How to create and assign tiles via script?

Question

I am trying to make some kind of tileset texture replacer using an editor window.

First, I try to save all tile and texture names in let say "scenename.ctss" (ctss stand for "custom tilemap save system"), and then load but with different textures. ut

The problem is that I can't find anywhere on the internet on how we can create a TileBase instance, and then apply texture to it.

I was expecting creating TileBase would be as simple as this line of code:

TileBase tileBase = new TileBase();

but i get this error message:

CS0144: Cannot create an instance of the abstract type or interface 'TileBase'

Is there a way so that we can create our own custom TileBase in Unity?

Answer 1

What this error message is telling you is that TileBase is an abstract class. It's just the foundation ("Base") to use when building custom tile classes that you might want to instantiate. But you can't instantiate the base itself — it's incomplete on its own.

A concrete implementation of the TileBase is given by the Tile class, which you can create as:

Tile myTile = Tile.CreateInstance<Tile>();

The Tile class inherits from TileBase, so it can be used as an argument anywhere a function parameter asks for a TileBase. Tile is just a specialized flavour of TileBase (and a fairly general-purpose one that's fit for the most common use cases).

So for example, assigning this tile to a specific spot on your tilemap could be accomplished by:

tilemap.SetTile(position, myTile);