[Tutorial] Alternative Mapping for VX (make your maps look pro)

Ok some of you might already know that its possible to make maps in a very singular form for VX with the parallaxes.

To understand more about Paralaxes you can visit this tutorial made by Marcus: http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://www.hbgames.org/forums/index.php?topic=42711.0

RMVX with this system can make an actual drawing fit in the game so you set the passability: but hey not all of us are artists. And even me, who draws incredibly nice wouldnt make a game full of drawings it would take so much time to create it.

Some ppl complain about the way VX works but the parallaxes makes RTP much useful and posiblities with parallaxes are INFINITE (i love the word sorry). You can either use if to make all your maps look better or when you lack of space of tiles and want to add another kind of map, u you use the tiles you use the most in the VX tilesets and extra stuff u solve it with parallaxes.  lets say that theres a futuristic room in a castle room and its the only futuristic in the room. you would waste a tile set just to put the tiles u need for that room, then u better make a parallax like this


What do you need for pro mapping?:
1.RMVX
2.An understanding of the parallaxes
3.Photoshop
4.Understanding Grids (http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://www.hbgames.org/forums/index.php?topic=20828)
3.Autotile sets made by me.  (http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://www.hbgames.org/forums/index.php?topic=43724.0)


Basic PRO Mapping

Spoiler for:

Getting Started:
Open photoshop make a new project and turn on the grids and set them for 32 pixels with only 1 division to simulate the tiles. This will make our map be in an appropiate size to modify in map editor

You must know the size of your map, lets say the map you need is 17x 17 that means that it will have 17 tiles height and 17 tiles width

take out calculator and if our tiles are 32 pixels change size of document 17x32 = 544 so change the image size to 544x544 pixels (menu Image >Image Size)    Make sure your size is in pixels

Constrain Proportions must be off to change the size properly

Ok now we have our document with a nice grid. Make sure the Snap tool is "ON". Look in menu View > snap

First Layer
Now open any resource of tilesets you may want to use. If we are going to do this i recomend doing a special file containing pre made stuff so its faster, ill explain :

ill open 001Grassland-01.png from our old friend XP ^^ and it will have grid, if not turn it on ("Control+H)
and then We will use our Rectangular Marquee tool to select the desired tiles and drag them to our empty file with the move tool (just press M to change to that tool)



now we will drag the grass tile to the empty folder, it should align automatically to any tile with the snap tool .so now we have 1 tile we have to copy the tile and paste it in the whole document, (select with marquee tool, copy, paste, move)

For this reason is that i recomend a file with premade stuff, including at least a big set of floor tiles so you just select all the tiles and copy, This way you need to paste less times, and its easier



now we select tiles we want in our composition: Everything that cannot be on above our character can be put in this layer

For this part of the tutorial were gonna keep it simple and we wont be using roads or autotile-made stuff, we will add it directly from the editor later but we will make make it look nice. Just select tiles with the markee tool and drag to copy paste, drag trees, rocks, whatever u know the character canot pass or that will never be above the character this way we can even rotate stuff the character wont be able to pass like i did with the log in this map.


we could have something like this in the end

Now that we have this, we will save it as PNG and move it to the "Paralaxes" folder in graphics of your game folder YOURGAME>Graphics>Parallaxes.

Then open your game again that we already know that have a 17x17 tile size, in the name of the map in the editor right click and select Map properties, now to the right youll see Parallax Background turn on where it says Show in the editor, then where it says graphic change the graphic and look for our just created map that we saved in parallaxes folder

And this is the result WOAH! we have the map there


Now for this to work the way i do remember you must have my Mapping Set XP http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://anonym.to/?http://www.hbgames.org/forums/index.php?topic=43724.0

Go to the Tileset A and there are two lines were gonna edit right away. The passable and non passable areas in transparent. Go to the passability options and change the ones in the NON line to X so you cannot walk in those areas.



Passability
Now go out of the passability editor and were gonna add transparent non passable tiles to the areas our character wont be able to walk on. In this case are the trees, the wall, the pile, the rocks, anything you decide the character wont be able to walk on set it. This is hard because we cannot see what we put, i recomend the rectangle tool for large areas so you dont forget any tile.
This must be made first because if you put these tiles after you have 3rd layer tiles when putting them they will erase the 3rd layer tiles

2nd Layer
You can only add autotiles where theres only clean grass and nothing of the other layer, because these autotiles doesnt have transparency and cant have transparency, so it will merge with the grass only if its an autotile designed to merge with the grass- Now we have some autotiles to make the empty floor better in tile A, because we have grass in the background we may use autotiles like roads for grass, the large grassy area, darker grass and flower autotiles, use them so it looks something like this:



3rd Layer
Now for the last layer we will add what we want above our character, like IN-MAP trees probably roofs, statues, and anything that could be above our character. Dont forget to go to passability options and edit everything X means non passable, O means passable, * means layer above characters

in the end we will have something like this

Sorry for double posting. i would like to use this space for advanced pro mapping.

ugh- this is not nice

This

Spoiler for looks:

weird.

This idea of parallaxes is for ppl who hates VX maps, like me, i like the idea of having diversity on my maps and since VX has limited tilesets this is a cool idea for making map since it gives u another layer where you can do whatever you want, and even more freedom than XP mapping system. and any1 can do with the parallaxes whatever they want for their game.

but if u are happy with VX limited maps, then this is not for u ^^

vx isnt limited you have 5 tilesets to customize for your own game if you need anything else then meh.

Its not so much that your making a tutorial about using paralaxes like this its a way to get more than 5 tilesets however the title is confusing.
you call it "Pro mapping for VX" but only talk about a method not how to make a map look good. A more acruate title for this thread would be "Mapping for VX Using Paralaxes".

also what are the load times like with this alternative, faster?

vx isnt limited you have 5 tilesets to customize for your own game if you need anything else then meh.

Its not so much that your making a tutorial about using paralaxes like this its a way to get more than 5 tilesets however the title is confusing.
you call it "Pro mapping for VX" but only talk about a method not how to make a map look good. A more acruate title for this thread would be "Mapping for VX Using Paralaxes".

also what are the load times like with this alternative, faster?

I agree.

Title should change, even though this I guess gives new insights on how to create maps differently, it is not Pro Mapping.
Change it to "Alternateiva Mapping for VX" or something. It doesn't teach how to map professionaly using VX tilesets, so it's not exactly "Pro Mapping for VX"

This is a way to make your maps in VX look pro, because it gives you freedom creating it, you can put as many trees as u want in different layers, and have as many layers as you want in certain way, the only restriction of this mapping way is that u cannot have many layers over the character but still, having freedom in the non walkable area is a cool pro, in XP you had to make it in parts to fit the space in the tile sets and do it manually, here you can do it in only 1 parallax. thats the reason its pro mapping but ok ill change it

This isn't "pro" this is shit. Anyone can just use XP tilesets if they try hard enough, it doesn't make them "pro."

you could use parallax backgrounds in XP too :x

just cause someone has unlimited layers doesnt mean there mapping is good. this alternative also bloats up the size of your game loading a different paralax for every map

lol alternateiva

King of the universe: thanx for being so polite. U may be kind of an asshole since this is just an example of how to use tilesets to form parallaxes. so go and shit yourself before being an ass with some1 who is wanting to help ppl improve, if you dont like this you just can ignore it and do whatever u want without it or use the really shitty VX mapping system.

Levent: thanx ive changed the title

ahref: have u seen the XP tiles ive edited for VX? you can map almost any kind of map with it and it will look more rounded. Parallaxes then should only be used for maps you cannot create with the tile system so size wont be that big1 1 mp3 song in your game can be 12 times bigger than a single parallax. because of course you wont be using a parallax for a worldmap or a town, that would be crazy. and even if u do it wouldnt be heavier than a single mp3 song

I was being honest atleast, if people wanted to create maps in the XP style, they would use XP. I'm sure you might be able to make something halfway decent with parallaxes, but your examples look horrible

Levent: thanx ive changed the title

It's alternative not alternateive LOL

okay say your tilesets in your game are 1mb and you make 12 maps using them in photoshop using your above method and there file size is 1mb. Thats 12mb for 12 maps as oposed to 1mb for using tiles normally.

"ahref: have u seen the XP tiles ive edited for VX? you can map almost any kind of map with it and it will look more rounded. Parallaxes then should only be used for maps you cannot create with the tile system"

OK ahref ill repeat

3 reasons you would use this parallax stuff for

1. you want your maps to look more dynamic. As you can see in the example in the first thread youre able to use as many trees as you want to create a forest. Forget about it being an XP tileset its an example, it doesnt matter you can use any tree you want  and create a forest with it VX tiles, Custom made trees like ccoa's,  ven's or whoever (thats for the retards in this thread). As its just an example its not only for forests.  If you want it for this purpose (make your maps look good), it doesnt matter the size, what you want game that looks atractive rather than a game looking like a gameboy advance game (VX) So it's heavy, yeah so what? you have a custumized game

2.you use all the tiles from the tileset and it lacks on something you need for your game. Lets say your tilleset have everything you need but still your plot says you have an egipcian town. you have Mea's Egipcian town tileset but you cannot use it because the lack of space. What you do? you take mea's tileset and make a town with it. It takes too much space yeah, but you have no alternative because your game needs it. For the rest of the game you use the tiles you have in your tilesets

3. Same as 2 but you  dont need a whole town made, you just need a boat or a tressure room, and dont have space for that in your tileset. Then same you use a parallax. For the rest of the game you use the tiles you have in your tilesets Meaning u have one 1mb boat map. The inside can be made with the stuff in your tiles.

yeah they need space but it all depends on the kind of game you wan t to make

Levent: i changed the title again and this time i read it

I'm a bit late.

That being said, this is a useful tool. You do not need to use XP maps as backgrounds, you can make maps in a VX style too - the fact is that VX is very limited in terms of mapping. 5 tabs is not very much, and I would suspect it is not really enough for games longer than a few hours in length before it starts getting redundant. Unless, of course, it is a game like Sid Meier's Pirates, with very limited use of graphical map resources.

So, I really don't see the negativity in this thread as warranted. It may take more space than using a regular tileset, but it is still a useful tutorial for people who do not want to limit themselves to just 5 tabs of tilesets. Mapping is the worst feature of VX, in my opinion, and this tutorial at least allows the maker to have less redundant maps. Anyway, that's just my two cents.

Don't Necropost 

It's a Tutorial. Tutorials cannot be necroposted.

First off...

Why does everyone seem to have some sort of weird obsession with "necroposting" who is involved with RPG Makers? Only on the various RPG Maker forums have I ever seen anyone get upset for someone posting... in... a forum >_> I'm used to people being happy that a thread is revived. It keeps the subject growing.

Secondly (and mainly), I wanted to thank Buzz for this wonderful tutorial. Some of us would like to make our maps look less blocky, and add a bit of style. Especially that with Paralax's in this method, one can stylistically make painted area backgrounds, in the same vein as... say... Legend of Mana. If you want to keep making old looking RPGs, good for you! They're enjoyable just the same, but when an alternative is presented... why not say "Cool, it's just not for me."...?

I was being honest at least, if people wanted to create maps in the XP style, they would use XP.

Very not true. I, as well as many people, like VX's scripting system better. It's arguable whether or not XP's tiles and sprites are higher quality, but I for one like variety.

okay say your tilesets in your game are 1mb and you make 12 maps using them in photoshop using your above method and there file size is 1mb. That's 12mb for 12 maps as opposed to 1mb for using tiles normally.

In this day and age, we aren't making games for the Commodore-64, so we can flaunt resources a little bit. Using large paralax's may take up a bit more HDD, but if you don't have 12 MB, just delete a few songs, or don't play the game.

Ultimately, kudos to Buzz for this helpful tutorial about PRO MAPPING. It definately has helped me in the conversion from XP to VX! 

...Sure is weird that this is the only forum I've seen flame Buzz for the tutorial. Others have praised him.

No offense.
But after those shit talking to him (busbuzz), He did not posts any more topics here on RMRK..
I think i know the reason why. And i am guessing that you guys know what it is.
He just want to help and SHARE what he knows.
I just feel so bad. Sorry. 

 
Anyways, Good reply elysianhero. You got the best comment. If only i can give you a +rep.