Bind Pictures To Map

[Galenmereth]

​

Introduction

Lets you bind the movement of pictures to the movement of the map rather than to the camera, for what is popularly called parallax mapping. Can also be used as additional layer(s) of detail to your normal maps. You can change what “layer” a picture is drawn to, like above or below characters. It even works with looping maps!

Before asking for help, please read the documentation page to see if it might already be covered there. That page will be updated over time and always be the most current documentation available for the plugin.

Features

• Bind and unbind pictures shown using the Show Picture command to the map using simple Plugin Commands.
• You can combine bound pictures and normal mapping just fine to add additional layers of details to your maps.
• Change the layer of pictures, like below characters but above tiles, below the tilemap but above the scrolling parallax background, and more. See the documentation page.

Latest version:

1.0.7 - 2015.11.14

How to use

Add the plugin to your game and check the documentation page for help. The Help section contains general information and a link the plugin's documentation page.

Documentation

Documentation page

Download

GitHub

Dependencies

None

FAQ

No items yet

Credit

Tor Damian Design

Terms of use

Free for non-commercial and commercial use. See terms of use for the full terms.

 

[Gabrelik]

Hello! I'm having an issue with this plugin, but not quite sure what is going on. It worked on my first map, but on the very next map it did not. I wanted to make sure I'm not missing something. When I start the game, I get what is shown in the screenshot.

The overlaying image follows me around as I move, like it is not bound at all.  I've also attached my event setup.

Any help would be awesome! Your plugin is definitely vital to what I'm trying to do with this game.

Thanks!

 

[Gabrelik]

New development, but unsure if related to the issue: the system does not seem to like any kind of parallax larger than 17X13. The previous engines did not seem to have a problem, but even when properly sized, I'm unable to do much with the parallax maps above this size. The plugin works perfect for the "above_characters" effect I'm trying to achieve with trees, etc. So long as my maps stay this small, we're good. Just can't get anywhere otherwise...

 

[Galenmereth]

Regarding the second map not working, it might be because on the first map you have more than one picture showing, while on the second only one. You'll have to use the Erase Picture event command for the picture slots not used on the next map. I know this is slightly cumbersome and I'm working on a way to make parallax mapping better by automating this whole process.

As for the parallax not working on anything larger than 17x13, what errors are you getting? Poor performance or other problems?

 

[PsychoByNatureX]

Have not tried this plugin yet but thank goodness you got this up and running as quickly as you did. I was so worried i would actually have to use the default editor to make maps :-( thank you so much!! I dont know where id be without parallax mapping!! I am going for a commercial game and will be looking into licensing once i get to that point. Just had to say thank you for your beautiful scripts and i look forward to more. Keep up the great work

 

[Galenmereth]

Thanks for that! I'm working on some improvements with heavy parallax mapping in mind that should make your life a lot easier, coming very soon.  

 

[DavidFoxfire]

The part I like seeing out of this is that, thanks to the pluging working with the Show Pictures function in the Event Editor, that you don't need to have a big graphic to cover the entire map.  Say you want just a spare graphic of a map, like a veichle or a statue that exists only on one map, you can use this script to place that graphic on the map (instead of on the screen) and not have to devote tile space for the larger graphics.

Since that's the case, I'm going to be using this script very much.

 

[PsychoByNatureX]

A really cool feature would be to make animated pictures. Like you have a top layer for example pictures of clouds and it changes the picture from top1 to top2 to top3 etc. With the ability to change the speed of picture movement per layer. ;-) that would be beautiful and the possibilities for map design would be endless.

 

[Gabrelik]

Regarding the second map not working, it might be because on the first map you have more than one picture showing, while on the second only one. You'll have to use the Erase Picture event command for the picture slots not used on the next map. I know this is slightly cumbersome and I'm working on a way to make parallax mapping better by automating this whole process.

As for the parallax not working on anything larger than 17x13, what errors are you getting? Poor performance or other problems?

Slight performance issue when moving across the map. There seems to be a momentary lag at random, followed by a thin white line that cuts through the map. Minor glitch, and I'm not really sure if it is the plugin, or just my system not working properly with MV yet. I understand there is quite a bit heavier demand on memory for this platform than in the past.

 

[Cephalophane]

Regarding the second map not working, it might be because on the first map you have more than one picture showing, while on the second only one. You'll have to use the Erase Picture event command for the picture slots not used on the next map. I know this is slightly cumbersome and I'm working on a way to make parallax mapping better by automating this whole process.

As for the parallax not working on anything larger than 17x13, what errors are you getting? Poor performance or other problems?

So, if we move from a map with 3 pictures [Map 1] to a map with 2 pictures [Map 2], we must manually Erase Picture 3 in order to prevent it from showing on Map 2?

 

[Galenmereth]

So, if we move from a map with 3 pictures [Map 1] to a map with 2 pictures [Map 2], we must manually Erase Picture 3 in order to prevent it from showing on Map 2?

Correct, since that's how Show Picture works in MV (and it worked like that in Ace and previous makers too). I do realize this is counterintuitive and possibly a lot of work when you use pictures constantly to parallax, thus I'm working on a way for this to be automated What I've been doing is call a Common Event right after Transfer Player event commands that erases pictures 1-10, there won't be an error if they've not been shown. But it's definitely not optimal if you make a lot of parallax maps.

 

[DavidFoxfire]

Correct, since that's how Show Picture works in MV (and it worked like that in Ace and previous makers too). I do realize this is counterintuitive and possibly a lot of work when you use pictures constantly to parallax, thus I'm working on a way for this to be automated What I've been doing is call a Common Event right after Transfer Player event commands that erases pictures 1-10, there won't be an error if they've not been shown. But it's definitely not optimal if you make a lot of parallax maps.

Thanks for the heads up on that little hazard.  Until it's automated, we will have to manually Erase all the Pictures before transferring.

 

[Cephalophane]

Correct, since that's how Show Picture works in MV (and it worked like that in Ace and previous makers too). I do realize this is counterintuitive and possibly a lot of work when you use pictures constantly to parallax, thus I'm working on a way for this to be automated What I've been doing is call a Common Event right after Transfer Player event commands that erases pictures 1-10, there won't be an error if they've not been shown. But it's definitely not optimal if you make a lot of parallax maps.

Yeah, I have been using this to do parallax mapping, and while it works very well, I was confused when I ran into that problem. At the moment my solution is just to have the transport event also kill all of the pictures on the map (or at least the surplus ones), and that has been working. I am no RM expert though so there could be inherent problems with that, but, if there are, I haven't found them yet.

Your way is probably better.

 

[Galenmereth]

I had honestly forgotten to document it because I'm so used to RM's Show Picture functionality, so I apologize for that. I'm looking into getting the automation out there asap. My current idea is to make this specifically easier for parallax mappers, with it working like this:

1. Within a customizable folder path (pictures/maps by default, for example) you create folders with the same map ID numbers at the start of the map name as your maps, with anything appearing after being for your own benefit. So for example "1 My First Map" would be the folder for parallax images on map ID 1.
2. Pictures you place in these folders are automatically shown and bound to map, and removed upon leaving.
3. Layers are specified by simply having the layer name be the first word in the filename. So for example the files "above_characters trees.png", "bottom 1.png" and "bottom 2.png" would all be loaded to their respective layers.

Does this sound logical and reasonable, or would you prefer another approach?

 

[Cephalophane]

Actually, that sounds amazing. With the way I'm developing my game that'd make life a million (and a half) times easier.

 

[kaine]

sounds good! 

 

[Khaldriel]

Hi, first of all, excellent plugin, absolutely necessary for parallax mappers.

Now, I've been trying it out and I've discover something that I'm not sure it's supposed to be this way.
This is the event's page:

Spoiler

On the first page I show 4 images and then on the second page I move the 4th one (unbinding it first), after the image has moved to its new position, I wanted to bind it again but what happens is that it's bound to its original position (0, 0) instead of the new one.
Is this how it's supposed to work? If so, would it be posible to add the option to bind images that were moved to a new position using the move image command? This would open a lot of possibilities for mappers to have different parts of maps move or change positions while being able to bind them to their new positions, even making clouds or fogs possible and easy.

Regarding the new way to organize images that you mentioned, I think that would be awesome, but I have a suggestion regarding your point 3, instead of having all of the layer images on the same folder, what if we were to create folders for each map folder?
ex:
-images/maps/1 My First Map/bottom/001_NameOfTheLayer.png (002_NameOfTheLayer.png would be on the same layer but as it has a bigger number it would be "above" 001_NameOfTheLayer.png, 003 above 002 and 001, etc)
-images/maps/1 My First Map/below_tilemap/001_NameOfTheLayerNew.png (This image would be above all the "bottom" ones but being the 001 it would be below the rest of the "below_tilemap" layer)
-images/maps/1 My First Map/below_characters/001_NameOfTheLayerNewNew.png

-etc.

This way it would be a lot more organized and we won't have lots of images per map folder (which could get confusing) and instead all images would be in their correct layer subfolder.

Thanks for making this excellent plugin.

 

[Accendor]

Does this sound logical and reasonable, or would you prefer another approach?

That sound incredible awesome and I'm going to put my mapping on hold as long as you work on this

 

[Musashi]

Nice plugin Galenmereth! It gives an error* when trying to show pictures in battle.

*Cannot read property 'width' of null

edit: only in 'Battle Test'. 

 

[Galenmereth]

@Musashi: Thanks for the report on that! I've released a new version where this should be fixed
 
Updated to version 1.0.5
 

Changelog:

• Fixed bug when using Show Picture in battle scenes