Pretty speechless if i'm honest.

[Chalace]

I think the three of you need to have a 'map-off'.
Let's see what you've got.

 

[Cookie]

And the maps could be auctioned off at the end

 

[daneo1989]

Who even are you?

Post automatically merged: Jul 12, 2019

If you talked less smack and worked on your server maybe Valk V1 wouldn't of burnt out so quick.

I might not post much David, but i am still around

 

[Seanofsmeg]

Map looks awesome @Chalace

 

[Chalace]

Been doing a bunch of busywork, nothing worth showing, just generic filling out.
But figure I'd update, just for the sake of it.

---

Started on the next POI. After a lot of trial & error, I've got a style I'm relatively happy with. (still feels a bit bare in spots, but we'll see)
This was a tough one really. Some closed-quartered areas where all 3, Mir2, 3 and Shanda meet.

This is, in essence, the border for the area. Which then transitions to desolate sand dunes for the centre mass.
I'm not even remotely a fan of dead space, so I couldn't go straight from the cliffs to dunes.

Hopefully, now that I have all the details down, I can get the majority of it done this evening.

 

[Akaras]

What sort of features would make the map creator programme better?

When Jamie was making the map maker for Zircon and showing it off I liked the way the cliffs could just be painted into place creating large areas in seconds... (although I wasn't exactly sure how he did it) and the background auto blending between different tile types is not a feature in the current map creator is it? to be honest it has been a while since I worked on these map projects I'm guessing you have to still do a lot of the tile work manually

maybe having some different way of working with the tiles would be good? or having a way to cut tiles from larger images right inside the programme would be good? and then creating and managing custom tile files

Actually I used to hate having so many files with duplicate tiles as it just made things complicated searching for stuff

anyway I thought I would ask the people who actually use the programme what features they would like to see... maybe I could spare a few hours looking into adding something

I'm a bit bored I might have a play around trying to make some map... Diablo 3 style mir2 maps? hmm I might try and test a few ideas with custom objects and anchor points

these maps you lot are making are looking awesome...

 

[Chalace]

What sort of features would make the map creator programme better?

When Jamie was making the map maker for Zircon and showing it off I liked the way the cliffs could just be painted into place creating large areas in seconds... (although I wasn't exactly sure how he did it) and the background auto blending between different tile types is not a feature in the current map creator is it? to be honest it has been a while since I worked on these map projects I'm guessing you have to still do a lot of the tile work manually

I never looked at any info about Jamie's editor, so I might have the wrong idea in my head. However, tile blending works fine, tho is limited to the blends they made available. e.g: (Which to be fair gives you options for almost anything you need)

The only way you could improve on this would be to implement some function that allows for custom blends but then you're into a whole other ballpark or needing to edit images, etc. Maybe you could do something with transparency and overlays to skip editing, I don't know. It's all out of my reach.

This would only benefit the few times you need to merge M2/M3 tiles together, or make something completely custom, even then I've managed to wing it each time with what's available.

maybe having some different way of working with the tiles would be good? or having a way to cut tiles from larger images right inside the programme would be good? and then creating and managing custom tile files

It already has the functionality of copying middle & front images.
Adding the option to grab back images is the only improvement needed here. Even then, I can't think of a single time I wanted to copy a back image.

Actually I used to hate having so many files with duplicate tiles as it just made things complicated searching for stuff

Aside from a few of the shanda tilesets being duplicates of M2 (tho some actually have slight color differences) I'm not sure where these duplicate are.

anyway I thought I would ask the people who actually use the programme what features they would like to see... maybe I could spare a few hours looking into adding something

- Unlink the map tab - Having the map as its own window would be a huge improvement.
E.g map on one monitor and objects/tile window on another.
- List objects as images - Like the tile screenshot above. again another huge improvement, as it stands now I have no choice but to scroll through them all on a text list, too small and non-resizeable to even see the filename, searching for the one I want.
- The option of jumping to tile 26,542 - Having to scroll through thousands of images (which all get loaded into memory as you scroll) is kind of irritating.

I'm sure there are other minor tweaks that would improve usability, some already mentioned prior, e.g shortcuts. Tho, for me personally, those are the big 3 I think would greatly improve efficiency.

I'm a bit bored I might have a play around trying to make some map... Diablo 3 style mir2 maps? hmm I might try and test a few ideas with custom objects and anchor points

You know I always like to see people's work.

 

[Akaras]

thanks for the reply... I just took a look at the auto tile blending I didn't know that was already a feature but I see it does work pretty well so that is really cool

custom blends was something I originally wanted to do but like you said it would only benefit the few times you may need to use it so probably not worth adding

for cutting tiles I was actually on about that programme i made that cuts images into tiles but I doubt it is used that much to warrent adding it to the programme

the duplicates I was on about where shanda related I just remember them from when I was working on the set objects and kinda remember having some of the objects tiles split over more than one file due to having the wrong tile numbers set... it probably isn't an issue with the standard files and more of an issue in that I had a ton of custom tile files I was working on converting at the time

unlinking the map tab might be a good start... I'll look into that

shortcuts would be good to add... I see the only shortcuts on the version I downloaded is w, a, s, d, z, x

is there a better way of navigating around the map? I'm using wasd but seems slow... I used to like to click with the mouse to scroll around on my editor

are you using a custom version of the editor? I downloaded the source from the sticky post and had to fix the grasping thing that saves objects (it was saving the whole file when clicking the save object button even after selecting a small area) ... just making sure I'm on the latest source code

 

[LOMValkyrie]

Yeah that’s the latest one @Akaras

 

[Chalace]

Map navigation seems fine, to me at least. Personal preference I guess, but I have no complaints about the current way. Between that and the jump function, I can't say I have an issue moving around.

One of us is misunderstanding the grasp function
I've just always used it as a copy function. You select the area you want, then swap to 'place object' mode and you can use the part you grabbed.

My editor is slightly modified. I changed the zoom increments at some point, as the jumps were not to my liking. Added my own map type and custom libs. Other than that, I don't think I changed anything else.

 

[LOMValkyrie]

Also moving already placed objects would be a nice add and also adding extra co ords to the left or top of the map for when you’ve miscalculated and it’s too far gone, so the rest of the map would like push over or down to add the new blank tile spaces.

 

[Chalace]

Also moving already placed objects would be a nice add and also adding extra co ords to the left or top of the map for when you’ve miscalculated and it’s too far gone, so the rest of the map would like push over or down to add the new blank tile spaces.

I don't know how viable it would be to allow you to alter the size of the map while you are working on it.
As a solution, you can just save your whole map as an object and make one the right size, then drop it in like any other object.

I do like the 'moving objects' part. If the grasp function could be modified to actually pick up the tiles, instead of just copying them, that would be great.

 

[LOMValkyrie]

It can be done lilcool has done it on his editor.

 

[Akaras]

One of us is misunderstanding the grasp function

that would be me lol... I just thought the grasping function was like an area select that highlighted the area you wanted to work with and then when pressing the save object button it would only save the area highlighted as an object rather than saving the whole map... thats how I pick objects out of a map and save them directly as an object file

ever since the project was released I always thought it was broken because it didn't work this way :P I have always just edited it to use the area selected p1.X and p2.Y values from the grasping function when saving object .x files

I think I could add an option to move map objects that are already placed on the map... I could just make a copy of the information for the cells the same way as when creating the object files (but not making the file) and then save it as a tempory object and switch to "place object" mode using the tempory object as the selected object to place

I might have to work on making the grasping function more like an area select... then you could have options /shortcuts like cut, copy, delete, paste, fill, save as object, etc... (right click menu?) or just drag to move whatever is checked in the option for the tool (front, middle, back, light, etc...)

adding to the map size shouldn't be too much of a problem... could just add an option to add a certain number of rows or colums

 

[awesome]

also merge four maps in one could be a good feature

Post automatically merged: Jul 18, 2019

bucket tool is good

 

[Chalace]

I think I could add an option to move map objects that are already placed on the map... I could just make a copy of the information for the cells the same way as when creating the object files (but not making the file) and then save it as a tempory object and switch to "place object" mode using the tempory object as the selected object to place

I might have to work on making the grasping function more like an area select... then you could have options /shortcuts like cut, copy, delete, paste, fill, save as object, etc... (right click menu?) or just drag to move whatever is checked in the option for the tool (front, middle, back, light, etc...)

As someone that spends 10% of the time filling the screen to then spend 90% removing 80% of it and put them back slightly different; having to search through all the objects each time. This sounds great.

 

[awesome]

also import image to map and save as object libs when saved as map

 

[Chalace]

also import image to map and save as object libs when saved as map

The tile cutter app already does this, just the other way around.
Cuts up the image and saves it as a lib. You just need to open the map editor and drop the tiles in.
- I don't know how easy it would be to have it make an object file as well, as the tile placement order is already there.
I imagine you would still need to manually edit them for the correct layers.

As someone mentioned before, (Far(?)) would be nice to have it bundled into the editor.

--

I actually feel bad mentioning this stuff, as I've been fairly content using what we have. But I know I could not add these things myself in any reasonable amount of time.

 

[LOMValkyrie]

A big one would be multi layering objects, so when you place an objects on top of another one it doesn’t mess up the one your placing partially on top of ( sure chalace can get a screenshot of that happening?)

 

[mir2pion]

How content you are depends very much on the type of map job you are doing. Whether you are making new maps from scratch, or altering, tweaking existing ones (which is what I do).

I posted on desired editor features on other thread besides this one, like I suggested a basic scheme of which keys to map to which menu functions. The more keys mapped in some logical scheme, the better. I used macro to do some repeating operation in the editor and had to map mouse clicks on editor tabs to absolute coordinates on screen (with editor maximized). With key mapping, I'd just write a simple script specifying keys.

The function 'Jump to', I enter first coord, press tab, enter the second, than have to reach for the mouse to click OK button... if at least the confirmation OK buttons were keyed to Enter key. I wish for some easier moving around maps because often I like to copy some element from one map, then close it and open a different one to place the grasped object on it (this happens repeatedly number of times). Moving objects between maps works as long as it is the same editor session. And of course, typically you work somewhere deep on a map, far away from its origin where it opens maps by default, which means long scroll by WASD (sometimes I use jump function on bigger maps but am split on friendleness of either). Maybe useful feature might be storing the maps coords in a setting.ini file so if you re-open maps in the same session, it opens to the coordinate position you were at when you closed the map. But this is just what I had in mind when I said, it depends on the map job you are doing, whether some editor features get onerous or you are content with them as they are. If you just use the jump function once at the start of your working session, then it is (sort of) ok as is.

I would very much like that idea about making the selection rectangle a general function letting you then specify the operation, copy, delete etc. Delete tiles selected by the rectangle would be useful for those cases when you reopen the editor and can no longer undo what you did in the previous session (maybe iJam's editor version has tool which delets per layer many tiles at a time? I haven't used it for a while). I would definitely vote for being able to select back layer. The current two grasps, front layer and front/middle layers I use fairly extensively and would welcome two more, middle/back and back only (or at least the back layer grasp if only one would be added).

I like that suggestion whereby grasped (I love that Chinese translation of Copy function) area would be directly available at the mouse tip for placing. BTW does somebody know why sometimes (really many times) the grasp fails? When working between maps, or even scrolling to a different place on the same map after grasping something, I always check if the grasp did work by immediately selecting 'place objects', else it is a pain in the back to find out it didn't work when you moved to your desired destination. I hazard a guess, it doesn't work when it encloses tiles that are not all in a sequence in the library or something of the kind.

@Chalace when I use that whole map grasp (save map as object), the editor chews on it and closes on me in most cases. I think it has to do with how much RAM you have. I only have 16GB and can move maps maybe up to 500x500 and even then I better quit other programs and maybe restart the PC to have as much memory free as possible (maybe that's just a placebo?). How much RAM you have and did you move bigger maps like Bichon province size or Mongchon equivalent or even bigger? BTW it is interesting that in this global move, it copies all layers, including the back one. So grasp can definitely be made to work on the back layer.

BTW my editor also collapses when I scroll too fast or repeatedly through those large libraries.

Post automatically merged: Jul 18, 2019

A big one would be multi layering objects, so when you place an objects on top of another one it doesn’t mess up the one your placing partially on top of ( sure chalace can get a screenshot of that happening?)

For that, you would need to have extra front layer added as I suggested above. If you place a front tag on top of another, it replaces it.