2D Mobile Game: Multiple Tilemaps
Intro
In this article, we are going to cover how to create and use multiple Tilemaps to make different layers for your level design.
Importing Multiple Tile Sets
We created a new Tile Palette called “Caverns”. If you are unsure of how to create a Tilemap, Tile Palette, import Tile sets and organize these files check out my previous article below.
Import your second Tile set like you would the first. Click and drag the set into the Tile Palette.
You now have two tile sets in one Tile Palette.
Organizing Tile Palette
We have multiple tile sets in the Caverns Tile Palette, but we have one set that is annoyingly out of reach from the others. Lets move it next to the others to improve our work flow.
Select Edit to make changes in the Palette.
Click and hold to select the tiles you want to move. Then select the Move tool to move the selected tiles to the desired position. Click the Edit button to exit the edit mode and to ensure the changes are saved we will need to Save the game scene.
New Tilemap
We are going to create a new Tilemap that will act as the Midground layer.
Before we start to create the Midground layer, we want to make sure the layer order it is rendered at is behind our Ground layer, which is Layer 0. So, we will set it to -1.
A nice feature with the Tile Palette is selecting multiple tiles at once to paint with. All you need to do is click and drag to select the tiles you want to use and use the paint tool. Now, we are painting over the ground tiles since the Active Tilemap hasn’t been change to Midground_Tilemap.
Now that the Midground_Tilemap is active, we can now paint that layer.
Looking at the Scene view, we can still see the Ground layer. We can change the focus of the Tilemap using the Focus On.
This will allow you to only focus on the active Tilemap, which is the Midground_Tilemap, so the Ground_Tilemap is whited out.
If you have something large that needs to be erased, you can resize the eraser by clicking and dragging over empty tiles to the size you want. Then, when you select the eraser tool, it will be the size of the area that was selected.
Now, we have the Active Tilemap we want and are focusing on that layer, we can use out Canvern tiles to create the Midground layer of our level.
Conclusion
Setting up the different Tile Palettes, keeping them organized and knowing how use the Palette tools can make designing and developing levels quick and easy.
