Stock City

Today's exercise doesn't have its own Bitsy file – it's all about taking an image and translating it into a modular tileset.

I typically run this exercise with the attached image – Small Town Main Street stock photo. Did I pay for this photo? Not on a teacher's budget!

The goal: To recreate this image in Bitsy. But the real task of this exercise is to break apart the image into a set of tiles that can be used to build the image.

• Look for recurring visual elements, like the windows, that can make for a repeatable tile.
• How can you differentiate the three different buildings from each other using texture and detail?
• Think about the mass of the buildings – try to create a skyline with distinct shapes.

A good touchstone for this exercise is forestherd's Care, which does a great job of dividing trees into modular forms that can be used to populate the game with all sorts of unique foliage.