Tile set set up

Hi everyone,
im new here and i would like to ask a quick question. i have looked around the threads but cant find what i am looking for.
Im creating pixel art and i was going to create some NES tile sets and sprites and one of the things i would like to do is make them through YY_CHR so there is a file available to load straight into a project. Q: is it nesscesary for me to include the 'reversed', 'flipped' tiles in the set? or are those something that is programmed in on load up?, what is the preference that you prefer?

thanks in advance for your answers.

Background tiles cannot be flipped at all. Sprite tiles can be displayed flipped in any direction.

OK, cool, so i will include them for the background tiles. thank you for your very quick response.

You seem to know this, but just to make sure and for future reference, because on second inspection my phrasing may have not been clear: sprite tiles can be flipped in any direction but not rotated. ^^

Yes, I understand what you are saying, thank you. So am i right in thinking that if i create art through YY-CHR or NES SCREEN TOOL, then that is a useable format to use in homebrew development, or is there something else i need to do, or another software altogether?

I'm pretty sure NES Screen tool is 100% compatible with NES graphics. As for yy-chr, the one program I use the most, there's only one thing I noticed that you can do on it that is not compatible with NES: you can set multiple background colors. On the NES you can have only 1 and it repeats accross the sub-palettes. Other than that, it's fine too, as long as you keep it under 2BPP NES on the "Graphics format" dropdown menu. But it's the default settings anyway.

I think that if you're doing original artwork, NES Screen Tool should be better than yy-chr. I mostly do rom hacking, so I prefer yy-chr.

Thats great, i really appreciate your responses. i have played around with YY_CHR, i intend do have a play with NES SCREEN TOOL over the weekend. In terms of artwork i will just make tile sets and sprites that would be quite minuim really, 1 at a time. 1 background with tiles for whatever enviroment, and sprite sheet with a character and animations and release them that way, then the communitys can do as they want with them, make them better, or taylor them to there needs with there own rom set up and what not. thank you.

NESST is definitely more able in that regard. You can see how your tiles turn out when placed in context. It also has a dedicated meta sprite tool whose interface takes a while getting used to, but once you do, it's pretty versatile.

The only thing yy-chr does better (imo & for this particular purpose) is using a global clipboard, which means you can cut, copy and paste contents between several editor instances. In NESST, you need to use save/load/import/export tools, which can be unweildy at times and takes time to adapt to.


YY-CHR is also good in the sense that you can modify assets embedded in compiled/assembled software with a visual interface, like some more able hex editors might be able to do, so it is ideal for ROM hacking, like nesrocks wrote.

You can also see tiles in context in yy-chr, there's a bg editor for that.

One neat trick when editting existing game's graphics is you dump the PPU memory on fceux, then you split the file using PPU Split. It will generate a few files, one of them is a nam you can load on yy-chr's bg editor, so you can see tiles neatly arranged and edit more easily. On yy-chr you can simply open ROMS, but on NST you need to open CHR files. Which is why yy-chr is more confortable for rom hacking, to me. But NST has a few advantages that yy-chr lacks, such as placing multiple CHR tiles at once on the NAM by selecting a rectangle (this is a hugeeee help), import/export options, etc.

Wouldn't that work exactly the same way on NESST? Load the .nam individually from the nametable drop-down; leaving your current tileset intact.

im not really into the hacking stuff, just creating the art, im sure both softwares have the advantages for different reasons, the reasons i want is to actually create a set/spritesheet that can be exported into a file that is useable for either hacker or dev. im struggling here with NESST a bit, its very frustrating that it keeps changing the whole colour pallet of the tileset when i switch to another pallete for a different tile. YY-CHR doesnt do that, it allows me to just draw with what ever colour i choose,(keeping within the limitation of coarse)

Yes, but you can't open a ROM on NESST, only CHR. And if you are creating the artwork yourself, you don't need to split PPU memory, you should have the nam you created. The technique is for editting existing games which you don't own the source files to.

@Chasersgaming: what do you mean by the colors problem on NESST?

think im just doing it wrong, im getting the hang of it i think. can i post it here when its done to get some feedback?

Yes, please do!

If i'm understanding this right... well, the thing is a tileset doesn't have colours, or subpalettes for that matter. Don't focus on what colours the tileset appears to have in the tile window - focus on what it looks like when you've placed it on the nametable field. This is where you assign which palette to use for backgrounds - this is called the attribute table. You can view the attribute table by toggling the "attribute" toggle switch.

For sprites, it works a little different, but principially the same. Tiles don't have colour - colours are assigned on a per-sprite basis.

yeah, i think i got ya, create artwork, then select tile, then select pallete and adjust occordingly. i forgot that it changes for 16x16 grid, not 8x8.

Out of curiosity, is it a must that 1 out of the 4 palletes share the same colour? (For backgrounds)

Yes

Technically, the background layer allows for 3 colours + transparency. The first entry in any subpalette is really that transparency, but its value acts as a flood-fill for the screen colour behind that background layer.

If a sprite is drawn behind the background layer, you will notice that slot 0 in the subpalette does not cover that sprite.

im getting the hang of it now

That looks like a fun game to play
After you're satisfied you can optimize it a lot by removing duplicate tiles. I see there are several, and NESST has an option to highlight duplicates!

Thanks, it’s not a game, just some artwork to share. I see that it can get rid of duplicates which is good, oh I know what I was going to ask, what is the differences between the NESST and YY-CHR colour palettes? One Pal, ons NTSC? Which is the preference or is there not really a definitive one to use, is one more genuine?

Either can use any palette by default (well at least yy-chr I know can). Just download a palette and replace the file in the main folder. Nes palettes are a topic of their own, google "best nes palette" and you'll see several theories.

OK, thank you all for your help with this, I think I can get me head around creating assets for the NES system now, Gameboy and the SNES. Il post any new work on a new thread for you guys to have fun and play around with. I’m sure the more I work with it the more I will improve, thanks again you have been a great help!