed your Tut (exactly I hope^^), but as soon as I import the changed Tileset, AM shows kinda wierd tiles. I may have overread an important point, but if so, I dunno which.

Hope you can see from the pic, what I'm trying to talk about xD

greetz,
Gibson

 

[Cello]

Well, I followed your Tut (exactly I hope^^), but as soon as I import the changed Tileset, AM shows kinda wierd tiles. I may have overread an important point, but if so, I dunno which.

Hope you can see from the pic, what I'm trying to talk about xD

greetz,
Gibson

This could be a result of multiple different things, but all related to the palette.

• Make sure you loaded/have it set to the correct palette. You have to load the exact palette you saved from the picture of the tile or else the colors wont match and everything will be funky looking.
• Make sure you pasted and imported the same exact house that you saved the palette from. Indexed and all. Even if you have two copies of the same house, their palettes could be different. Even if you make one tiny change to the house after you save it's palette it could possibly mismatch. :P
• The palettes colors have to match the house's palette. Don't edit the palette after you saved it or else this could mess up the colors order and make everything funky looking too.
• Make sure the color you want to be transparent is the first color in your palette.

Judging by the look of it, it just looks like your houses colors got mismatched with the palette's colors. The roof is the same color as it should be, but the body of the house is messed up and is instead replaced by the transparent color.
Try indexing the house and re saving the palette again, then reload it.

 

[Deucalion]

When indexing the colours, do you set transparency to on, and are black/white, primaries, or web forced, or is that option simply set to none? If you do, does transparency, black/white, primaries, or web count towards the 16 colour limit?

 

[~Gibson~]

@Deucalion:
Well, though I don't see your point, here're my settings:
Palette: Exact
Colors: 16
Forced: Black & White
Transparency: yes

@Cello:
Points 1-3 are out of the question, I've set it to the correct palette & everything matches to each other. But I ain't sure about the forth one. I index the house in Photoshop (5.5), I save the color table (look at the 1. pic), then I load it in AM, but the palette colors in AM are different from the PS ones (look at the 2. pic :p), so I think that's the actual problem.

greetz,
Gibson

 

[Neo-Wolf]

Really great tutorial. Awesome for beginners!

 

[~Gibson~]

@Deucalion:
Well, though I don't see your point, here're my settings:
Palette: Exact
Colors: 16
Forced: Black & White
Transparency: yes

@Cello:
Points 1-3 are out of the question, I've set it to the correct palette & everything matches to each other. But I ain't sure about the forth one. I index the house in Photoshop (5.5), I save the color table (look at the 1. pic), then I load it in AM, but the palette colors in AM are different from the PS ones (look at the 2. pic :p), so I think that's the actual problem.

greetz,
Gibson

Well, I still have that problem.
Anyone able to help me?

greetz,
Gibson

 

[Cello]

Sorry for the late response. I haven't checked in on this in awhile.

From the looks at it, after loading the palette in your block editor the palette gets really disorganized, which honestly shouldn't be happening.
When you save the palette from Photoshop the palette should remain the way it was viewed.

Here, I'll show you how I organize my palettes when things aren't the way they should be. It's very simple.

First:
I use graphics gale for this. Download link.
Start up graphics gale and load your INDEXED image.

Second:
In the palette viewer, click the downward arrow and select Uniform Color.
Like so:

Spoiler:

Third:
Select your image from the list in the box that pops up, and then click extract.

Spoiler:

Fourth:
You will notice that your palette is now loaded in the right box. From there you can edit your palette freely.
By that, I mean you can drag colors and organize them as you like.
Just drag whichever color you want to be transparent to the first color.

Spoiler:

Fifth:
After you drag you will notice the colors swap places in the palette. Click "Apply" and then save your image.

Spoiler:

Now open the image you just saved in photoshop or your palette saving program and re-save the palette.
If you still get this problem, my only thoughts would be that you're loading the wrong palette in the wrong directory.

Again, sorry for the late response.

ALSO/// DO NOT SAVE PALETTES IN GALE. The colors darken.

 

[NarutoActor]

here is something I noticed in this tutorial you waiste space you should want to get as most custume tiles in a tile set as posiable so in graphics gales click on the grid to 8x8 and deleate any blocks that repeat or can be x-flip or y-flip or both doing this will allow you to have a lot more space for a lot more tiles

 

[Cello]

here is something I noticed in this tutorial you waiste space you should want to get as most custume tiles in a tile set as posiable so in graphics gales click on the grid to 8x8 and deleate any blocks that repeat or can be x-flip or y-flip or both doing this will allow you to have a lot more space for a lot more tiles

I was actually just thinking about writing a section for X & Y flipping.
Unfortunately I'm in a bit of a hurry right now, but I'll be updating it soon with info on saving space by flipping with X & Y flipping.

The tilesets used in the images are merely examples.

 

[~Gibson~]

Thanx for your extensive description, Cello. But - call me an idiot :p - I STILL get the problem. The palettes are different. Everything works wonderfully unto I want to load the palette in AM, I'm just kinda baffled xD.

If you still get this problem, my only thoughts would be that you're loading the wrong palette in the wrong directory.

What do you mean by that "wrong directory"? Maybe that's the solution xD

greetz,
Gibson

 

[Cello]

Thanx for your extensive description, Cello. But - call me an idiot :p - I STILL get the problem. The palettes are different. Everything works wonderfully unto I want to load the palette in AM, I'm just kinda baffled xD.



What do you mean by that "wrong directory"? Maybe that's the solution xD

greetz,
Gibson

I just meant that perhaps you're loading a previous saved palette in another folder that looks very similar.

It happens to me sometimes. When I go to load a palette it will bring up a different folder full of palettes that aren't the ones i'm looking for.

It can get a bit confusing.

This is actually very odd, though. If you're still getting the problem.
When you save the palettes they automatically change order without any say in doing so.
Have you tried saving it as a different file type? Like a .ACT instead of a .PAL, or vice-versa.

 

[~Gibson~]

Have you tried saving it as a different file type? Like a .ACT instead of a .PAL, or vice-versa.

I did actually, but AM does not accept .ACT or .PAL files, which looks very weird to me. I have to change the .PAL into a .pal, maybe this is the problem..., I dunno xD^^

greetz,
Gibson

 

[Dr. POP]

First; Cello, thanks for this great tutorial :D It is really newby-friendly and clear.
However, I have a problem and maybe someone can help me out.

I have this tileset (well, a yet-to-become-tileset :)) of a house. This house has a red roof. I first used bright blue as my background color, and later pasted the house on the bg.

I followed all the steps in the tutorial. When I come to indexing my picture and creating a palette (using Photoshop) the first color in my palette is nót blue (which it should be, since it was the first color I used) but red (a kind of red from the roof, to be precise).

The first time I didn't notice and everything went OK, except for the blue not being the transparant color, but red. I later tried again, with black instead of blue, but it was the same story.

What to do to get the first color to be the first in the palette? Manually switching colors of course doesn't help, since all the colors in the tiles will be swapped.

Thanks in advance

 

[Zeffy]

First; Cello, thanks for this great tutorial :D It is really newby-friendly and clear.
However, I have a problem and maybe someone can help me out.

I have this tileset (well, a yet-to-become-tileset :)) of a house. This house has a red roof. I first used bright blue as my background color, and later pasted the house on the bg.

I followed all the steps in the tutorial. When I come to indexing my picture and creating a palette (using Photoshop) the first color in my palette is nót blue (which it should be, since it was the first color I used) but red (a kind of red from the roof, to be precise).

The first time I didn't notice and everything went OK, except for the blue not being the transparant color, but red. I later tried again, with black instead of blue, but it was the same story.

What to do to get the first color to be the first in the palette? Manually switching colors of course doesn't help, since all the colors in the tiles will be swapped.

Thanks in advance

You should read this post to switch transparent colors:

Sorry for the late response. I haven't checked in on this in awhile.

From the looks at it, after loading the palette in your block editor the palette gets really disorganized, which honestly shouldn't be happening.
When you save the palette from Photoshop the palette should remain the way it was viewed.

Here, I'll show you how I organize my palettes when things aren't the way they should be. It's very simple.

First:
I use graphics gale for this. Download link.
Start up graphics gale and load your INDEXED image.

Second:
In the palette viewer, click the downward arrow and select Uniform Color.
Like so:

Spoiler:

Third:
Select your image from the list in the box that pops up, and then click extract.

Spoiler:

Fourth:
You will notice that your palette is now loaded in the right box. From there you can edit your palette freely.
By that, I mean you can drag colors and organize them as you like.
Just drag whichever color you want to be transparent to the first color.

Spoiler:

Fifth:
After you drag you will notice the colors swap places in the palette. Click "Apply" and then save your image.

Spoiler:

Now open the image you just saved in photoshop or your palette saving program and re-save the palette.
If you still get this problem, my only thoughts would be that you're loading the wrong palette in the wrong directory.

Again, sorry for the late response.

ALSO/// DO NOT SAVE PALETTES IN GALE. The colors darken.

 

[Dr. POP]

Oh thanks! I must've missed that post :)

I found another way, however. It is a little more comlicated, but for the people that want to know:
In Photoshop, when you choose Image > mode > indexed color, in the drop-down menu (or whatever it's called) choose 'custom'. Doing this you can switch and customize your palette too.

However, I will use Cello's way myself. Thanks again :)