more detailed explanation regarding Map Tutorial/Development

[tux9th]

Hi,
I am going to write a Wiki article about this as well but I also want to publish it to all the mappers out there to read.

I recently talked to Ablu about mapping guidelines. He told me a few things I didn't know which make perfect sense but aren't realized. It's about the use of Layers.

Fringe

The Wiki is pretty specific about what to put into the Fringe layer.

The "Fringe" Layer itself is for oversized tiles which have to be drawn in front of or behind moving objects, depending on their location. This sorting takes up CPU, making the game run slower. Thus, you should only use this layer for the tiles which have to use it.

Still it seems nobody gets it (neither did I). That's why I am going to explain it more clearer here.
The Fringe Layer should only contain tiles which are larger than one tile and appear behind the character if you walk south of it and in front of the character if you walk north of it.
We all know the Woodland_ground tileset, and how it is used. Stones in the Fringe layer etc. That is wrong. None of the tiles from the entire Woodland_ground tileset belongs into the Fringe layer!
Fringe is only used for tiles which are bigger than one tile and have to show behind the character if you are south to it and show infront of the character if you are north to it! Trees belong into fringe layer. Thats a perfect example.

So some will ask, "Where do I put the stuff I had in Fringe now? It doesn't work in Ground becaus it is transparent!"
The thing is that you have to create more than one Ground layer. Ground, Ground2, Ground3 etc. As many as you need to make your map work. You don't automatically have to create 3 or 4 Ground layers but in most cases you need at least 2. (Ground, Ground2).

Over Layer

Walls should be in the Over layer just to make it look better. (I didn't know this either and I made tons of errors not knowing that :-/)


As you can see here I'm standing next to a wall with a staff and that makes my character wider. The staff is shown above the wall. That looks rather strange but aren't we all used to that?


The better way would be if the wall was in Over layer so that it would look that way.
This works with the Tulim and the Woodland tileset

But take care: This will not work with the Snowwalls! If you do that with the snowwalls you will have troubles with larger hats such as the christmastree-hat

it will be cut off.

Conclusion:

Most of the maps do not realize any of the things I wrote above, some are partly correct. I would nevertheless expect new maps to comply with these standards. It's not like they are new standards it's just a reminder how the layers are intended.
I've dedicated myself to fix all of the current maps. I have no idea how long it is going to take or when I will be finished but I guess it will take forever.

[Crush]

We all know the Woodland_ground tileset, and how it is used. Stones in the Fringe layer etc. That is wrong. None of the tiles from the entire Woodland_ground tileset belongs into the Fringe layer!

When the first woodland maps were created, the number of layers was fixed. We had exactly three visible layers: ground, fringe and over. So the only way to place any tile with transparency was to place it on the fringe layer. But this is obsolete since the client has support for multiple ground layers.

The old maps still look like they are supposed to look and the performance penalty isn't notable, so there is no reason to edit them.

Still, mappers need to be aware that they can and should now use multiple ground layers for any new maps.

[Ablu]

The problem that you have when you Map walls into over you might run into issues when a character stands in front of a building/wall. A item sprite that goes over 2 tiles will be drawn under the over tiles.

[Chicka-Maria]

There also was a small tutorial (not much of one) for mapping in the past:

In tiled, you have these layers in this order:
Number Layer Description

4 Object: Objectlayer for Warps, Spawnareas, NPCs etc.
3 Collision: Collisiontiles
2 Over: Thing above the player
1 Fringe: Everything that stands on the ground(trees, stones etc)
0 Ground: The groundtiles like grass or sand.

If you layer the maps correctly you should have very few bugs, always review
your map once in a while by uncheck marking some of the layers to see what you
have done for that specific layer.

[Ablu]

For client you can have any number of layers. BUT:

• you MUST have one (and only one) Fringe layer
• you must have one Collision layer
• you can have any number of Ground and Over layers (names do not matter)
• all layers that are defined above the Fringe layer will be "Over" Layers (drawn above player)
• all layers that are defined below the Fringe layer will be "Ground" layers (drawn under player)

So you can have more than one layer per type and you are also free to choose your own names for over and ground layers

[tux9th]

In tiled, you have these layers in this order:
Number Layer Description

4 Object: Objectlayer for Warps, Spawnareas, NPCs etc.
3 Collision: Collisiontiles
2 Over: Thing above the player
1 Fringe: Everything that stands on the ground(trees, stones etc)
0 Ground: The groundtiles like grass or sand.

That's not completely correct. The things which belong in Fringe are only oversized tiles which have to be displayed differently if the player stand in front or behind them! If you only use those 4 Layers listed above it's very likely you're going to put tiles in the wrong layer.

As Ablu pointed out the only layers which have Fix names and are read by the client in a specifc way are Collision and Fringe.

I also do have an update regarding the Over layer

Walls should be in the Over layer just to make it look better. (I didn't know this either and I made tons of errors not knowing that :-/)


As you can see here I'm standing next to a wall with a staff and that makes my character wider. The staff is shown above the wall. That looks rather strange but aren't we all used to that?


The better way would be if the wall was in Over layer so that it would look that way.
This works with the Tulim and the Woodland tileset

But take care: This will not work with the Snowwalls! If you do that with the snowwalls you will have troubles with larger hats such as the christmastree-hat

it will be cut off.

[Chicka-Maria]

Yes i agree the top of the walls should not be that way, but fringe was also said to be things *standing* on the ground (the bottom tiles of trees and the bottom of walls not the top tile) the top tiles are usually over layer.

Regards,

[Ablu]

For TMW (which has tilebased movement). You can take this rule for which tiles go into Fringe

Every tile which is more that 32px high and which should be able to cover the player when he stands behind). All other uses (except grass maybe) are usuall not visible in the tile based movement

[Night Wolf]

I'm new here and wanted to know the program you use to create maps is tiled?

[Jaxad0127]

Yes. Tiled is the map editor/format we use.

[Night Wolf]

I know how to use this program!