Tile Studio is a Windows-only editor for graphics of tile-based game

Tile-based game

A tile-based game is a game that uses tiles as one of the fundamental elements of play. Traditional tile-based games use small tiles as playing pieces for gambling or entertainment games...

s. The application contains a bitmap editor for creating tiles and sprites and a map editor for designing level maps. The output format is programmable, so it can be used together with most programming language

Programming language

A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

s.

Tile Studio was created by Mike Wiering / Wiering Software.

Defining the Output Format

To generate output in a specific format, the user must supply a .TSD file, which describes the output. On the website, there are examples of .TSD files for several programming languages and libraries (C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

, Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is both an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis.In Greek mythology, Delphi was the site of the Delphic oracle, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, and a major site for the worship of the god...

, Java

Java (programming language)

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...

, BlitzBasic, etc.). Usually, the user will make a specific .TSD file per project.

The output consists of any number of text files, binary files, or images (.bmp or .png). For example, a tileset can be exported as a bitmap containing all the tiles (or only the tiles/tile combinations that are actually used in the maps), or in it can be exported pixel by pixel to a text file with RGB values.

The following example shows a simple .TSD file for BlitzMax:

Tile Studio Definition file for use with BlitzMax



tileset
tilebitmap TileSet.png 256
end tilebitmap




file TileSet.bmx


Incbin "TileSet.png"



Const TileWidth = 

Const TileHeight = 

Const TileCount = 



Const MapWidth = 

Const MapHeight = 



Global Map[][] =

mapdata  "..\n "  ","  ", ..\n   "  "], ..\n  ["  ""




end mapdata




end map
end file
end tileset

Things that can be exported: tilesets, maps, boundmaps, palettes, individual tiles (RGB values, pixel by pixel), sequences (animations).

License

Tile Studio is free open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 software under the Mozilla Public License

Mozilla Public License

The Mozilla Public License is a free and open source software license. Version 1.0 was developed by Mitchell Baker when she worked as a lawyer at Netscape Communications Corporation and version 1.1 at the Mozilla Foundation...

 (with the exception of the .tsd files and any code that is copied to the output, that is public domain

Public domain

Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...

). So Tile Studio can be used for projects that are under any license.

External links

• Official website
• Tutorial and command reference
• Sourceforge Page - Includes downloads