I need RMMZ Help or Advice before I go insane XD

[Vixxth]

It is hard to explain whats bothering me and holding me back, so I'll just used two pictures i took..
Picture One
Picture Two

Picture one is my old creation, what inspired me to take up RMMZ and start anew in a new engine, seeing as how JABS battle system is exactly what i was looking for back then, and the reason my creation died...

Picture two is 8 hours of me trying to recreate the one room, my gripe is tilesets... I was spending an absurd amount of time mix matching parts of tilesets to get the feel and mood of what i wanted to create.. when i was finally done, I was forced to make artisic sacrifces that upset me.. am I missing something or is this where RM has progressed to?

For example:
- I was forced to use some lame ladder instead of actual stairs.
- I had to literally use GIMP to create the table in the picture seeing as how tables to put things on or that are larger than 2 icon spaces are non-existant now?
- I was forced to recreate the carpet from an RMXP autotile which was hell, but it was that or use some very gross vibrant pink-purple abomination lol!
- When all was said and done I had no room left to change or move anything, and realized the house lacked plants and pictures..
- The walls i was forced to make 2x large instead of 3x large which severely limited what i could place on them.., if i tried to make it 3x the new autotiles for walls just started the sequence over again..

I know its a long read, but i desperately need a veteran of some sorts to explain to me how they got past these barriers, lend me the advice of your wisdom gathered over years of not quitting RM like my dumbness did...

I want to finally finish my project, but i feel massively limited on my mapping potential.

 

[HexMozart88]

I don't use MZ, but XP has way better tiles than Ace. I don't know what happened if it's like budget cuts or whatever, but I agree the quality has definitely deteriorated over time.
I'd look into parallax mapping. It's been a lifesaver for my game. Also, if you own XP, you can use those tiles in MZ.

 

[Vixxth]

I don't use MZ, but XP has way better tiles than Ace. I don't know what happened if it's like budget cuts or whatever, but I agree the quality has definitely deteriorated over time.
I'd look into parallax mapping. It's been a lifesaver for my game. Also, if you own XP, you can use those tiles in MZ.

Yes I own it from way back in the day, but the tiles arent compatible with MZ, and I have no clue how to resize and fit them, I tried for a few hours in GIMP, they where always blurry, or offset, or something horrible.

 

[HexMozart88]

Yeah, so in that case, I'd parallax. I actually upsized the tiles a bunch for my game (my sprites are a lot bigger than the normal 32*32). Here's something you can do with upsized XP tiles and parallax mapping.

Spoiler: humble brag

 

[JohnDoeNews]

The A2 inside auto-tiles have tables too. They do cover full tiles and can be as large as you want. Those are perfect to place items on.

 

[Bex]

I believe this Tutorial could help you very much, specialy with the Walls and Wall Tops and
Autotile behavior for Carpets on the Ground.

Shift+Click Mapping

Shift+Click Mapping There's a lot of game designers out there that don't know how to use many of the built in tools of RPG Maker. The visuals of a game is arguably the gateway to the players free time. Screenshots often dictate whether a game will be played or glanced over. Often times I see...

forums.rpgmakerweb.com

This was written for VX-Ace but is still valid for MV and MZ, but MV and MZ got 1 extra Mapping Layer to add stuff without utilizing Events for Map Graphics.

 

[JohnDoeNews]

- The walls i was forced to make 2x large instead of 3x large which severely limited what i could place on them.., if i tried to make it 3x the new autotiles for walls just started the sequence over again..

Are you sure you used auto-tiles (in part A2 or A3) and not static tiles (in part A5)? Auto-tiles should not behave this way.

 

[Arthran]

It sounds like most of your complaints are about the RTP, rather than MZ itself, and I don't actually use the RTP, so I'm just quickly glancing at it right now to try to answer your questions, and I might be overlooking some options. But based on my quick observation of the "Inside" tileset:

- There are several different stairs to choose from. They're on the A tab, towards the bottom. There are 3 full rows of 8 columns of stairs.
- There are several table autotiles that you can make as big or as little as you want. They're on the A tab, on the far right column, right under the waterfalls.
- At a glance, I see 6 different carpets to choose from, on the A tab, rows 4-6, columns 3-4. If you need a different color than what's offered, then just do what everybody else does and open it up in an image editor and edit the color to match your vision.
- Dunno why you're blaming having no room for plants or pictures on MZ. Sounds like you probably shoulda just made your map bigger?
- You absolutely can make your walls 3 tiles high, or as many tiles high as you want. I can't imagine how it could go wrong, so I can't really give you advice on how to fix the issue that you're having. You just kinda paint the walls 3 tiles high, and it just magically works out. Oddly, I don't actually even see the wall that you were using in my RTP tileset, so I'm doubly confused about what you were doing.

But despite all that, if you really feel like your mapping potential is limited, just do what everybody else does, and look for more tiles. It should be obvious, but RPG Maker can't possibly come with enough free tiles to fulfill every single person's desires and needs in every possible scenario. But there are tons of free assets here on the forum, and there are plenty of DLCs that you can purchase (I personally like the FSM sets). And as has already been stated, you can even use XP tiles since you seem to like them. Someone else has already gone through the trouble of converting them to the correct size and format, and you can find them in this thread. The thread says it's for MV, but you can use them in MZ as well.

 

[Vixxth]

Are you sure you used auto-tiles (in part A2 or A3) and not static tiles (in part A5)? Auto-tiles should not behave this way.

They are in A4(Walls) for those specific ones

It sounds like most of your complaints are about the RTP, rather than MZ itself, and I don't actually use the RTP, so I'm just quickly glancing at it right now to try to answer your questions, and I might be overlooking some options. But based on my quick observation of the "Inside" tileset:

- There are several different stairs to choose from. They're on the A tab, towards the bottom. There are 3 full rows of 8 columns of stairs.
- There are several table autotiles that you can make as big or as little as you want. They're on the A tab, on the far right column, right under the waterfalls.
- At a glance, I see 6 different carpets to choose from, on the A tab, rows 4-6, columns 3-4. If you need a different color than what's offered, then just do what everybody else does and open it up in an image editor and edit the color to match your vision.
- Dunno why you're blaming having no room for plants or pictures on MZ. Sounds like you probably shoulda just made your map bigger?
- You absolutely can make your walls 3 tiles high, or as many tiles high as you want. I can't imagine how it could go wrong, so I can't really give you advice on how to fix the issue that you're having. You just kinda paint the walls 3 tiles high, and it just magically works out. Oddly, I don't actually even see the wall that you were using in my RTP tileset, so I'm doubly confused about what you were doing.

But despite all that, if you really feel like your mapping potential is limited, just do what everybody else does, and look for more tiles. It should be obvious, but RPG Maker can't possibly come with enough free tiles to fulfill every single person's desires and needs in every possible scenario. But there are tons of free assets here on the forum, and there are plenty of DLCs that you can purchase (I personally like the FSM sets). And as has already been stated, you can even use XP tiles since you seem to like them. Someone else has already gone through the trouble of converting them to the correct size and format, and you can find them in this thread. The thread says it's for MV, but you can use them in MZ as well.

-Oh my josh, I didn't realize those starts were the same, im going start this off feeling like quite the idiot after spending hours just to overlook the first thing....
-Again, i think im used to the old style, they just made them part of the ones your can extend.......... oh bother
-Oh yes, these where the ugly carpets i could't find a replace for, so i settled, but that was a minor complaint
-Nono the plant issue was because after using up all the slots on my tileset, adding what i needed i realized i ran out of room to slot more in, therefore couldnt add plants and pictures to the tileset, and thus was unable to use them entirely.
-Upon reading what you said on this point, i wen't back, it seems just the 1 wall is doing it, odd, the other walls seem fine, i can settle on a different one..

without meaning to sir, i think you solved all my current problems save for the plants and pictures, or any other clutter so to speak, but im learning thats an engine / tileset issue, and im looking into parallex which seems to fix this issue entirely.

I apologise if i wasted some of your time there, realizing when you are done I'm just not used to this engine and need more time figuring it out, cheers, and thank-you that actually helped me alot.

 

[Solar_Flare]

without meaning to sir, i think you solved all my current problems save for the plants and pictures, or any other clutter so to speak, but im learning thats an engine / tileset issue, and im looking into parallex which seems to fix this issue entirely.

Are you saying you've filled up the entire B-E tilesheets? That's kind of impressive but also makes me wondering if you're using tilesheets wrong…

Also, just for the record, you could probably just use the MV tileset in MZ. I haven't tried it so I could be wrong though.

 

[Vixxth]

Are you saying you've filled up the entire B-E tilesheets? That's kind of impressive but also makes me wondering if you're using tilesheets wrong…

Also, just for the record, you could probably just use the MV tileset in MZ. I haven't tried it so I could be wrong though.

Maybe, I'm new to this whole method, im old school XP lol

But i was using them for what they said such as Walls ect, and adding the ones i thought looked good haha

 

[JohnDoeNews]

They are in A4(Walls) for those specific ones

I said A2 and A3... I meant A4 and A4. Oopsie

 

[ATT_Turan]

Also, just for the record, you could probably just use the MV tileset in MZ. I haven't tried it so I could be wrong though.

If you own both, you can, they're the same format.

But i was using them for what they said such as Walls ect, and adding the ones i thought looked good haha

What Solar_Flare is getting at with "using tilesheets wrong" is that if you have completely filled all of those sheets, that's a huge number of different tiles that you are almost definitely not using on one map.

What most people do is create edits of tilesheets that they load as different tilesets in the database for use with specific maps.

So I might take the inside B sheet, cut out all of the pillars and ruined curtains and stuff that I'm not going to use in my houses, and use that space to put in more plants.

Then I'll make a new tileset "Inside Houses," load the regular inside A sheets and my edited B sheet, and use that tileset for house maps.

 

[Vixxth]

If you own both, you can, they're the same format.

What Solar_Flare is getting at with "using tilesheets wrong" is that if you have completely filled all of those sheets, that's a huge number of different tiles that you are almost definitely not using on one map.

What most people do is create edits of tilesheets that they load as different tilesets in the database for use with specific maps.

So I might take the inside B sheet, cut out all of the pillars and ruined curtains and stuff that I'm not going to use in my houses, and use that space to put in more plants.

Then I'll make a new tileset "Inside Houses," load the regular inside A sheets and my edited B sheet, and use that tileset for house maps.

OOOHHH!!!
That would actually work, I honestly didnt think about editing them, for some reason i was trying to find completed ones, while editing for characters, and well full tilesheets, but not partial, sometimes a lapse in judgment like that really makes you feel small and stupid

 

[riceyo84]

Every engine has its own style. If you incorporate them together, they should look completely different. Each of them has as I believed a perspective style, some pixelated(Rpgmaker xp) and some clearer(Rpgmaker mz). Don't stress out too much man. This is a game. Enjoy finding your edge instead of struggling through it.