Tileset tutorial

The tileset tutorial provides an introduction to the customization of graphics in Freeciv21. It assumes general knowledge of core game concepts such as units, cities, and terrain. It is also good to have at least a superficial understanding of how rulesets are written before starting this tutorial, because tilesets specify how to render on screen the objects defined in the ruleset.

Besides a working Freeciv21, the only thing you will need to complete the tutorial is a good text editor — graphic assets will be provided when needed. For Windows users, we recommend the excellent Notepad++; on Linux, a good editor like Gedit, KWrite, or Mousepad usually comes preinstalled. Do not attempt to use Word or LibreOffice.

The contents of the tutorial are summarized below. Beginners are encouraged to start from the beginning and read the first chapters in the order they are presented, because they follow a gradual approach and jumping right in the middle might be overwhelming. More advanced users may jump immediately to the chapter they are interested in, although we also encourage them to read everything.

First steps

This chapter will get you started by creating a new tileset for the tutorial, that you can edit safely.

Adding units

In this chapter, we add graphics for two fictitious units to our tileset.

A note on image editing

If you create tilesets, you will likely also want to edit graphics. We are often asked which painting program we use. We believe that the program that will work best for you depends a lot on your workflow, so we encourage you to try several of them and make your own opinion. If you don’t know where to start, here are a few free (as in speech) recommendations:

  • Gimp is a generic image editor with a focus on image edition. It also has great drawing capabilities.

  • Krita is a digital painting application. It has a wider selection of brushes and presets than Gimp, and also supports vector layers.

  • MyPaint is another program focused on digital painting, famous for its very flexible and powerful brush engine.