How Do You Keep Your Map Fresh?

[HitokiriGensai]

I prefer Yami Overlay, or Woratanas Multiple Fogs. Both of them are fairly easy to use and both powerful.

I agree, altough Yami's script is just an update of HK's original script. I tried to find the old scripts, but just discovered that rpgmakervx.net is no longer existing :(

Btw, do we know if MV is going to have a native layering system, or is that going to have to be one of the first scripts made for it? XD

 

[Wingedwolf]

With map elements being limited to a certain number of pieces (only a certain number of roofs, a couple kinds of grass and trees, a few flowers, etc.), how do you make your maps look like the same little image isn't being repeated over and over again? I'd love to hear any ideas you may have in your developer belts!

Windows snip tool , photoshop or gimp, hue recoloring helps alot
[doublepost=1445566361,1445566125][/doublepost]beginners parallax tutorial

 

[Adlw]

My small experience comes to me from Minecraft and from Simes.
Mix objects, to change their colors. The parallaxe, I find that its magnificent but too much job, I widely prefer to make a different tileset with images of bases and of my own invention even if I tear away hair when I badly put creations on the layout. The lighting effects can help largely also. To make some graphics its not simple but already you can begin by changing colors before to make really of the pixel art. Practice you by leaving already made "maps" and changes objects to see, you will see it will come little by little. ;)

 

[Bizarre Monkey]

Diablo II, Oddworld and other highly detailed games like Odin Sphere and DooM 95 / Heretic which had really engaging levels and design are what keep my maps fresh. I do my best to make maps as entrancing and immersive as possible without sacrificing key notation points players scrutinize over. Paths, objectives, et cetera.

 

[Ronivan]

I don't feel like it. MV mapping is as horrible as it was in VX and Ace, and it was the reason I have never done any pixel artwork on them. For people who don't care what artwork for building and autotiles they use, its fine. But for people like me, who creates artwork and build my own stuff in game is just horrible. In my work here I was struggling to create a descent waterfall that links an in-land river to the sea. Took me 4 autotiles slots for that, and still look shabby. What if I want now to make a mountain with a waterfall that links to the same river? I can't, theres no more space left for me. I can't get my woods near the edge of the cliff, because it will destroy the cliff transparency. The way was to place a B cliff there, but A2 forest breaks its transparency. Another problem, I can only use 768x768 size tiles. In my works on XP I normaly made maps with 256x7502 size. I can't choose which tile will have its own level layer, like I've done in XP, I had 5 level layers for anything I wanted, autotiles and world map objects. MV lacks what I value most in a game editor, freedom. It don't give me freedom do to what I want, like all my works in RPG Maker XP. Like VX and Ace, its the reason I'll not do any real work here on MV. As a pixel artist I value most quality of the work, MV fails for me. Don't hate my for saying this, is just a constructive critic, they will not change it anyway.
You people shoud be more critic abou what you expect and what you receive in a game editor. Thats why nothing changed from VX ad Ace, nobody cared, they just followed the same horrible line without any real complaint.

 

[Bizarre Monkey]

>Not just using parallaxing
>Complaining about lack of freedom.

You could have just admitted you're too lazy to acquire freedom? :P

Sorry, I'm being a bit of a dick, but like, I dunno I never really had much problem with the tile editor in VX Ace and beyond, in VX yeah it's limited to one set. I can understand the frustration there.

But if you find yourself limited just parallax it, it's not even that hard!

 

[Ronivan]

No dude, I don't use parallax, its all the same, Parallax is just a silly way to cover major problems of the maker. Lazy you said? I'm really far from it, I re-edit tiles and make my own stuff doing pixel work. If parallax was a solution, they would have made it part of the maker, its just a problem cover. If you like to make simple things and live by the standard tiles, its fine.

 

[Bizarre Monkey]

Yes, it's a work around, but it's a work around that works and can look spectacular.

I have dabbled largely in both, and MV's tile support is only topped by XP's. But just about every conflict you could have with them can be worked around. You just can't do it all in editor if you want to be a perfectionist about things.

When I parallax map, I admit it's usually for achieving a scope of detail tiles can't reach. Unless it's in VX, which instead just means I need another tileset but can't add it.

Maybe I jumped the gun on you being lazy, but when I hear complaints a feature isn't built into the default engine which in all cases, is still solvable by a bit of wit and ingenuity, and possibly quite a little sliver of effort, I'm going to make assumptions. Sorry.

Resource Manager isn't in MV either, but I always found importing through it messy and usually did things like that manually, it only takes a few more seconds to do the folder navigation.

Sorry, it appears I've veered us slightly off topic, too!

And, I've already said most of what I can on the topic at hand.

If you liked XP's editor so much no one is asking you to stick around with MV, either.

 

[Ronivan]

No problem, and I'm sorry too, I was a fool back there, because to be honest, I never did any real work with Parallax so I can't judge how it would be in the end. Right now there's no battle system that catches my eye on MV, so I don't see any real reason now to invest in building in maps and try to cover its problems. I think when some real good battle systems like an ABS comes out, I shall take more serious works on tiles.
But if I could choose one thing to change, just one option, I would choose an option that would allow me choose the layer manually, just like it was in XP, I could select 5 different layers for everything. That option would solve most, if not all my problems here in MV.

Did you know that photoshop can also handle transparency in a non-transparent PNG file? In photoshop go to "Files", them go for
"Save for Web..." . There you will see a template full of small color boxes, they are all the colors that are in the image. You can select each color and them click in the transparency option bellow the template (a small chess like icon). Its a very usefull tool to rip off parts of the image, like you want rip out the river animation of the land besides it. Then just save it, and keep in mind that it will be saved as a GIF. so you will need to convert it back to .PNG later.

 

[Bizarre Monkey]

No problem, and I'm sorry too, I was a fool back there, because to be honest, I never did any real work with Parallax so I can't judge how it would be in the end. Right now there's no battle system that catches my eye on MV, so I don't see any real reason now to invest in building in maps and try to cover its problems. I think when some real good battle systems like an ABS comes out, I shall take more serious works on tiles.

That's fair. That was a very mature and professional way of responding. So consider me sorry also for making assumptions.

I too find myself at a bit of a quandry with battle systems in MV. I'm probably just gonna make one with events.

But if I could choose one thing to change, just one option, I would choose an option that would allow me choose the layer manually, just like it was in XP, I could select 5 different layers for everything. That option would solve most, if not all my problems here in MV.

That's fair enough.

Did you know that photoshop can also handle transparency in a non-transparent PNG file? In photoshop go to "Files", them go for
"Save for Web..." . There you will see a template full of small color boxes, they are all the colors that are in the image. You can select each color and them click in the transparency option bellow the template (a small chess like icon). Its a very usefull tool to rip off parts of the image, like you want rip out the river animation of the land besides it. Then just save it, and keep in mind that it will be saved as a GIF. so you will need to convert it back to .PNG later.

Oooh, I didn't know that!

I usually make a layer from background in the layer navigation window.

Something I usually do to help out maps barren of da wicked sense of fresh is to add in wandering NPC's, unless it's meant to be barren.