HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE YOU TO MAKE A TILESET?

I always thought I suck at graphics. Then I asked someone who did really good pixel art and he told me that he works at least one hour on a single 20x20 tile. Then I tried that too, working on a single tile until it was perfect. And then I realized that I don't actually suck at graphics, just that good artists spend a lot more time than I used to.

it usually takes me a couple hours though most of the time i build the chipset as im building the levels so it's never a photoshop in one sitting type of deal.

author=McBick
I do too for some of my projects, but I still make the graphics for my map then create the map with the tileset. Do you just create the entire map without any premade graphics? That must take a while.

No I still put my sprites in a image file, which I keep in my big Folder-o'-sprites, which I don't include in the game files. I guess you could call those tilesets, but they kinda vary in size so it's a bit hard to tell how long I spend on one of those.

Well, I usually sprite each tile when I need it. Which means that, if I am currently working on a hospital, I will sprite hospital tiles. That does not mean that my tileset is finished, just that I have the tiles I need for that area that I am working on. More often than not a lot of things just come to mind when I am mapping. I suddenly start to think that, hey, a little teddy bear could really add to the atmosphere of that room - and then I start spriting a teddybear.

Since my spriting style is rather simple it does not take too long to sprite a single tile. But the little tweaks here and there that I add/change once I learned something new take a lot of time if you add them up.

Several hours at a time for me. When I was working on a Genesis-like 'sci-fi-esque' tileset for a vague future project, I spent around 3 hours on one building. All done from scratch through pixel art.

Pity my level of patience for custom stuff sucks. ><

My strategy is to start making the map, and add each tile to the tileset as I decide I want that object on the map.

As a result it's kinda hard to gauge the amount of time it takes me to make a tileset... or a map.

It also doesn't help matters that RMXP lets you have tilesets of unlimited size, so I only have three tilesets I'm using for the entire game, and I just add new tiles to the bottom of them for each map. (I mean, it helps the tileset-making process immensely, but it doesn't help me figure out the answer to your question.)

I recently made a map that used about 8 new tiles and about 10 new edits of existing tiles, and it took me... six hours? Most maps take me 4-8 hours.

I'm rather wary about spending huge numbers of hours making a custom set that looks worse than the sets I have on hand (RTP or public sets) so I steer clear of it. It seems more important to invest time in the areas of the game that should be providing the draw, which are not graphics-related, in my case. Granted, this means I have a somewhat limited ability to create atmosphere, but I can work with that.

So, to answer your question, it takes me forever. Thus, I don't do it, at least not yet.

@Yuna Oh my goddess, this is gorgeous. I would play the hell out of this vague future project.

As for OP. I never did any pixel work until I came to this site. Indeed, my only experience before this site is in C++. I made a text adventure game for my wife using dice rollers, pointers, and strings. That having been said, I've been here about a year.

First, of the numerous projects I have open, I have two definite ones I am working on (because these two are the only ones that have a definite story). One is a fangame based on the television series Farscape. Obviously, the chipsets necessary to make this game do not exist. Well, I was always a dab hand at drawing and painting. What are pixels except just another medium. So, I gave it a whirl. This is not complete, but it is my very first effort.



I suppose I've put about ten hours into this so far. Notice that the walls at the lower left are not entirely correct. Thankfully, Moya's floor is basically one color so the only real problem here is how to position the eye lights. The next problem is the control panels. In the show and in production photos, you just never get a good look at these, so you basically have to draw them based on what you've seen. The cases are pretty recognizable, but the controls themselves? All I could ever see was that they were orange and seemed to have some kind of grid over them. The clamshell is equally problematic. You know what it looks like but you have no idea where it is except that when the characters address it, they look off to the left (The big viewing window is just that; a window. It's not a view screen like on Star Trek.). I also intend to move the viewing window over to the event tiles so that I can put pre-rendered backgrounds behind it for a bit more realism. I just left this as it is for now so I could offer this screenshot:



The other project I'm seriously working on is entirely original, science-fiction again. It's inspired by a short story by Mack Reynolds. It was a little comedy (my project is not comedy, even though I'm fairly certain that with the Game Name Game, I've proven myself perfectly capable of it.) in which aliens land on Earth tell us they've ruled us secretly for thousands of years, leaving us in peace to grow, occasionally helping us when needed, but they've lost a war and now they have to hand us over to a despot who will strip mine our planet and enslave us. The story never elaborates. This game picks up the premise and runs with it.

The hero is an ex-actor, living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, the last tenant of a defunct trailer park in Arizona.

These tilesets were much easier. There are apparently no trailer chip sets. I made a few new things, but unlike Farscape's Moya, I have the luxury of lifting tiles from other sets. Still, it took me about five hours, and I may add a few things here and there to increase the messiness of the trailer home.