How to make an Isometric map
In this tutorial, i will teach you how to make a good Isometric map for Construct 2.
Programs needed
You will need :
-3DS Max or a 3D program
-GIMP or Photoshop
-Tiled
Make the tile
First, we are going to make the tile for the isometric map. You will need 3ds max or another 3D program to have the best quality.
Open 3ds max and make a cube
You must have a perfect cube, you can edit the size in the properties.
Now you will need to add a texture to the object, the main part of the tile.
Press "M" or click on the "Material" icon.
Select a slot, go in the "Maps" tab and select "Diffuse color" then press "none" to select a texture.
Press the "Add texture to the object" button after selecting the object, or drag the texture on it.
You can show the texture on your object by pressing "Show material".
Now change the camera to "Orthographic"
And press one of the corners of the camera cube to select the Isometric camera.
Now edit the render settings to have a custom size, 64x64 texture in the "Common" tab.
And go to the "Render" tab to disable "Antialiasing" (Antialiasing is the blur on the sides to make realistic lines without showing every pixels, but for a 64x64 object, you will lose quality).
Now render the image, and go to the top left corner, select the area to render by clicking on "Blowup". It will help you to crop the object in the 64x64 window of the render.
Crop the window to the cube, render again and export the render.
Isometric size
Now that we have the isometric tile, we need to crop it perfectly.
Open GIMP or Photoshop and open the image.
In GIMP, go to the "image" tab and crop the image to the imported tile.
Then change the size of the image in the "image" tab. Disable the "Lock" to enter 64x64, and select "No interpolation" or you will lose the quality.
And then, export the image.
Make the map
In this final part, we are going to make the map for Construct 2.
You will need Tiled.
Open the program and make a new map, with those properties :
Make sure that the size is 64x32.
Add a new tileset.
And edit the properties to have 64x64.
Now you can draw the map. Then export it and import it in Construct as a sprite. Be sure that the map is not too big, or crop the exported image in GIMP.
Now you have your Isometric map ready for your game.
You can make other objects, not only blocks.