Hand-Drawn Map instead of Tiles?

[SerpentRose]

Yooo so I'm getting the hang of this awesome fun addictive program after 2 weeks, and I was wondering if it was possible to import a hand-drawn map into the game to use instead of the tedious tiles, then just mark off areas as passable or non or star and so on. The map I'd like to use is: http://serpentrose.deviantart.com/art/Vruanhai-World-Map-280442328

And if that's possible, then I'd also like to be able to hand-paint every map and instance, but I've no idea how to begin such a task of importing and modifying for in-game use.

I tried searching the forums already, but I wasn't able to find anything relevant that wasn't just parallaxing and standard/custom tiles.

 

[Shaz]

What you are talking about IS parallaxing.


Tsukihime wrote a script that would let you "draw" areas for collision detection, but afaik it's still based on a 32x32 grid and not pixel movement.

 

[whitesphere]

Parallaxing is closest to what you want. 

VX Ace considers everything in the game world in terms of tiles --- a discrete location which covers a portion of the screen.  The sprites are sized for some multiple of the 32x32 tile size, and the game will by default move sprites by tile-sized increments.

So I don't think it's easy to set the sprites to move 1 pixel at a time.  Besides, that would be very annoying to players --- barely visible movement each keypress.

 

[SerpentRose]

I'd still arrange the map to a tile grid and block off boundaries like shores and mountains, etc. Just not sure how to "paint" impassable areas, as it was. Could I please get a link to that tutorial?

I am dumb and need to lurk moar. Nevermind. Thanks anyway guys I found it. XD

 

[Andar]

I don't have a link to a tutorial, but usually the passability is set by placing invisible tiles with the correct passability.


But because invisible tiles are bad to work with, most people make a small tilesheet that contains the symbols for the different forms of passability as tile graphics and create a tileset with that sheet. Then they place the tiles on their parallaxed map, filling the map with arrows, circles and crossed for passability or not.


And before releasing the game, they exchange that arrow-tilesheet with a completely transparent tilesheet. This will cause the arrow display to vanish for the player while keeping the set passabilities.


And in the case of later edits, you have to change the tileset back to use the arrow sheet instead of the invisible sheet to see your settings again and edit the maps.

 

[SerpentRose]

So hella tedious, then. Still, it would look prettier than square border continents. Do you have any kind of image references?

 

[Shaz]

um ... maybe search for parallax? You could do it as easily as we could

 

[Espon]

I made a handy tileset a while ago for setting up parallax pathing.  Once you're done using the tileset, you can set the graphic to blank so the stuff doesn't show up.

You'll have to set up the proper pathing in the database first, though.

Opaque:

Spoiler

Transparent:

Spoiler

 

[Shaz]

That's pretty neat, and multiple colours is helpful too. What's the square and diamond for?


Note to OP -

Once you're done using the tileset, you can set the graphic to blank so the stuff doesn't show up.

^^ THIS ^^ does not mean to delete the slot or make the slot empty. It means to replace the image in your Tilesets folder with one the same size and shape that is completely transparent. If you delete the slot or make it empty, you lose all the passage settings you've just placed there.

 

[mlogan]

Espon - that is beautifully brilliant!!

 

[SerpentRose]

Interesting. Thanks so much for the help! I did some fiddling around and managed to import the massive map. For some reason I thought I had to make the pathing layer inside Photoshop as an overlay, and wondered how I was gonna make RM read that. Then it clicked. I appreciate the tileset, that's gonna be immensely useful. (Progress! http://gyazo.com/d302691263709c4f0c36957a0b376488 ) I had considered pixel collision, but that just looked like more of a headache than it was worth. Too bad about that Lunar thing going into development limbo, too.

I think after this I'll make a consolidated tutorial myself for others who want to make a massive world map instead of just instance maps.

Edit: Hope I'm doing this correctly... http://gyazo.com/1083e234753658cb37e24125c9a8c7c2 I didn't see a 4-dir passage tile in your set though, Espon, and I'm sure there's a good reason why but I don't know.

 

[RaZzi]

Search for KMS minimap script. It'll help correcting passabilities when you can see them on a minimap. And I can't wait to see some painted maps! Be sure to post some of those in the game screenshot thread.

 

[Espon]

That's pretty neat, and multiple colours is helpful too. What's the square and diamond for?

Square is completely unpassable from all directions and diamond is for counters, although you can use them for whatever you want them to represent.

I made multiple colours so that they could be easier to see on certain backgrounds or if you want to specialize them for terrain IDs.  They're also partially transparent so you can see what you're placing them over.

I just realized I never made a tile for bushes, although, you would need an actual bush tile placed over top for that to work anyways.

Edit: Actually what I claimed was half transparent was actually not.  Here's the transparent one:

 

[SerpentRose]

Square is completely unpassable from all directions and diamond is for counters, although you can use them for whatever you want them to represent.

I made multiple colours so that they could be easier to see on certain backgrounds or if you want to specialize them for terrain IDs.  They're also partially transparent so you can see what you're placing them over.

I just realized I never made a tile for bushes, although, you would need an actual bush tile placed over top for that to work anyways.

Oh. I was using the square for bush and an alternate blank tile for impasse. Ha. Guess I should fix that.

Search for KMS minimap script. It'll help correcting passabilities when you can see them on a minimap. And I can't wait to see some painted maps! Be sure to post some of those in the game screenshot thread.

Will do! I might get really ambitious and make custom drawn sprites too instead of using Mack and Ace.

Edit: Got it done! Found the script to lock parallaxes and everything works beautifully. Thanks again everyone!