Maps and screenshots thread

[Charlie Fleed]

veeeeeery nice Kain! I totally did dig worldmaps.

Here's something from Hartacon.

[Kain Nobel]

OMG Charlie, truly an amazing piece of work, you've knocked it out of the ball park! :)

I figured I'd post another World Map screen, this time in normal resolution with some action! From afar (previous post), it doesn't look THAT great, but once up close one can better appreciate the little details. The player's characters are shrunken down to approximately half their size while on the world map, and scale rather nicely. When exploring the map, it almost feels like a cancelled Chrono Trigger sequel or something :)



I'm adding advanced weather and time zones into the environment, as well as named continents, regions and territories. As you can see, vehicles obviously play a big role in things, I've even got plans to involve them in combat. It may look like another jrpg, but I plan on throwing in some GTA concepts too, such as accessible "No go" zones; even though you can fly in this territory, it's linearly scaled to where you can't survive intercepting aircraft fire in other territories.

The World is Square Cubed...



^Dividing it up into six regions is a concept I'm thinking of doing. It combats the North Pole / South Pole distortion you'd get with a flat map, we can all pretend that we're on a ball. Also, the concept itself makes a perfect double allusion to Final Fantasy and Minecraft fans alike! :)

[Bounty Hunter Lani]

You guys make such amazing stuff

Just wanted to get that out there, since I believe you deserve any praise you get

[Kain Nobel]

Writing a new battle system, work in progress...



Not even close to functional yet, attempting a coherent layout before I do anything serious with it. The entire project is being updated to 800x600 screen resolution, biggest reason is because I wanted more screen real estate for combat.

Explaining the Status Window

The status window is laid out as follows (subject to change)...

• Name
  
• HP / MaxHP (max HP not currently shown)
  
• MP / MaxMP (max MP not currently shown)
  
• State (it cycles between each afflicted state)
  
• P(hysical) Barrier and M(agical) Barrier bars.
  
• ATB and "Limit" bars
  

Over eighteen years later, I'm still heavily inspired by Final Fantasy 7 (amongst other games), so Cloud sometimes makes a cameo in prototype development such as this (he won't be in the official game.) Also borrowing the sprite of the pink girl from CCoa style animated battlers demo, all other graphics are mine. Not using the classic Minkoff system, getting ready to write my own animation handling system instead. Everything is written on the prototype ReGaL engine.

[Taylor]

Alright, it's not much, but it's kind of a start.

Anyone watching the What's Up RMers topic or the shoutbox might've noticed me complain about RMVXAce's mapping system more than once before. I tried parallax hand-drawn mapping, thought that would be too difficult to manage. (However I am using my sketch as guide in this map for what tiles I need.)

I earlier today tried a script to use XP maps in VXA, and found I'd still have to make events and placement in VXA, and would have to juggle editors.

In all my search around for ways to sort things out, I noticed one pointer that I eventually got myself to trying - using autotiles as a base, and then fixing them up using extra tiles. I dislike VXA's focus on autotiles because of how limited they are (being 2x2 tiles instead of 3x3, as well as constrained to one layer), but if I use them for base tiles, while fixing up corners or other things with tiles from elsewhere, I can actually get maps looking better than FF4!

Alright, so maybe it doesn't show that well in this current screenshot. I probably can't show that without some progress shots.

Trees are my current bane. That's why, uh, there's none there...

[Steel Beast 6Beets]

Mapping in VXA seems to be such a hassle, at least compared to what can be accomplished in other rpg makers.

[Miharu]

I am about to buy RPG XP (using Ace now) and I must say even frrom an outside glance xp mapping looks far better.

[JayRay]

I dislike VXA's focus on autotiles because of how limited they are (being 2x2 tiles instead of 3x3, as well as constrained to one layer),

Technically, the autotiles are set up for field or world format, which allows in many cases, two layers per autotile, which, when added to a preset parallax place-mat, give a lot more versatility. Buildings leave a little to be desired, with the lack of verticle roof styles, but with the proper configuration this too can be done with autotile sections and right click+shift, and shift + left click to copy the texture already palced elsewhere on map for format.

Then of course for other autotiling features, RMVXA has a beautiful Eventing system called 'EVENTS ALWAYS ON BOTTOM' which can ensure that all events lie just above priority zero tiles. and below Priority 1 tiles (as well as player)

There's also a beautiful Z-Level Script that makes sure that larger sprites stay in z-index depending on their row, but that's neither here nor there.

Then on top of that issue with the autotiles, with just a little bit of work, you can take advantage of the other version of EVENTS ALWAYS, and place events on top of the walls that you are certain that your player will never be on. Mountain caps, tree branches, and more can be placed on this Event layer.

AND, on top of that? We got fogs that can be added for even MORE parallaxing awesomeness... Events can also be placed in abundance on a map with very little problems with lag as direct events, and events, of course can have graphics that are tileset graphics...

So far, I count with this method, a total of 7 layers, and that's without extra scripts for multiple fogs or parallax backgrounds which can extend this even further.

[Taylor]

Yeah, see, all you're doing there is adding fluff to a limited system. Autotiles can only comprise alone of two layers under certain tileset modes, and only in the A1 set, where it only really applies to long grass, paths, fences, and similar elements, on the same row. If your mapping style or graphics don't mesh with this, the system is ignored.

Events as an extra layer via above/below character, is something that existed in RM2k/3, so I'm willing to go with it, though for common tiles I'll merge them in the tileset. I already have the "beautiful" ""z-level"" script that makes tall sprites display correctly in front/behind certain tiles. In the shoutbox previously I mentioned how with the RMXP map script, it lagged. It runs fine with VXA maps, of course.

And what you're saying about basically "eyedropping" tiles/shift-clicking, that's something I mentioned in my post. I have autotiles that are rather minimal that I then dress up using extra tiles. Here's some rough display:


There may be three layers if you include events, but there being only one in the editor (you have to repaint upper tiles if you want to replace lower tiles) is bound to be a time waster. I do not consider parallax, fogs, or pictures part of the map layers. Fogs and overlays have to be used with caution not to be obscuring.

---

Anyway, I spent today trying to get trees to feel right. I would like to work on world-centric stuff next - roadside decorations, cultural things, signs, things that make the place feel unique, but... I have spent all day doing this, so it's late. x .x

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1318...k_4_06.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1318...k_4_07.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1318...k_4_08.png

[JayRay]

looks very nice! Good stuff to think about. I think I'll map something with RMXP and RMVX to cast similarities.