Create your own Dungeon Tiles from scratch with Photoshop

Posted on October 7, 2009 by RupertG
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This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series Dungeon Tiles

Dungeon Tiles
  • Create your own Dungeon Tiles from scratch with Photoshop

dungeon-tile-00-previewWe all love to use Dungeon Tiles in our D&D games. It adds to the realism of combat, provides for more strategic play and helps everyone see what is going on. With the release of D&D4E the use of Dungeon Tiles became an integrated part of the game to the point where it is hard to play without them. This has created problems for GM’s who like to create their own campaigns and who need maps. While you can easily print off a tiled A4 or A3 sheet and draw in your maps, it would be even better to be able to create your own dungeon tiles from scratch to match your creations exactly.

In the first part on creating your own dungeon tiles, we show you how to create basic rooms of any size.

Instructions
  1. Open a new document in Photoshop. Set the dimensions to be 2 inches by 2 inches with a 200-300 dpi.
    dungeon tile 00-00
  2. Put in grid lines to break up the image into four equal squares (these will be our four tiles).
  3. Create four layers (1 for each tile).
  4. Set your forward color to a light grey, and your back color to a darker grey.
  5. Select the first square using the select tool and go to Filters -> Render -> Clouds.
    dungeon tile 00-01
  6. Repeat step 5 for each tile making sure that you fill in the clouds on a different layer for each tile.
  7. Click on your first tile on the layer palette and then click on effects. Choose Emboss -> Pillow Emboss -> Soften 10 then click OK.
    dungeon tile 00-02
  8. Right click on the Effects sub-layer and choose copy. Select the three other layers, right-click and choose paste effects
  9. Select all (ctrl/cmd + A)
  10. Edit -> Set Pattern (name it something relevant like Floors)
  11. New document – set to how many squares you want the room to be (we used 5 x 5 above).
  12. Edit -> Fill -> Pattern -> Our Floors pattern
    dungeon tile 00-03
  13. Create a new layer. Filters -> Render -> Clouds. Set layer effect to Multiply. Adjust Opacity to suit.
    dungeon tile 00-04
  14. Draw appropriate Walls using the selection tool.
    dungeon tile 00-05
  15. You’re done!

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll show you how to use different textures to create floors of wood, sand, gravel, etc and to also add blood splatter, mould, slime, etc to your tiles as well. I may even show you how to add lava, magical effects, chairs, tables and other paraphernalia.

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About RupertG

RupertG has been playing roleplaying games ever since he discovered Dragon Warriors at the age of 12. Since those days he has played many different RPG's, collected not insignificant Dwarf and Tomb Kings armies for Warhammer Fantasy Battles and even worked as a games designer in the heady days of the late 90's building a CCG. Now he runs a gaming blog and is a participant in the Grand Gaming Experiment
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  • eetzoo

    Interesting, keep the paraphernalia rolling! Photoshop is so huge, it’s good to pick up useful time-saving tips now and then (e.g. using rulers for selection — seems so trivial, but I’d never done it before).

  • eetzoo

    Interesting, keep the paraphernalia rolling! Photoshop is so huge, it’s good to pick up useful time-saving tips now and then (e.g. using rulers for selection — seems so trivial, but I’d never done it before).

  • Ellisthion

    After jumping through a few hoops, I worked out how to do this in the GIMP.

    There are 2 types of clouds, the “Solid Noise” one works best (tick the randomize button or make sure you generate a new seed each time), and then to get the colours right you need to go to Colors->Map->Gradient Map.

    Then, instead of Pillow Emboss (which, even with a script for it, seems not to work), try using Bevel: produces a decent result.

    Finally, as far as I can tell, the only way of getting GIMP to use a pattern is by saving the pattern to the patterns directory. For GIMP 2, this is GIMP-2.0sharegimp2.0patterns, and it’s the same for other versions, just with a different version number.

  • Ellisthion

    After jumping through a few hoops, I worked out how to do this in the GIMP.

    There are 2 types of clouds, the “Solid Noise” one works best (tick the randomize button or make sure you generate a new seed each time), and then to get the colours right you need to go to Colors->Map->Gradient Map.

    Then, instead of Pillow Emboss (which, even with a script for it, seems not to work), try using Bevel: produces a decent result.

    Finally, as far as I can tell, the only way of getting GIMP to use a pattern is by saving the pattern to the patterns directory. For GIMP 2, this is \GIMP-2.0\share\gimp\2.0\patterns, and it’s the same for other versions, just with a different version number.

  • Tomalak

    This looks like it will be immensely useful to me. I just ran across this article via Google, but I will likely become a regular reader. I am curious; did the articles mentioned above regarding other types of tile ever get made? What I really need are wilderness, town, and city tiles, and I’m not that proficient with Photoshop (though the above wasn’t too hard to follow, despite the fact that I have a PC).

    • http://www.diceofdoom.com RupertG

      Hi! I’m glad you found the tutorial useful :)

      it so happens that another one is going up this weekend focusing on creating furnture for your tiles. I’ll see if I can put up something on the other topics you mentioned in the next little while.

  • Tomalak

    This looks like it will be immensely useful to me. I just ran across this article via Google, but I will likely become a regular reader. I am curious; did the articles mentioned above regarding other types of tile ever get made? What I really need are wilderness, town, and city tiles, and I’m not that proficient with Photoshop (though the above wasn’t too hard to follow, despite the fact that I have a PC).

    • http://www.diceofdoom.com RupertG

      Hi! I’m glad you found the tutorial useful :)

      it so happens that another one is going up this weekend focusing on creating furnture for your tiles. I’ll see if I can put up something on the other topics you mentioned in the next little while.

  • Paul

    Fantastic. Thanks so much Rupert. Look forward to more of your articles.

  • Paul

    Fantastic. Thanks so much Rupert. Look forward to more of your articles.

  • Rich B

    Found this on youtube via a google search for making custom dungeon tiles. I have already been making lots. I wish I’d seen your tutorial before I spent a month or two learning! But I did learn how to do some fun stuff in Photoshop.
    I am hoping you still intend to get some tutorials up on varying your tiles a bit as mentioned in the original. Is that a lost cause now, or should I hold out hope?

  • Rich B

    Found this on youtube via a google search for making custom dungeon tiles. I have already been making lots. I wish I’d seen your tutorial before I spent a month or two learning! But I did learn how to do some fun stuff in Photoshop.
    I am hoping you still intend to get some tutorials up on varying your tiles a bit as mentioned in the original. Is that a lost cause now, or should I hold out hope?

  • http://www.diceofdoom.com/blog/author/rupertg RupertG

    Give me a couple of days – a week at most and I’ll have the next one up.

    For real this time… ;)

    • Rich B

      Looking around, I didn’t find any more entries on dungeon tiles :(
      Did the concept finally give up the ghost?

  • http://www.diceofdoom.com/blog/author/rupertg RupertG

    Give me a couple of days – a week at most and I’ll have the next one up.

    For real this time… ;)

  • http://www.diceofdoom.com/blog/author/rupertg RupertG

    The update is on its way. This episode is going to focus on creating the fittings for your maps.

    • Mark

      This is really well done. I’m not very skilled at using photoshop, but your video walked me right through it. I have already printed my first set of basic tiles and look forward to your next post!

  • http://www.diceofdoom.com/blog/author/rupertg RupertG

    The update is on its way. This episode is going to focus on creating the fittings for your maps.

    • Mark

      This is really well done. I’m not very skilled at using photoshop, but your video walked me right through it. I have already printed my first set of basic tiles and look forward to your next post!

  • Terry

    Using Dungeon tiles in D&D games are very attractive thing. It makes your games background more beautiful and also adds to the realism of combat, provides for more strategic play and helps everyone see what is going on.
    Wall Tiles