Procreate has no built-in seamless tile mode, so you build a tile set by working on a gridded canvas sized in multiples of your tile size, using the Drawing Guide and Transform snapping to keep every tile aligned. Draw each tile in its own cell, check the edges against their neighbors, then export one PNG sprite sheet. For tiles that must wrap on all four sides, add a manual offset step or finish the seam in an app with a wrap mode.

What "tile set" means in Procreate

People use "tile set" for two different jobs, and the workflow differs for each.

• Game-style tile sets are sprite sheets of square tiles (edges, corners, fills) that snap together on a grid. Examples are a 3x3 ground set or a 48-tile "blob" set for platformers and top-down maps.
• Seamless pattern tiles are single images that repeat in every direction without a visible seam. These are used for textures, backgrounds, and surface materials.

Procreate handles both through its grid and snapping tools. It has no native wrap or offset preview, so the seam-checking step takes some manual work.

Set up the canvas

Start with the math. Pick a tile size, then multiply it by the number of tiles across and down your sheet.

1. Choose your tile size. Pixel art usually uses 8x8 or 16x16. Painted tiles usually use larger sizes.
2. Decide on the sheet layout. A 3x3 edge set at 32 px is a 96x96 canvas. A 3x3 set at 100 px is 300x300.
3. Create a custom canvas in pixels at those dimensions. For painted textures, 300 DPI is fine, and a square canvas such as 5000 x 5000 works well for large pattern tiles.
4. Open Actions > Canvas and switch on Drawing Guide, then tap Edit Drawing Guide.
5. Set the grid size to your tile size, so one grid square equals one tile.

Keep each tile on its own layer or layer group while you work. A flattened sheet is hard to fix when a corner doesn't line up, and layers let you move one tile without disturbing the rest.

Turn on Drawing Assist for repeatable shapes

Drawing Assist is useful for tiles built from repeated or symmetrical shapes. Tap a layer and enable Drawing Assist on it. Symmetry then applies only to that layer. Tapping a layer that has no assist leaves it as a normal layer.

Under the Drawing Guide's Symmetry options:

• Vertical or horizontal symmetry suits wall and floor tiles that mirror left to right.
• Quadrant symmetry with rotational symmetry on is good for ornamental floor tiles, such as a flower or a star motif repeated around a center.

Layers with Drawing Assist on are symmetrical. Layers without it are free, so you can mix a symmetrical base with hand-drawn detail on top. Slight imperfection often makes a hand-painted tile read as natural.

Draw the tiles in a logical order

Tile sets fail at the edges. Each tile has to blend with every tile that can sit beside it, so design the set as a system.

Start with the fill tile

Draw the center or fill tile first. This is the tile that will repeat most. Make its texture even, with no strong focal detail, or the repetition will show immediately.

Add edges and corners

For a basic 3x3 set (top-left, top, top-right, left, center, right, bottom-left, bottom, bottom-right):

1. Draw the center tile.
2. Draw the four straight edges so the transition into the neighboring material meets the cell boundary at the same pixel on both sides.
3. Draw the four outer corners.
4. If you need inner corners (where the material curves inward), add a second 3x3 set or four extra tiles.

For platformers and top-down maps, the fuller "blob" style set uses around 48 tiles to cover every combination of neighbors. It's a lot of drawing, but it lets artists paint any shape without visible joins.

Use Transform snapping for alignment

When you move a tile into its cell, open the Transform tool and turn on Magnetics and Snapping. Snapping aligns to the canvas center and edges, and, with the grid active, makes it easier to place elements precisely.

For pixel art, avoid any smoothing when you move or scale tiles so they stay sharp. Use a pixel brush and turn off any soft edges. Draw at 1:1 or zoomed in, and check at 100% before you export.

Make a tile seamless without a wrap mode

Procreate won't show content that leaves one edge re-entering on the opposite edge. You can do the offset method by hand:

1. Draw the tile on a square canvas.
2. Duplicate the layer, then use Transform with snapping to move the copy by exactly half the canvas width and half the height. Keep the duplicate arranged so the original edges now sit in the middle.
3. The seams are now in the center, where you can see and paint over them. Blend the join with a soft brush or by cloning nearby texture.
4. Repeat the check by offsetting once more to confirm the new edges still match.

Another method is the quadrant approach. Divide the canvas into four quadrants, draw so elements crossing an edge are mirrored in the quadrant on the opposite side, and then fill the middle.

Both work, but both are slower than a real wrap mode. If you do a lot of seamless textures, consider finishing the seam in another app. Threads in the Procreate community point to Affinity Photo and Designer on iPad, Paintstorm Studio (which has a Seamless mode), Infinite Painter's pattern function, and, in one unverified comment, Krita's wrap mode on desktop. A common split is to paint in Procreate, export a PNG, and fix the seams in one of those apps.

Check the tile set before you export

Procreate won't preview how tiles join in a map, so test the join yourself.

• Duplicate and arrange. Copy a tile into a 3x3 or larger arrangement on a scratch canvas and look for visible edges, repeating highlights, or lighting that points in different directions.
• Check lighting and shadows. A directional shadow or highlight painted into a tile will repeat in a way that reveals the grid. Keep lighting soft or neutral in the base tile, and add shadows on a separate layer if you need them.
• Test in a dedicated tile tool. Apps like Tiled and Aseprite let you check in real time whether your sprites connect. This is the quickest way to confirm your tiles join up.

Export your tile set

Export the sheet as a flat PNG. Hide any helper layers you added first so they don't appear in the export.

Typical destinations:

• Game engines and tile tools: Import the sheet into GameMaker's tile set editor or a tile tool such as Tiled. Make sure the cell size, offset, and separation values match the grid you drew on.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Canvas size that isn't a multiple of the tile size. Cells will drift out of alignment and exports will be off by a pixel.
• Painting seams last. Edges and joins are the core of a tile set, so design them first and detail afterward.
• Strong focal details in repeating tiles. One bright spot becomes a visible grid when it repeats.
• Letting smoothing blur pixel art. Smoothing during transforms blurs edges and can cause visible seams when tiles are placed next to each other.
• Not testing in context. A tile that looks fine alone can fail in a map, so test it in a map early and often.

A short checklist

1. Choose the tile size and sheet layout, and create the canvas in matching pixels.
2. Turn on the grid in the Drawing Guide, and enable Magnetics and Snapping.
3. Draw the fill tile, then edges, corners, and inner corners.
4. Use Drawing Assist symmetry where the design calls for it.
5. For seamless textures, offset by half and paint over the seams, or finish in an app with wrap mode.
6. Test the tiles in a repeated arrangement or a tile editor.
7. Export a flat PNG and verify it in your engine or tile tool.

Procreate won't do the tiling math for you, but with a precise grid and a disciplined edge-first process it's a capable tool for drawing tile sets on an iPad.

Procreate has no built-in seamless tile mode, so you build a tile set by working on a gridded canvas sized in multiples of your tile size, using the Drawing Guide and Transform snapping to keep every tile aligned. Draw each tile in its own cell, check the edges against their neighbors, then export one PNG sprite sheet. For tiles that must wrap on all four sides, add a manual offset step or finish the seam in an app with a wrap mode.

What "tile set" means in Procreate

People use "tile set" for two different jobs, and the workflow differs for each.

• Game-style tile sets are sprite sheets of square tiles (edges, corners, fills) that snap together on a grid. Examples are a 3x3 ground set or a 48-tile "blob" set for platformers and top-down maps.
• Seamless pattern tiles are single images that repeat in every direction without a visible seam. These are used for textures, backgrounds, and surface materials.

Procreate handles both through its grid and snapping tools. It has no native wrap or offset preview, so the seam-checking step takes some manual work.

Set up the canvas

Start with the math. Pick a tile size, then multiply it by the number of tiles across and down your sheet.

1. Choose your tile size. Pixel art usually uses 8x8 or 16x16. Painted tiles usually use larger sizes.
2. Decide on the sheet layout. A 3x3 edge set at 32 px is a 96x96 canvas. A 3x3 set at 100 px is 300x300.
3. Create a custom canvas in pixels at those dimensions. For painted textures, 300 DPI is fine, and a square canvas such as 5000 x 5000 works well for large pattern tiles.
4. Open Actions > Canvas and switch on Drawing Guide, then tap Edit Drawing Guide.
5. Set the grid size to your tile size, so one grid square equals one tile.

Keep each tile on its own layer or layer group while you work. A flattened sheet is hard to fix when a corner doesn't line up, and layers let you move one tile without disturbing the rest.

Turn on Drawing Assist for repeatable shapes

Drawing Assist is useful for tiles built from repeated or symmetrical shapes. Tap a layer and enable Drawing Assist on it. Symmetry then applies only to that layer. Tapping a layer that has no assist leaves it as a normal layer.

Under the Drawing Guide's Symmetry options:

• Vertical or horizontal symmetry suits wall and floor tiles that mirror left to right.
• Quadrant symmetry with rotational symmetry on is good for ornamental floor tiles, such as a flower or a star motif repeated around a center.

Layers with Drawing Assist on are symmetrical. Layers without it are free, so you can mix a symmetrical base with hand-drawn detail on top. Slight imperfection often makes a hand-painted tile read as natural.

Draw the tiles in a logical order

Tile sets fail at the edges. Each tile has to blend with every tile that can sit beside it, so design the set as a system.

Start with the fill tile

Draw the center or fill tile first. This is the tile that will repeat most. Make its texture even, with no strong focal detail, or the repetition will show immediately.

Add edges and corners

For a basic 3x3 set (top-left, top, top-right, left, center, right, bottom-left, bottom, bottom-right):

1. Draw the center tile.
2. Draw the four straight edges so the transition into the neighboring material meets the cell boundary at the same pixel on both sides.
3. Draw the four outer corners.
4. If you need inner corners (where the material curves inward), add a second 3x3 set or four extra tiles.

For platformers and top-down maps, the fuller "blob" style set uses around 48 tiles to cover every combination of neighbors. It's a lot of drawing, but it lets artists paint any shape without visible joins.

Use Transform snapping for alignment

When you move a tile into its cell, open the Transform tool and turn on Magnetics and Snapping. Snapping aligns to the canvas center and edges, and, with the grid active, makes it easier to place elements precisely.

For pixel art, avoid any smoothing when you move or scale tiles so they stay sharp. Use a pixel brush and turn off any soft edges. Draw at 1:1 or zoomed in, and check at 100% before you export.

Make a tile seamless without a wrap mode

Procreate won't show content that leaves one edge re-entering on the opposite edge. You can do the offset method by hand:

1. Draw the tile on a square canvas.
2. Duplicate the layer, then use Transform with snapping to move the copy by exactly half the canvas width and half the height. Keep the duplicate arranged so the original edges now sit in the middle.
3. The seams are now in the center, where you can see and paint over them. Blend the join with a soft brush or by cloning nearby texture.
4. Repeat the check by offsetting once more to confirm the new edges still match.

Another method is the quadrant approach. Divide the canvas into four quadrants, draw so elements crossing an edge are mirrored in the quadrant on the opposite side, and then fill the middle.

Both work, but both are slower than a real wrap mode. If you do a lot of seamless textures, consider finishing the seam in another app. Threads in the Procreate community point to Affinity Photo and Designer on iPad, Paintstorm Studio (which has a Seamless mode), Infinite Painter's pattern function, and, in one unverified comment, Krita's wrap mode on desktop. A common split is to paint in Procreate, export a PNG, and fix the seams in one of those apps.

Check the tile set before you export

Procreate won't preview how tiles join in a map, so test the join yourself.

• Duplicate and arrange. Copy a tile into a 3x3 or larger arrangement on a scratch canvas and look for visible edges, repeating highlights, or lighting that points in different directions.
• Check lighting and shadows. A directional shadow or highlight painted into a tile will repeat in a way that reveals the grid. Keep lighting soft or neutral in the base tile, and add shadows on a separate layer if you need them.
• Test in a dedicated tile tool. Apps like Tiled and Aseprite let you check in real time whether your sprites connect. This is the quickest way to confirm your tiles join up.

Export your tile set

Export the sheet as a flat PNG. Hide any helper layers you added first so they don't appear in the export.

Typical destinations:

• Game engines and tile tools: Import the sheet into GameMaker's tile set editor or a tile tool such as Tiled. Make sure the cell size, offset, and separation values match the grid you drew on.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Canvas size that isn't a multiple of the tile size. Cells will drift out of alignment and exports will be off by a pixel.
• Painting seams last. Edges and joins are the core of a tile set, so design them first and detail afterward.
• Strong focal details in repeating tiles. One bright spot becomes a visible grid when it repeats.
• Letting smoothing blur pixel art. Smoothing during transforms blurs edges and can cause visible seams when tiles are placed next to each other.
• Not testing in context. A tile that looks fine alone can fail in a map, so test it in a map early and often.

A short checklist

1. Choose the tile size and sheet layout, and create the canvas in matching pixels.
2. Turn on the grid in the Drawing Guide, and enable Magnetics and Snapping.
3. Draw the fill tile, then edges, corners, and inner corners.
4. Use Drawing Assist symmetry where the design calls for it.
5. For seamless textures, offset by half and paint over the seams, or finish in an app with wrap mode.
6. Test the tiles in a repeated arrangement or a tile editor.
7. Export a flat PNG and verify it in your engine or tile tool.

Procreate won't do the tiling math for you, but with a precise grid and a disciplined edge-first process it's a capable tool for drawing tile sets on an iPad.