Cyclone Maps - Overlay, Tile Size, Region Names, Region Collision and a lot more

[Hudell]

Cyclone Maps
by Hudell​

Introduction
This plugin combines several of my MV plugins into a single one.

Features

1. Parallax Mapping
2. Change Tile Size and Tileset Location
3. Region Names
4. Region Common Events
5. Region Collision
6. Disable Auto Shadows
7. Disable Tilemap
8. Change Balloons and Animations Z Index
9. Call a Common Event whenever the map changes
10. More to come

Parallax Mapping

You can use this plugin to add overlay images to your maps (it works in the same way that OrangeOverlay works on MV).

You can keep the images either on the img/parallaxes folder or (if you set the Organized Folders param to true) on separate folders like this:

• img/overlays/grounds
• img/overlays/pars
• img/overlays/shadows
• img/overlays/lights
• img/overlays/fogs

All image filenames must end with the number of the map

Map notetags:

• <all>: Display all overlays
• <ground>: Display ground overlay
• <par>: Display parallax overlay
• <light>: Display light overlay
• <shadow>: Display shadow overlay
• <fogName:filename>: Display the specified fog image
• <fogOpacity:number>: Change the opacity level of the fog image (0 to 255)
• <fogBlend:number>: Changes the blend type of the fog image
• <fogDuration:number>: Changes the duration of the opacity transition
• <xMove:number>: Changes the horizontal speed of the fog
• <yMove:number>: Changes the vertical speed of the fog

You can use variable numbers on the notetags by adding a $ symbol before the value
There are also some plugin commands to change those parameters.

Change Tile Size and Tileset Location

This plugin includes parameters to change the tile width, tile height and tileset location. Those changes will only affect the game, not the MZ editor, so to make use of it you'll have to either:

• Create a copy of the tilesets resized to 48x48 so you can use them in the editor
• Do your mapping in a custom map editor such as Cyclone Live Map Editor

Region Names

You can configure a different name for each region and it will display this name every time the player enters said region. There's also a separate setting to determine if the name should stay on the screen while the player is above the region or if it can fade out.

Region Common Events

You can also configure the plugin to run common events when you step on specific regions. Just use the "Region Based Common Events" param to map each region to an event and they'll run automatically. Please note that the same event can run multiple times if the player continues to step on the same region over and over, so adjust your common events accordingly. They'll always run in parallel so movement will not be blocked.

Region Collision

You can also configure regions to block or unblock the movement of the player, events or both.

Disable Auto Shadows

A simple param can completely disable rendering of shadows on your maps.

Disable Tilemap

If you use parallax mapping for your whole game, you can use this parameter to stop rendering the regular maps, improving your game's performance.

Change Balloons and Animations Z Index

To go along with the extra Z indexes used by the parallax mapping, you can change the balloons and animations to a different layer.

Call a Common Event whenever the map changes

A simple parameter to call a common event every time the player moves between maps.

More to come

Download it here.

 

[Heartless_Angel]

Awesome job ^^

 

[yeaka]

Was hoping for something like this, thanks for making it!

 

[Jack Saintsworth]

Awesome. Thanks a ton. Is there an equivalent to Mapshot for MZ?

 

[jerrypylant]

I love this, easy to use. Very versatile. Thank you for making this!

 

[Hudell]

Awesome. Thanks a ton. Is there an equivalent to Mapshot for MZ?

Not yet, but you can export the map from the editor now, so you'll only need the plugin to export the events

 

[Jack Saintsworth]

Not yet, but you can export the map from the editor now, so you'll only need the plugin to export the events

Oh okay, gotcha. Thanks!

 

[Nimbus]

So I ran into a bit of an issue with this and I'm curious if there's a way to get around it. I tried to use this plugin to essentially double the size of everything so that it would be bigger on screen. So I made a copy of the default tileset and doubled it in size (going from 768 to 1536) and then set my tile size in the plugin settings to 96 instead of 48. Unfortunately it gave me a big jumbled mess when I tried it out.

Is this plugin not really intended to do something like this? I tried to do something similar a few years ago in MV using Shaz's plugin and she told me her plugin wasn't really meant for that kind of thing. I ended up achieving my intended result in MV using a zoom plugin (set to 200% zoom) instead, but as of right now there doesn't seem to be a great one of those for MZ (the one by Sasuke Hannazuki kind of works, but it doesn't use Nearest Neighbor for scaling so everything gets blurry).

So basically what I'm wondering... is there a way to use the Cyclone Maps plugin to make "higher quality" tilesets with larger tiles? Or is this mostly just used to scaling previous engine assets to 48x48 tiles?

 

[Hudell]

In your situation the best option is to use zoom, it would be a lot easier to manage too. It's easy to implement so I can make a plugin exclusive for that.
As for the error, I haven't tried using 96x96 yet. There may be a bitmap size limit involved (MV could only handle tilesets up to 64x64 for example). I'll try it and let you know.

 

[Nimbus]

Thanks Hudell, the bitmap size limit definitely sounds like it's the culprit then. Zoom does seem like the way to go for what I'm trying to achieve. I'm using that one by Sasuke for the time being but it seems to scale things in a weird way that causes them to become blurry (I made a more detailed separate thread about it to not go too far off topic). I figured I'd give this tile resizing method a try to see if it gave me better results. But either way, I'm glad to hear that it's not too difficult to implement a proper zoom. Thanks for the really quick reply! MZ has only been out for a few days and people are already creating so many cool plugins.

 

[Morganis]

Hello, First thank you for the plugins. I wanted to ask if it was possible to have the layers move in certain directions like water, clouds, and so forth? Thank you again for what you do.

 

[Hudell]

currently only the fog layer can be moved

 

[Morganis]

thank you kindly friend

 

[tonytank1]

Just what I needed, thanks!

 

[Kentaro_]

Good Work. Can you add the Map Shot function?

 

[ScSWinter]

@Hudell amazing work, thanks! I used to use the OrangeOverlay and OrangeLighting plugins. Glad to se part of them here again.

 

[Heartless_Angel]

If I decide to use parallax mapping again, I will most likly use this one.
I also agree with the mapshot function, would be nice.

 

[Hudell]

I have updated the plugin to remove the dependency on the Cyclone Engine Core. It works by itself now.

Edit: Regarding the mapshot plugin:
MZ no longer draws the map as an image like MV did, instead everything is rendered directly by the GPU. This means that to make a mapshot plugin I need to recreate the whole map drawing process.
I actually did like half of that work already for my my Map Editor plugin, so I'll add the mapshot funcionality there instead of duplicating everything into a new plugin.

Edit 2: Well, this was quicker than I expected:

 

[CoopNinjask]

Nice plugin!

I have some doubts:
1) Is it possible to use several layers of the same class?
Example: Use 5 different layers of parallax, instead of using 1 of parallax, 1 of fog, etc.
2) Can Parallax have its opacity changed or just the fogs?

 

[Hudell]

Nice plugin!

I have some doubts:
1) Is it possible to use several layers of the same class?
Example: Use 5 different layers of parallax, instead of using 1 of parallax, 1 of fog, etc.
2) Can Parallax have its opacity changed or just the fogs?

Not in this version. If you explain what you would like to do I may add those options.
I don't have much experience with parallax myself so I don't know what people actually use or not.