[AIR] FlashEdit - Tilebased Map Editor

[mr_malee]

hello

been working on a tile editor in Adobe AIR for the past 3 days.

3 days of fun (extreme sarcasm)

anyway, I think its at a stage where people can do some beta testing. Please post any bugs if you wish to test. Hopefully there shouldn't be any in this simple version.

Note* most functions are not working yet, such as:

clearMap
resizeMap
toggleGrid
export as2 class
export as3 class
export text
flood fill
selection
duplicate layer
undo
redo

but you can do everything else. Currently trying to create a better save dialog box which creates the extension for you. Right now, you need to save a map with the correct extension (.fem)

I would really love to know the fps you guys get (bottom left) currently its very unoptimised, some people would have a fit if they knew the rendering method I'm using. It has potential to be real bad given enough layers and a small tile size and large map window. Will need to fix that in the future

basically, I go over every layer in correct zOrder, loop through its onScreen tiles, and copy the correct chunk from the tileset into a bitmapData. So you can see it could get very bad, I have limited the min tile size to 16 so peoples computers don't die. The good thing is I dont need to copy bitmaps every time mapData changes, just modify array values and the rest sorts itself out. And I only need 1 display bitmap.

anyway, blah blah blah, here's the setup file, If you dare

you will need the runtime to install - http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/air.html (beta2)

EDIT - I have no idea how this looks on a Mac, so it may not work correctly, I have tried to follow all the steps to support them.

[happinessSam]

That's great dude. Really cool. I probably got an average frame rate of 100 fps, with photoshop and flash running in other windows while working on a 40x40 map. (pentium 4 3.6GHz, 3GB ram).
I didn't find any obvious bugs.

I'm definitely going to have to look into air. Is it really that much of a ***** to work with?

[mr_malee]

actually no, its really good, I use the plug in for CS3, haven't used flex.

The only thing which I found hard was not understating windows. For about 1 day I struggled creating those scrollPane windows you see as built in Native Windows, only to find that the windows you create cannot be placed above your main application window, I then ditched them and created scrollPane's inside one window. Only to realize then that I could have closed the main application window and kept the other custom ones open.

All in all it was just a pain figuring out how these new things work. Same as BitmapData really. I still don't know it all though. I recommend you try AIR, it was super easy to get an app started.

There is a bug right now, the windows I open (new map) (layer properties) are not closed when the application exits. So anyone using, be weary of that.

A cool feature is the ability to register a file type to your application, so you can double click a .fem file and it'll load up the application (not working yet) and I think its also possible to create an app which updates itself, not sure about that though.

Oh, and it is oh so easy to read and write to the hard drive. Thats the best feature by far.

Whats peoples opinions on AIR? do you trust it?

[VENGEANCE MX]

The Mac version of the AIR installer won't uncompress. Using third-party decompression apps I was able to whittle it down to just the .dmg, but that refused to mount. Maybe it's a Leopard thing (I got a new computer. Squize, if you're listening, it runs Polarity a lot better than my old one )?

[Squize]

Cool ( To both Polarity running more than 8fps, and for Mr M doing the AIR thing so he can explain it all to the rest of us ).

Funnily enough I've been working with Mappy loads the past 2/3 weeks and my mind drifted to doing a map editor as a way to learn air.
Think I'm being pipped at the post with everything recently, I need to be less lazy and actually just make things rather than thinking about them.

Squize.

[mr_malee]

thanks, seriously, AIR is so easy with CS3, its like just like using components except their not buggy.

check out the bottom left panel - http://livedocs.adobe.com/labs/air/1/aslr/index.html, any items with a adobe air icon are new. I really realyl want to use the clipboard, for CTRL+Z undo action and possibly copy and paste. So many ideas...

good thing too, is that if you want to update the app, you dont need to uninstall and re-install the new package, the package will realise it needs updating and do it for you. Or you can manually update using the Updater class

[ImprisonedPride]

Yeah.... **** me. I should scrap the progress of my map editor, Flash Mapper, and move over to air like someone suggested in the thread for said editor. Of course, if I didn't love my sweet menu/window classes I used in it, I would be less hesitant to move it over to air. Not even sure how air works though, but could be fun. In the meantime I'm taking a long (probably too long) break from flash. Got my last semester at college for my Associates in Applied Science right around the corner, and going to distance myself from outside distractions for a few months. If I do any coding in flash, it will be simple, though useful, applications instead of games.

Errr enough of the tangent but yeah, looking good Malee, though I have a feeling your editor is going to undermine the big one I vowed to make for universal map editor (ya know, iso/grid, xml/txt etc). Err...

[tomsamson]

Ok, so Mr Malee and me decided to work on some stuff together.
After some brainstorming sessions and some days of work we got quite some cool stuff cooking, so stay tuned, this is just the beginning

As first result of our coop we can today present alpha 2.1 of Flash Edit

*Grab it here:

http://www.stimunationgames.com/joyF..._alpha_2_1.zip

*New features/ improvements in this version:

-added more editing tools:
-draw circle tool
-draw line tool
-draw rectangle tool
-paintbucket (fill) tool
-tile picker tool

-improved output:
-one can see the map data in an output window now (in case one doesn´t want to save it to a file but just copy & paste the array )

-improved saving:
-when saving the filename is pre selected
-one can export in several formats


*Getting it running:

As before you need the Air runtime, you can get it here: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/air.html
Once that is installed you can install the Editor


*Usage:
Once started up you first import a Tileset from the top menu. Then you can create a new map (top menu File>New). And yup, then you can doodle around

[ImprisonedPride]

Malee you sold me out... ow.

[mr_malee]

hahaha, get passed them packages and we'll talk

[renderhjs]

just dropping a line to get a subscription to this thread. a screenshot in the first post wont hurt as you don´t provide a instant online demo

[tomsamson]

yeah, you´re right, here you are

[Flashkit]

downloading now... can't wait to play with it

[tomsamson]

sweet, hope you like it

[Flashkit]

Can I have Transparent Tiles for overlaying please!

ps LOVE the brush...
can I have a brush fill too as well

[mr_malee]

you mean layer transparency? that could be good

Tom's the flood fill guy

[Flashkit]

oh and also can I have an image upload so that I can have a reference image ti lay tiles over eg my rough pencil drawing...

And can it write my next game for me... Im thinking with pathfinding across variable height terrain.....

[tomsamson]

i´ll work on the fill brush and yup, also on setting transparency of layers.
Having a bg image in there is a good call, too (render told me that, one, too )

Haha, i guess writing the whole game is a bit out of the range of what we´re going for (for now ) but yeah, you could probably paint your weighted heightmap terrain for the pathfinder nicely with it

[Flashkit]

I want to assign collision reactions based on a tile type (for my purposes I have an image like



that I use as tiles to paint over my map.

I want to be able to assign a parameter at the tilesheet level... I mean I guess I can just identify the tile at the parsing level but you know while I am making requests...

[tomsamson]

haha, yeah, i know
Its good, i want this to be useful to as many as possible
Our roadmap for the development lists these major steps as next todos:
-improve visual map editing related functionality (things like having a magnifier tool, undo and redo functionality or setting the layer transparency are summed up there)
-add project functionality (allow setting up a project with global default settings for all maps in project and also saving a project file that contains all project maps and assets)
-improve map output functionality (things like save in more file tpyes and beeing able to edit the map output, map element seperater strings etc)
-add per tile edit features (manipulate data of each tile, local per tile or map or global per map or project)

So you see we have more to do then already done (as with everything in life ). Since this is a freetime project on which malee and i just work some more on each time we got some hours to spare we have no set dates for achieving these steps, but yeah, will try to get as much as possible done asap
As usual we´ll post updates here