Map Editor [Tactics]

[Osteel]

Hi everyone,

So some of you may of read my previous thread regarding a tactics genre game that a few of us (led by moi) are in the process of making. Unfortunately it's on hold for about two weeks since it's that time of year when all final projects and exams take place for University.

But SOON we'll be back on track.


Anyhow, since we're making a tilebased tactics game, there is obviously a need for a sort of Map Editor where we can create maps, export the data in some format, and import them to redraw the maps.

SO, I've developed this map editor which you can try. Though, please read the notes following the link; it can be found here:

Click!

• You'll see white tiles overlapping the larger tiled tree. It's not a bug in depth sorting, I just haven't hidden them for testing purposes. Will do when the time is right. In the meantime, you can use the render tool to hide any unused tiles.
  
  
  
• Scrolling does work, and it's been testing to work smoothly with the amount of tiles we'll use at max per map. However, it's been disabled for the time being to a viewing area of 20x20 tiles (that's enough for now, right? )
  
  
  
• Clicking behind other objects might be a little difficult, and that's due to the bounding boxes around the drawn objects. Thanks to people here in the games forum, I've learned of a solution which I have yet to implement. In the meantime, the hide tool works as an alternative.
  
  
  
• Pathfinding doesn't work 100%, though I've managed to work it out using A*, it doesn't work completely with height. I have a better version in a separate file so using the one in the map editor is at your own risk ... potential freeze!
  
  
  
• I know there's not many objects to choose from, but I'll be importing more of them as we need them. For now, whats available gives good example of height, floating objects, and multiple tiled objects.
  
  
  
• To create a floating objects (such as a bridge above the ground), use the deselect tool to make sure you have nothing being placed. Simply click on a tile to add height to it, and then place a bridge on that tile. You can see the height of a tile at the top.

Feel free to share any maps or examples by using the Import/Export feature. It's pretty simple, just follow these steps:

Export
Simply click the Export button to save the map data. Click on the box to the left and select all (CTRL-A) and copy (CTRL-C). Either paste the data into a file and attach, or paste it here.

Warning, it could get rather long. I'm still thinking of a way to shorten the data rather then storing the object names themselves. But, it doesn't seem to lag with loading otherwise, and exporting will only be done via the Map Editor and away from the players.


Import
Importing is simply the opposite. Copy all of a map data provided, click into the box beside the Import button, and paste (CTRL-V) and click on the Import button ... voila, it should load in!




Well, that's pretty much all of it. The tools there are pretty self explanatory in what they do. You'll probably notice there's nothing in terms of error checking when you're creating the maps. I had decided against this simply because the people using it will be the people involved in creating the game, so we'd be sure not to make any faulty maps.

Currently I'm going to be working on pathfinding. We've decided on doing a more traditional form of movement, allowing the user to directly control his/her units; however pathfinding is still needed for the enemy AI.



Any comments or questions, feel free to ask. Also, feel free to post any examples of maps or issues found with the Map Editor.

Thanks for the help so far, hopefully I can have the motivational support to see this project through to the end!


Matt

[tonypa]

When I click on some tile, I get "script is running for too long" message.

[Osteel]

Really?

Which tile, or was it from a certain object you had selected, or perhaps one of the tools were turned on and caused it. Do you remember how it happened?

Thanks.


Edit:

Actually, the only possible freeze up that I've come across is if the set height variable at the top panel is not displaying a number. That's what the map editor uses to auto stack the texture objects, so it needs to at least display a 1. Not sure if that was the reason though (hopefully it was, haha).