Mapping Using PV Asset's and Yanfly Doodads.

[padr81]

Hi, guys, I put together a quick tutorial on how I do mapping with Jesse's brilliant packs but it can also apply to mapping with the default RTP doodad's that are available. It's pretty quick and moves through everything pretty fast but should give a good general idea into how I go about the process.

NOTE: I am not a genius mapper like a lot of the top developers around here and the reason I'm posting this is I find doodad's really help me get things looking better.

For the tutorial you will need:
YEP Grid Free Doodads (both of them), YEP Region Restrictions and Orange Overlay Plugins. They are all fairly straightforward to set up and you should be able to figure it out from the tutorial.

 

[TomatoKing]

So much guesswork involved when setting up the regions q.q

 

[padr81]

So much guesswork involved when setting up the regions q.q

Yup generally with town maps it can take awhile, with forestry etc.. you can lay the regions out ahead and use the show region doodad effect. If there was a mapshot plugin that exported maps showing doodads as well it would be much faster to set up.

 

[Carduus]

I'm going to second this. I would love if one of the mapshot people could work with Yanfly to figure out how to do a mapshot with doodads.

 

[Papillon Effect]

Oh wow I didn't realize you can have large objects like buildings as doodads. That will save a lot of time. From the Yanfly video I figured it was just small objects. I don't know why, it's never specified that there is a size restriction.

Thank you for the video!

 

[HasdrubalBarca]

I'm going to second this. I would love if one of the mapshot people could work with Yanfly to figure out how to do a mapshot with doodads.

You could use QMaps as an alternative to Doodads. Basically it's a plugin that utilizes maps made from the QMap editor. You can make your map in the editor, export it as a screenshot to place events and later you just take away the screenshot as parallax. It also has some neat features like the ability to set an anchor point which is very, very convenient is setting up PVGames objects as they're larger sprites and the ability to make objects transparent when the player steps behind them.

 

[Poryg]

I only have one note. It's unnecessary to always close your project. I place several regions as a reference point, then launch the game, press f10, turn on the regions and voilá, using the reference regions I'm able to just jump between the launched project test and rpg maker to fill the regions easier. No guesswork anymore, since you can always check. Hope it helps.
True, if you need to have an update, you'll have to restart the game (which is done by f12 if I'm not wrong), but it's still shorter than closing the game and then opening it again.

 

[Alisanne]

This mapshot plugin works fine with doodads. Here is a screenshot of a complete map made with a combination of parallax mapping and doodads. The only thing not shown in the screenshot is the player character.

Spoiler

For the regions, I just set up the screenshot of the finished as parallax background in the RPG Maker editor. Then I can see the map in the editor, and placing regions and events becomes super easy.

 

[padr81]

Your a life saver @Alisanne. I'll update the tutorial when I get a chance.

Edit: Actually I'm getting a crazy error with the plugin, it exports the picture but on bigger maps I'm getting images messed up, eg... the same tile line showing twice and it looks like 6 smaller images with bits cut off and some tile lines repeated.

 

[Alisanne]

@padr81 That's too bad... I've only tried it on smaller maps so far, I have no idea why it won't work on larger ones.

 

[padr81]

@padr81 That's too bad... I've only tried it on smaller maps so far, I have no idea why it won't work on larger ones.

I don't think its an issue with map size, I see someone with tiny maps was having the issue in 2015 and it never got fixed. Oh well, I'll message the creator and see if he ever got it sorted.

 

[BloodletterQ]

Since we don't really need the mapshots in-game, I think that one way to go about using doodads with the PV sprites is through Quasi's plugins, namely his collision map plugins. The doodads don't get messed up in the plugin Alisanne posted so:

• Open up the mapshot in your preferred software
• Set the grid to 48 x 48 (or smaller depending on whether you're using the movement plugin or not. Mine is at 12x12)
• Snap to grid and view grid.
• Create a new layer
  
• On the new layer highlight the parts of the doodads you don't want to walk on and fill in the space on the new layer with a solid color that sticks out.
• Proceed to save the collision map as directed by the plugin.

 

[padr81]

@BloodletterQ - Yeah that plugin is a great help but for me I'm one of the few who get the funky screen bug issue with it. If I can manage to get it working or if it works for others it would be a huge time saver.

 

[BloodletterQ]

@BloodletterQ - Yeah that plugin is a great help but for me I'm one of the few who get the funky screen bug issue with it. If I can manage to get it working or if it works for others it would be a huge time saver.

Well the screenshot won't be used in-game but the Doodads have stayed in place. Your best bet is the collision maps plugin using the parts of doodads you don't want to walk on as I described in my earlier post. You can also save the ground layer and copy the Doodads into another layer for a dummy parallax for you to see the complete map in the editor. Just remember to change the Parallax to the ground layer only for in-game.

 

[Fuzzywire]

How did you have a custom tile size for the restriction regions?

 

[Fuzzywire]

How did you make a custom tile size for your regions? Huhu please reply

 

[Fuzzywire]

How did you make a custom tile size for your regions and how did you make the collisions huhu please reply. Sorry if im spamming i know its against the rule but i have a project that is near deadline huhu. Please reply

 

[Poryg]

For the tutorial you will need:
YEP Grid Free Doodads (both of them), YEP Region Restrictions and Orange Overlay Plugins. They are all fairly straightforward to set up and you should be able to figure it out from the tutorial.

This really holds all there is to it. There were no custom tile sizes for anything including regions btw. It's still 48x48 per tile.
And don't spam, we're not here 24/7. We have our own lives and spamming at the forums will not change that or bring any more attention to you.

 

[padr81]

How did you make a custom tile size for your regions and how did you make the collisions huhu please reply. Sorry if im spamming i know its against the rule but i have a project that is near deadline huhu. Please reply

I don't use custom tile sizes. I just make sure to line the buildings up where they are on the edge of tiles and fit fine then paint over them with my desired region.

I should update this a bit to show the new more efficient way I color regions but tbh I simply draw a bunch of diagonal lines from the top left to bottom right so I know how to line things up.

You can also use the mapshot plugin earlier in the thread, make the map shot a parallax and paint regions over the top. This plugin works as long as you don't have any camera control plugins active.

The 3rd option is using the Quasi plugins which are great as they give you more control.

 

[Fuzzywire]

but i saw that when you put the region restriction the tile size is small