Overview
Learn how to make your own terrain blocks! I plan on expanding this guide, explaining how to make your own custom resources.
Simple 48×48 Tile
Hey guys, I know plenty of you would like to make unique resources for your game so, here’s a quick and easy guide to make your own terrain blocks. You’ll need a third-party program for this. I’ll be using Aseprite, a program for pixel art.
Disclaimer: I’ve realized I’m horrible at explaining things, so if you need any clarification just ask and I’ll try lol
So, if you go into the smile builder folder, you’ll notice the terrain resources are not 3d models but just PNG images.
Open the program you’ll be using, create a new file and set the canvas size so the width and height are multiples of 48. (48×48, 48×144, etc).
I’ll be working with a 48×48 canvas to keep it simple.
Next, we’re going to make our canvas go into tiled mode. (For a basic 48×48 tile, it doesnt matter whether you tile it in the x or y axis, results will be the same)
You’ll see we now have three 48×48 canvases stacked on top of one another. Whatever you draw in one section will appear in the other sections. Like this,
If you cross from one section into the other, your edits will pop up onto the next section. So if we were to draw a line going up and off the canvas in the top section, the line would pop up from the bottom section
So in tiled mode, we can easily create seamless textures for terrain. I went ahead and made a wooden floor tile quickly. I am by no means an expert but practice makes perfect. I simply used the line tool. The point of tiled mode is to make your terrain look seamless and continuous.
Your goal is to fool others so they won’t be able to tell that your flooring is simply the same 48×48 block over and over again
Save your file as a PNG, open your SGB project, and import the file.
And tada! Now you know how to makea basic terrain block! (:
I plan on implementing an advanced terrain creation tutorial for sizes larger than 48×48 in the future, stay tuned,
Advanced Terrain
If you’re here, you know how to make a simple terrain asset with a size of 48×48.
From now on 48×48 = 1 unit.
If you make a terrain asset that is only 1 unit, then the image on all sides of the block will be the same. Like so
But what if you want the top of the terrain block to differ from the sides? If you look at some stock terrain in the program, you’ll notice that some blocks’ sides are different from their top. For example, the top side of the snow rock terrain is different from all the other sides.
Note: I don’t think it’s possible to make a terrain block where the sides differ from each other, meaning ALL sides will always look the same, excluding the top side
No matter how many units your block is, the first unit will always depict the top layer. The rest of the units will be the sides. If you make a terrain that is 8 units long and elevate that terrain 8 times in SGB, units 2-8 will be the side of the terrain.
If your terrain is only X units long and you elevate it more than X-1 times, then the last unit of the terrain will duplicate itself over and over. Be careful with this, the last unit being displayed over and over can be obvious and not attractive. To be safe, your terrain should rarely exceed 3 units.
Below is a better example. My terrain is only 3 units long. And i elevated it 3 times, therefore the last unit repeated itself.
