Tile Set Properties

Jazz Creation Station Help Tile Set Properties | | Index |

The tile set properties dialog allows you to modify the properties of a tile set. It is also used when you create a new tileset. This dialog is only useful if you are planning to create your own, custom tileset. For more information about creating your own tilesets, read the Creating a Tileset Mini-Manual.
You can bring up the tile set properties dialog by pressing Add or double-clicking on a tileset's name in the Tile set organizer.

| Description Enter or modify the tile set's description here. The tile set description is just a text string that helps you remember what the tileset is for, or what it's name is.

Filename
The file name of the tile set is the name it has on disk, after it has been compiled. The tile set name identifies the tile set for JCS (i.e. JCS stores the name of the tile set inside a level, if you change a filename of a tileset you must also change all of the levels that use it).

Tile set
The tile set entry holds the name of the tile set graphics. JCS searches for filenames in the tiles directory (you can set the tiles directory from the Paths and filenames entry from the Tools section on the drop-down menu). Tiles graphics can be stored in BMP (Windows Bitmap), LBM (DeluxePaint), ANM (Deluxepaint Animation) or PCX (ZSoft Paintbrush) format.
All tile set images must be 320 wide and have a color depth of 8 bits (256 colors), the height of the image doesn't matter. The tile set image should be subdivided in 32x32 blocks (the tiles). You should also always use the static tile set colors to make sure that the tile set works correctly in the game.
The transparency color in tile sets is color 0 or 1 (anything you draw in color 0 or 1 in the tile set will not be drawn when the tile is displayed).

Mask
The mask entry is not mandatory and will standardly be set to (auto mask). The mask of a tileset determines where the objects in the game can collide with the landscape. When you have, for example, a flower in your tileset which is shown on the sprite layer (layer 4), you do not want Jazz to run into the flower; it should not collide with the flower. This means as much as "the flower should not have a mask". You can create a mask image for the tile set which determines which pixels are and which aren't masked. If you copy the tileset graphics to be used as a mask and remove the flower from this copy, the flower's mask has been removed.
In this example the tile set name is Cast1n.anm which means Castle 1 night. The mask name is Cast1nm.anm which means Castle 1 night mask.
When you use the (automask) option, the masks for this tileset will be generated from the tileset graphics. If you are just starting out making your tilesets or are not sure if you need to make a mask for it, just use (automask).

Remap palette
This check-box determines if the Jazz 2 sprite colors are mapped into your tile set palette or not. If you check this box, the tile set your create will always have the Jazz 2 sprite colors in it and the colors you use in your palette will be remapped and optimized to a new palette, generated by JCS. If you do not check this box, JCS assumes that you have the Jazz 2 sprite colors in position 16..95 of your palette. If you are in doubt, just check the Remap palette mark.
If you use a lot of colors in your tile set and you select remap palette it might be possible that there are more than 240 colors required to display your tileset in the game. In this case, the tile set compiler will log a warning when your tile set is compiled and the tile set will look off-colored in Jazz 2.

| OK button Press this button if you would like to save the changes you made in the tile set properties dialog.
| Cancel button Press this button to discard the changes you made in the tile set properties dialog.
| Help button Press this button to display the help you are reading now.