PNG Optimizer

[JayRay]

Whether it's RMXP, RMVX, RMVXAce, or any other 2d game engine, the chances are you will be working with PNG optimization when creating parallax maps. In all the optimizers I've looked at, this appears to have the best workable program for me.

http://optipng.sourceforge.net/

From bit depth reduction, color type reduction, color palette reduction, and Alpha channel reduction, PNG Optimizer allows you to take large images and make them a fraction of their normal size. This is very useful for ground and backdrop elements that don't necessary need to be 24 bit 16.7 million color images. A good map can survive perfectly as a 256 color image, and STILL keep it's alpha transparency, for layering effect. Need more colors or richer maps? There are a good number of Overlay scripts that allow you to add ground elements to a backdrop, and if you know you're not going to have this color-rich background image throughout the entirety of the map, use it as a ground layer underneath the plaeyr but above the map layer which would be your parallax!

Then, of course we're looking at events. As long as your map isn't incredibly huge, you can create vivid events that overlap each other (like trees) without losing valuable layers of your tileset to them, and still take advatage of the way those elements blend with their surroundings.

With this tool, I took a color hungry map that looked to be 5 megs worth of graphics and events, down to 780K! This program is that cool, you gotta give it a try. (This prgoram may have almost singlehandedly saved my project.)