How do I put custom tilesets into my Ace game

[felsenstern]

First of all. "I used the forum search" - and - "I used Google search" - and - "I have a working solution"

Now my problem. I've started to add self-made tiles into 'my' game. Characters and Faces for the beginning, but I can't find a good tutorial that explains thoroughly how this is done in the right way. My workaround is to get me the png of a working tile-set and to use it as template for my own tiles.

What overall dimensions can be or should be used for the tile-set canvas (characters, faces, battlers, animations, parallaxes...)

How many rows and columns should be used for the tiles and does the tile-size matter (32x32, 64x64, 96x96, 64x32, 96x32...)

Can I create tiles that are drawing shadows like housewalls, or starts filling up like trees that turn into woods?

I know there ought to be tutorials for me out there, but all I get are workarounds or art-design tutorials for tile-sets and that's not what I am looking for.

And before someone is again pointing me to lunare's tile-set tutorial... she/he is just covering the artistic site of tile-set creation.

 

[GrandmaDeb]

http://fixato.org/rpgmaker/Manual/RPGVXAce/rpgvxace/6100_resource.html


You have a Resource Standards section in the help file of your game. [=


(give me a minute)


Here are some templates:

Spoiler

SPRITE SET

FACE SET

TileA1-A4 tiles are tricky - leave them until you are sure ;]


TileA1

TileA2 (Ice Dragon made this one)

TileA3

TileA5 (Ice Dragon made this one)

TileB

TileC-E

 

[felsenstern]

Very helpful thanks. Do you have experience with game performance and how and at which sizes (png and tile numbers) games are starting to lag? I am used to draw either in lot of details and variation so what is a good number of tiles in total that wouldn't impact game performance?

 

[Kes]

One thing you might want to bear in mind is the term 'tiles'.  This term normally refers to the graphics you map with, the objects you put on your maps.  So people speak of tile sets and tile sheets.  Using it to describe face sets and character art is likely to cause confusion.

But to your question - unless you have a huge number, (up in the hundreds) you won't get lag just from faces and character art.  You get lag from how you use your assets, how you set your events up, how many assets need to be operative at any one time e.g. have an icon set that's 5mb and you will have slow load times.

 

[Falconfoot]

This is very cool! Thank you for the templates.

 

[Celianna]

Very helpful thanks. Do you have experience with game performance and how and at which sizes (png and tile numbers) games are starting to lag? I am used to draw either in lot of details and variation so what is a good number of tiles in total that wouldn't impact game performance?

It wouldn't lag. RPG Maker games start to lag when:


- You have too many events on a map


- You have too many parallel processes running


- You have incompatible scripts running


- You are using parallaxes that are about 1MB+ in size (this will make the map load a second slower, but otherwise should not lag your game)

 

[felsenstern]

One thing you might want to bear in mind is the term 'tiles'.  This term normally refers to the graphics you map with, the objects you put on your maps.  So people speak of tile sets and tile sheets.  Using it to describe face sets and character art is likely to cause confusion.

But to your question - unless you have a huge number, (up in the hundreds) you won't get lag just from faces and character art.  You get lag from how you use your assets, how you set your events up, how many assets need to be operative at any one time e.g. have an icon set that's 5mb and you will have slow load times.

I looked into like 30 or 40 games VX, XP and Ace and I have noticed, that a few people are splitting up their sprite graphics in many 96x128 pixel pictures, while other are putting 8 (4x2) together in one file. Does it make a difference?

 

[Kes]

There could be lots of reasons for this.

If the sprite is a different size to the normal one, it can be easier to have it on its own.  Note that a single sprite has the symbol $ at the beginning of the name so that the engine can recognize that this is a single sprite and not an 8 sprite sheet.

Some people just prefer one to the other.

I have a mixture, based purely on convenience.  I tend to group similar sprites together, so male NPCs will be on one sheet and female NPCs on another, and so on.

 

[Celianna]

I looked into like 30 or 40 games VX, XP and Ace and I have noticed, that a few people are splitting up their sprite graphics in many 96x128 pixel pictures, while other are putting 8 (4x2) together in one file. Does it make a difference?

It doesn't. What you've encountered so far, it's most probably because these sprites aren't made by the game developer, and instead they were picked up at some free resource website, which posts these sprites one by one. So they simply import it into the project and that's that.

 

[felsenstern]

Thanks for all the help!

@Celianna: I love Skyborn, honored to meet you!

Is it somehow possible to turn off the auto draw function of the A1-A4 Tiles? The purpose would be to fine tune the maps and to add self made seems to it.

I know for a fact that the game editor is able to save and play such maps without a problem, just no clue where I could turn it off in Ace.

Here a little example of what I want to have. This map I have shifted out of the screen and redrawn the second half with an A5 tile. But this method is very limited. Any idea?

 

[Andar]

Is it somehow possible to turn off the auto draw function of the A1-A4 Tiles?

Yes, I suggest you go to the tutorials because they tell you how to do that (http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/support/products/tutorials) - it's explained in the second tutorial together with how to make your first map. The terms you're looking for are shift-click mapping and right-click mapping.

 

[felsenstern]

I know, I know, but I really am trying hard to get it on my own, but I am just helpless and I did all three tutorials for ace, vx and xp and I still run into problems.

So by pressing shift, I am getting the middle part of an auto-tile and that's not what I wanted. Here a new example:

I used the map-shifting trick again. To paint both halves with auto-tiles. If I copy them they are getting seems all around. If I copy them with shift-click, I getting no seems at all, but this map is again saveable and playable without any problem. But maybe I did something wrong. Can you create a similar map just with autotiles and without using the map-shifting trick? If yes, please help me out here.

 

[Celianna]

Shift clicking allows you to copy a portion of the map exactly what they looked like, and paste it somewhere else. So if you want the grass to 'blend' in with the sand, you really needn't do anything more besides draw the autotiles next to each other and it should do it automatically. Not quite sure why you wanted to use the shift clicking technique in the first place.

 

[Andar]

Shift-click mapping is no general problem solver, and more importantly it's not a single technique, it has different results depending on when you hold shift.


Did you hold shift while copying, while pasting or during both parts of the process? There are four different results depending on when you hold the shift button, and you need to experiment to get which one you want.


http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/14387-shiftclick-mapping/

 

[felsenstern]

Yeah, shift-right-click / shift-left-click copy did the trick ;-)...

@Celianna: I should have used tiles with more contrast, here another example. Sorry, for not using the right terms and for acting so noobish.

First square / first row is what I get usually. Second square / first row is my custom square.

First square / second row is a right click / left click copy of my custom square.

Second square / second row is a right click / shift left click copy of my custom square.

Third square / second row is then finally what I was after: shift right click / shift left click copy.

Thanks a lot you two for your patience. And sorry for bothering so much, but when it comes to technical understanding, I am really slow.

 

[Andar]

There is another problem with this, and that's why you can't get the border you want.


The "nice" border can only be placed if the autotile in question has the correct border graphic, and each autotile can have only one border. The autotile you use for green grass has the dirt border, which means it can only create such a border against dirt, NOT against sand.


Please check the exterior tileset. There are several autotiles with a combination of grass and different borders. Only one of them (the green directly to the right of the sand tile in the fifth row) has a border between grass and sand. You have to use that tile to create the grass bordering the sand - no other tile can do that.

 

[felsenstern]

Exterior tile-set sounds splendid, how can I acquire it? ;-)

 

[Andar]

That is one of the four default tilesets already predefined in Ace.