Getting beyond 999 maps without scripts in Parallax maps.

[JayRay]

I know, this might seem like I'm rambling on and on, so just bare with me.

Now, before I begin, I know there's a big arguement with the idea that you should never need more than 999 maps, and that anyone who needs a sdcript for more than that is crazy... Well, here's an arguement why this might not be necessarily the case.

* In order to havve a fully immersive Open RPG experience you have to have many maps and areas that might not be directly tied in to a storyline. Now in the case of tile maps, this part might be simply solved with just making the maps bigger. This poses a big problem for people who use parallax mapping techniques. Sometimes the maps we want to use? are just too big filesize to work, so we end up making the maps slightly smaller (I usually stick with around 50x50, whihc still gives me a scroll effect, and lets me still have fun with out a big drain on resources. Granted parallax maps can be bigger, but the point is thatt they some times lag.

Well, if they lag a little, they lag alot, when you add other layers like fog, parallax overlayers, lights and shadows. And OMG let's hoe we never have to animate those parallax maps (running watter and that sort of thing) So, smaller file sizes, gotcha, this will allow each map to stay under the 2-3 meg mark if it's using a unique set of textures.

However, for those really large player worlds you may think well... here's that zone, there's 50 maps gone, 30 more zones, and uhoh... running out of maps.

Well, I may have found an answer while rifling through old tabletop RPG stuff, and my old Zmud stuff... Ok, so in this deck of cards, there's like different forest cards, with rivers in them, and some with a river with a fork in it, a mountain pass, so on and so forth, and it got me thinking... By referencing a Global coordinate, seperate from Map ID's and X's and Y's you can effectively have tens of thousands of maps, by creating map templates. Let's say for instance we are working on the paths through a dense forest that goes for days.

Instead of mapping 100 maps of each different path of 60x60 maps, you create base templates and add events that turn on, only if the map coordinate is a certain number. So, you can effectively transfer from this one map TO itself (through a comment event read of the conditional branch of the map, and once it opens the map, and the variable is the specific number, this rock shows up as an event that wasn't even there in the other map. Change about 10 to 15 scenery items in each map, and you have effectively crafted 2 maps out of the same map, much like when we reuse the same city tilemap to reference different parts of a story or quest. This saves on filesize, allowing you to craft several templated forest scenes, allows you to add other aspects to the game based on world coordinates (like, world maps) And be able to offer one-of secret and hidden areas that would prompt people to WANT to explore the forest, not stand tied to a quest or story. The events could also be set up as fully uniqe events, keeping history depending on switches as well, if you wanted to devote that many switches.

It's all about immersion to me. I know that in role-playing games, we usually have a quest (kill the dragon, hunt down the ogre, hack slash divvy up the loot) but I like the idea of a entore world worth of exploration. Hunting through a massive forest area complete with day and night time systems, to find those 20 cloes of rare herbs needed to craft that poultice for a villiage orphanage, only to go back and do it again in a different area of the map.

Imagine, parallax mappers, a world where we could procedurally CREATE the world through a script, based off of these map templates, and while it's building this world, we watch it get created map by map, like the old pipe game. (Map 1 has three roads going off of it, so we're putting this map here where the road deadends, on the map it goes to next, these roads going to the north and south go off to other maps, and have a common event hold and reference all the data we needed for our world.


insetead of worrying about the final use of 999 maps, we can instead reference say 20 map types for each terrain type, more if we need a specific set of events on a map, more if we have specific over/under birdge needs, water needs, that sort of thing. We erference two codes, stating that a secific map is game_variable[480] which is a world coordinate. Then, mapping each area via something like graph paper, or even Hex paper!, you can map all the elements you need for your world, and then one by one conenct the maps, (Map currently on global is 1231, character is going north, so new global is 1221, or whatever)

Something to think about, I'm very close to implementing thisin a future project..

[DerVVulfman]

Instead of mapping 100 maps of each different path of 60x60 maps, you create base templates and add events that turn on, only if the map coordinate is a certain number. So, you can effectively transfer from this one map TO itself (through a comment event read of the conditional branch of the map, and once it opens the map, and the variable is the specific number, this rock shows up as an event that wasn't even there in the other map. Change about 10 to 15 scenery items in each map, and you have effectively crafted 2 maps out of the same map, much like when we reuse the same city tilemap to reference different parts of a story or quest.

That technique can be used for more than just parallax maps, but regular tile maps for any system that allows you to turn on/off events, be it RPGMaker XP, RPGMaker VX, RPGMaker VXAce or whatnot.