General Mapping Guidelines

[pandemikk]

Asshole^


How about, "thank you for this mapping tutorial."

Better yet, how about you tell us everything about Science. You clearly think you know more than everyone, please join me in an intellectual conversation.

Do you know how the rivers get water? Do you know why trees sometimes grow from the same base?

 

[mawk]

silver there's a way to get a point across without sounding like an arrogant faggot. this is a formal warning -- don't do it again.

 

[Anasoze]

Thank you Tindy for this tutorial, it will help me immensely when I map.
Especially the part that deals with the inside and building proportions.

THX!!!  :thumb:

 

[nikki]

Some good advice here although I am not a personal fan of the little tiny rooms with one-tile areas to walk in.

I do like how you placed the autotile walls over top of the interior doorways, I never actually thought of doing that before. And the trick with making part of the stairs show up ABOVE the wall is neat looking.

 

[rmxp_beginner]

Great mapping all in all. I picked up on how to make a GOOD map rather than a bad one. Keep up the good work!

 

[Tindy]

Hey guys, the tutorial is back from the dead (the forum hop made it snafu), but i didn't have the entire thing backed up. I did what I remembered, but if it's missing something or you want to see something that I didn't mention, like always drop me a line and I'll do what I can.

 

[Surmuck]

It looks pretty similar to the one I read at first; looking over it quickly it seems close to identical so I wouldn't sweat it Tindy.
Just by the way, this is really well done and I think there are a -lot- of members who find something to learn from this tutorial.

 

[Tindy]

Aw, thanks Surmie. :D

Added a section on Screen Tone.

 

[SilverShadow737]

How do you go about edges for big open maps, do you just put a transfer location event on every single tile?
I usually just throw a bunch of rocks at the edges, but as you can figure out that gets to be quite annoying to see over and over again.

 

[Tindy]

Hmm...Well, there are ways around it. Firstly, of course, making your map smaller (and thus having smaller exits to worry about), but that's not always practical. Using natural and man-made borders such as houses, mountains, bodies of water, and etc is another option. I remember reading somewhere about using variables relating to the player's position on the map, but I don't recall if that was really the best option. I'll look into it and maybe add a special mini-section on that later.

 

[seven]

This is generally a nice tutorial, but just something I need to nitpick on. When you put in a guideline, all the maps in the tutorial need to follow this guideline. One example would be how you suggested against symmetricallity and later, in the tint screen example map, had a noticeable bit of symmetricality in the plants (remember up-down and diagonals count! Although the topic is buried back a few pages in this board, a member known as Junior created a superb tutorial on symmetricality, idk). There's some other stuff in the tutorial that sticks out for me, which I might critique on later.

 

[SilverShadow737]

Eh, the variables thing would still require a ton of events.
And if i used houses, mountains or bodies of water, i feel like they have to have some purpose so it just kinda gives me more work.
I think I'm going to take the pokemon way out and just put a ton of trees everywhere.

 

[W31WGamer]

My question isn't directly into mapping. [But your tutorial was helpful, I've got to do better on my inside designs]

Anyway, how do I make it so that when you go into another map, it gives you a "Heading" Or something that says,"Haunted woods" or something, and you don't have to press enter to get rid of it? This will help my mapping so I don't have to constantly make signs.

Like how in pokemon, when you walk into a route or something it says,"Route 99"

 

[Tindy]

Hm.....Take that question over to General Support. Getting the message up itself is just a matter of a simple event but getting rid of it requires a timed message which may or may not be a script.

 

[W31WGamer]

Also, I'm making a castle town, I have no idea how to make sideways walls, since I'm having a west entrance.

 

[SilverShadow737]

My question isn't directly into mapping. [But your tutorial was helpful, I've got to do better on my inside designs]

Anyway, how do I make it so that when you go into another map, it gives you a "Heading" Or something that says,"Haunted woods" or something, and you don't have to press enter to get rid of it? This will help my mapping so I don't have to constantly make signs.

Like how in pokemon, when you walk into a route or something it says,"Route 99"

You could try displaying an image in the corner with the name of the route.

I made a quick one just now.

Make a parallel process with the event commands:
Show Picture
Wait
Erase Picture
Then either set a switch or change a variable.

Make a second page with the conditions as your set switch or variable.

Then all you need to do is return that switch or variable to its original setting when the player exits the map or area.

 

[W31WGamer]

Oo, thanks, I have to try that. I'm not really using the feature much.

 

[seven]

Because I'm too lazy to format this properly, I'm just going to insert some bolded text within the quote at various points.

Tindy's Big Guide to Non-specific Mapping

Spoiler: Section 2: Outside

<-Decent example

Red: Symetricality, you may or may not want to fix this
Green: Cliff error
Purple: Is that the crabgrass tile? It isn't meant to go on the wall of a cliff like that

Spoiler: Section 3: Inside

Carpets don't have to fill up an entire room. Also, you circled the windows without explaining why.

<-That's better.
Help me I'm trapped in this room where's the door oh god oh god

Spoiler: Section 4: Screen Tone

I have a few gripes with this map. Not only are there several symmetricality errors (you don't have to fix all of them, of course), but the map just feels pretty empty.

Anyway, that's it. These are really just nitpicks, but perhaps they'll help you revise the tutorial.

 

[Tindy]

I *really* would have preferred you'd just PMed all of those to me.

Spoiler: Explanation/Reply

Most of the symmetry that I talk about refers more to excess symmetry moreso than general, and most especially vertical/horizontal moreso than diagonal. In a medium such as this where there's only so many ways you can do something it's nearly impossible to completely avoid some amount of symmetry. (OMG there's a plant on the same row 234 blocks across! :huh: )

Carpets don't need to fill an entire room, but it seems strange to me that one would make it touch 3 walls but not extend to the fourth. That's my opinion, though.

The windows without explanation is a result of the crash (I *knew* I forgot something!), but it's pretty glaringly obvious as to why they're a problem. (I'll add it in the original post next.)

The last map was made in about 3 seconds specifically to illustrate different color schemes. I could have easily just made a 15x20 of grass tile.

Regardless, thanks for the nitpicks - just about everything I just said here will be added to the tutorial itself.

 

[Dionon]

I have a question for you..... (I don't know if this has been asked already)

How did you do the outer walls for your house images? I've tried using the box thing (Even changing which part of the autotile I used...) It was just frustrating and awkward, and I couldn't get them NEARLY as close together as your image.

You see... when I learn things, I like to duplicate an example, and then pick it apart... I can't duplicate your example....