Opinions of my ideas for my 2D RPG Game!
Author
I'm try to make a game, 2D RPG in C++ with SDL.
I have many questions...
Well, map engine...
The struct of the map file:
File Header:
- Informations about the engine, author, names, ...;
- Tileset of the map (textures);
- Dimensions fi the mapa (w,h);
- Music, backgrounds...
For all Coordenate of the map:
- 3 layers of Tileset;
- 1 attribute for wich one layer;
The file have w*h coordenates structs and one header.
The coord. strtuct have 3 layers, one for background tiles, floor and wall, other for windows, chairs, trees..., and the others for the same thing of the second.
It's like RPG Maker XP map system.
I'm want to know if this ideia is good!
And...
I load the informations in a bidimensional array, and make surface of all this informations, dont destroing the array.
When i I have to show, i only copy the paert theat will be showed.
Can I have a better way to amke this?
I have two thing that i have no ideia how can i make it:
- NPC and events(teleport, and others) location in the map;
- Event parallel process, how to make two NPCs moving unless one delay other, for example;
Any hint?
I'm very bad speaking/whiting in english, so sorry!
thx
[Edited by - RawArkanis on April 23, 2008 6:54:34 PM]
Quote:Original post by RawArkanis
I'm very bad speaking/whiting in english, so sorry!
Don't worry, we can tell. No need to apologize.
You've posted information about your implementation, but no information about the game or what you want to achieve. We can't even give you useful opinions on what little design you've given.
I think you'd be better off finding a programming forum in your own language (Portugese?), because while I have no trouble understanding the semi-technical portions, I have no idea what your question is, nor what you expect us to tell you.
If you feel your grasp of English is good enough, try the "For Beginners" forum next (but don't cross-post this same post). This forum is meant more for graphics- and rendering-specific discussion.
Wyrframe... this is an international site, and the attempts at proper English were fairly good, better then the many adolescence that frequent the site. so I really don't think a reply like that was needed.
Now what you are referring to is your map file format or engine, which is fine (technically). I would suggest packaging the textures sounds and such seperately, and only storing perhaps a file identifier with them. The reason for this is simple, many maps will reuse tile sets, media, etc.
Something else... if your target is desktop computers made in the past 5 years, then there is no reason to limit yourself to 3 tile layers. It was very good information in the past, and is constantly encouraged, but is highly outdated. You would be spending 8x the work for under a percentage point of your target demographic. You can save your art creation time, and produce more brilliant and unique settings by making the number of layers dynamic, and you can do things like rendering an alpha layer for shadows. I recommend a scroll>base>mask>shadow>overlay>top if you really want to get artsy with it. Its not really much harder to implement at all, and you can more easily get away with more tiles (by having a seperate tileset linked to each area). In this case scroll would simply be a background image, these can be very nice to add a sense of depth to the scene.
In addition, you left no room in there for scripting, this is something oftain overlooked that you want to think about when designing your map. You could probably get away with a map initialization script and using a script layer which attaches to events (such as changing maps, warping, and triggering scripted events). You can usualy safely embed these in your maps aswell.
Well, hopefully I have provided some help
Richard
Now what you are referring to is your map file format or engine, which is fine (technically). I would suggest packaging the textures sounds and such seperately, and only storing perhaps a file identifier with them. The reason for this is simple, many maps will reuse tile sets, media, etc.
Something else... if your target is desktop computers made in the past 5 years, then there is no reason to limit yourself to 3 tile layers. It was very good information in the past, and is constantly encouraged, but is highly outdated. You would be spending 8x the work for under a percentage point of your target demographic. You can save your art creation time, and produce more brilliant and unique settings by making the number of layers dynamic, and you can do things like rendering an alpha layer for shadows. I recommend a scroll>base>mask>shadow>overlay>top if you really want to get artsy with it. Its not really much harder to implement at all, and you can more easily get away with more tiles (by having a seperate tileset linked to each area). In this case scroll would simply be a background image, these can be very nice to add a sense of depth to the scene.
In addition, you left no room in there for scripting, this is something oftain overlooked that you want to think about when designing your map. You could probably get away with a map initialization script and using a script layer which attaches to events (such as changing maps, warping, and triggering scripted events). You can usualy safely embed these in your maps aswell.
Well, hopefully I have provided some help
Richard
As far as your NPC's and such running in parallel, you should just have a timer set which updates all entities and animation frames.
I actually recommend *NOT* packing everything into one file directly. Instead of including the Tileset, Music, Scripting, etc within the map file directly, instead reference them as external files.
The reason is that you will often find such resources that are duplicated -- 3 towns with the same tileset or background music for instance. Why duplicate the data 3 times on the hard-drive, or worse, why increase your bandwidth usage when they download from your site? For other data, such as scripts, its best that they be external because you would like them to be easily editable (if you want security when the game is done, just encrypt them.)
As far as the structure of your format goes. You may want to think about supporting things like map-streaming so that you don't have to load all of a large map at once. You may also want to consider how you will encode collision information in the map. Will it be per-tile, will it be geometrically defined. You may also want to consider allowing each map cell to contain an arbitrary number of layers, rather than limiting to a specific number.
The reason is that you will often find such resources that are duplicated -- 3 towns with the same tileset or background music for instance. Why duplicate the data 3 times on the hard-drive, or worse, why increase your bandwidth usage when they download from your site? For other data, such as scripts, its best that they be external because you would like them to be easily editable (if you want security when the game is done, just encrypt them.)
As far as the structure of your format goes. You may want to think about supporting things like map-streaming so that you don't have to load all of a large map at once. You may also want to consider how you will encode collision information in the map. Will it be per-tile, will it be geometrically defined. You may also want to consider allowing each map cell to contain an arbitrary number of layers, rather than limiting to a specific number.
Author
Thx for all.
When i said "my struct have music, tileset, background" i want say "information about" like name, path to the file.
I write in the map file only "information about" and "coordenate informations".
I want compress a resource folder with images, musics, map files, monster informations, and others files like this.
Well, i will post some images about it.
When i said "my struct have music, tileset, background" i want say "information about" like name, path to the file.
I write in the map file only "information about" and "coordenate informations".
I want compress a resource folder with images, musics, map files, monster informations, and others files like this.
Well, i will post some images about it.
This topic is closed to new replies.
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