map editor dump part 1
I’m going to dump what I have so far in multiple posts, so it doesn’t get too long. I started a few days ago, and I backdated some paragraphs, to give an idea of when I did them, and also to document that fact.
This first part concerns the design of the map editor in general. These are just the ideas in my head that I wanted to include, they probably will end up changing before the final specs are made. In any case, I’m putting this up for posterity, because I doubt I have any readers.
Text is as follows:
Map editor - November 18th 2008, Keith Weatherby II
Will have traditional style gui, but written to be able to run on the xbox 360 and pc. There will be two areas on the screen, on the right side will be the map chunk pane. Map chunks can be as small as a single graphic element or tile, to many tiles arranged as
pieces of a map. In fact a map will be a chunk itself. The left side will be the map area. Each pane will be able to scroll individually. It will allow multiple layers for a parallax effect. The chunk pane may have more than one page, probably setup like tabs. Later I would like to build an integrated collision map editor, and a character editor, and add the ability to add characters and objects to the map. The elements should be able to scale with the resolution. Minimum resolution should be 800×600. Font should scale with resolution as well. There probably won’t be a max resolution. The right pane should also contain a layer window, to be able to turn off layer visibility, and adjust transparency. Transparency will also be related to visibility rather than an actual feature of the map. You should be working on the active layer, sort of like Gimp does it’s layers. Map chunks shouldn’t be able to include each other, they will each have a unique id, and when loading or saving will have to resolve/not allow cyclical dependencies. To edit a map chunk, you must first load up the indivudal graphics or tile chunks into the element window. Then you must be able to click-drag-drop from the element window onto the map. A grid can be displayed, and images can “snap” to grid lines, for a more traditional way of editing (simulated tile editing). You should be able to view/scroll the map around, as well as getting an overview version (a scaled down version of the entire map).
End of Text.
I’m deciding now whether I’m going to use chunks though, instead I may just create a rubber stamp tool, or otherwise just copy and paste by selecting a bunch of tiles and putting it where you want. This means an increase in data slightly, but I won’t have any circular reference issues. In any case this is sort of a “living” document.
Keith