doc/docs/en/manuals/tilemap.md

---

title: Defold tile map manual

brief: This manual details Defold's support for tile maps.

Tile map

A Tile Map is a component that allows you to assemble, or paint, tiles from a Tile Source onto a large grid area. Tile maps are commonly used to build game level environments. You can also use the Collision Shapes from the tile source in your maps for collision detection and physics simulation.

Before you can create a tile map you need to create a Tile Source. Refer to the Tile Source manual to learn how to create a Tile Source.

Creating a tile map

To create a new tile map:

• right click a location in the Assets browser, then select New... ▸ Tile Map).
• Name the file.
• The new tile map automatically opens in the tile map editor.

{srcset="images/tilemap/[email protected] 2x"}

• Set the Tile Source property to a tile source file that you have prepared.

To paint tiles on your tile map:

1. Select or create a Layer to paint on in the Outline view.
2. Select a tile to use as brush (press Space to show the tile palette)

{srcset="images/tilemap/[email protected] 2x"}

1. Paint with the selected brush. To erase a tile, either pick an empty tile and use it as brush, or select the eraser (Edit ▸ Select Eraser).

{srcset="images/tilemap/[email protected] 2x"}

You can pick tiles directly from a layer and use the selection as a brush. Hold Shift and click a tile to pick it up as the current brush. While holding Shift you can also click and drag to select a block of tiles to use as a larger brush.

{srcset="images/tilemap/[email protected] 2x"}

Adding a tile map to your game

To add a tile map to your game:

1. Create a game object to hold the tile map component. The game object can be in a file or created directly in a collection.
2. Right-click the root of the game object and select Add Component File.
3. Select the tile map file.

{srcset="images/tilemap/[email protected] 2x"}

Changing tiles from script

You can read and write the content of a tile map dynamically while your game is running. To do so, use the tilemap.get_tile() and tilemap.set_tile() functions:

local tile = tilemap.get_tile("/level#map", "ground", x, y)

if tile == 2 then
    -- Replace grass-tile (2) with dangerous hole tile (number 4).
    tilemap.set_tile("/level#map", "ground", x, y, 4)
end