The do's and don'ts of map making.

[Robotam]

All right, I'm a little late.. I get it and I'm sorry.

Today however, I'm here to teach you some mapping trix and how I made my snow mountain map.
Before I made this map I hated snow chipsets, almost as much as I still hate ship chipsets.
Snow chipsets are one of those chipsets that can fool you into overlaying the map with unnecessary details. Like for an example:
A snoman in a dark and crusky snow area. Not exactly a catch.
But when I look at my new map here, I see nothing like that. I love this map, and I think it might be the first succesfull snow map I've ever made.
I know I might get to hear that it's over-detailed. But I really don't give a damn. I'm really satisfied with this map and that's the only reason I'm showing it to you.
So let's begin!

Snowy mountain tutorial: PART 1

Step 1:


Like you can see on the screenshot below I started off making this map in the lower-left corner. And I ALWAYS start my maps in the lower-left conrer, always! And I think it's really good to start off making the map there. If I start my maps anywhere else they don't turn out any good at all. I don't know why, it just is that way. So I highly recommend the lower-left corner.
If not the lower-left corner, try the lower-right. It's important to start the map on it's lower part, at least it is for me.

Now you may also hear lots of people saying "You have to know what kind of map you're making before you start making it.". That's not true at all.
I didn't plan making a huge snowy mountain from the beginning. I started off in the lower-left corner with a small forest. Then I got the idea of making a cave entrance, and from there the map developed into what I think is a great result.

In short, what have we learned from the first step?
1. Start off your maps in it's lower part for a great result. Lower-left corner highly recommended.
2. You don't have to know what kind of map you're making before you start.




Step 2:

As you can see this is where I started off building the mountain. At first I wanted a waterfall in the map, but for the sake of god... You see them all the time! You need a break from waterfalls, so therefore there are none in this map.
But already now I had the idea of how I wanted the mountain to look like in the end. What we have now looks more like a caveman's lair than anything else, and there was no way I was going to keep it like that. And from that point I started making the huge mountain.

In short, what have we learned from the second step?
1. If you want to make something big, start off with something smaller.




Step 3:

And now suddenly, as you can see below, the map got much bigger! What happened? I developed the caveman's lair into a small mountain. To make a mountain I had to change the size from 20x15 till 20x30(actually, I started off the map at that size). I love making maps in that size.
I think that deciding the size of your map is something you should start planning from the beginning, changing the size later might complicate and spoil things. You'd know I mean.
How did I do to make the mountain bigger? Well, I added what was needed. Nothing complicated.

In short, what did we learn from the third step?
1. Decide your map's size before you start on it.





Step 4:

This is were I finished the lower-layering of the mountain. Looks pretty good, eh? I also decided that I wanted the forest go behind the mountain as well. It's suppose to be a huge forest after all.
Now that I finished lower-layering all that's left is detailing. I'd like to say that this isn't exactly how I made it from scrath, I usually complete the whole lower part before I even start making the higher part. But this works just as well.

[Robotam]

Snowy mountain tutorial: PART 2

Step 5:

Time for the deatailing! The part that I love the most.
As you can see I've added a some grass, a couple of spruces, a bit ice to the ground ect. The detailing part is as always up to you what you would like to add. You might wonder why I've added a fountain. It has a purpose actually, but telling you will be spoiling info from my game. I'll just say it's hot water in it.
From the beginning you enter the mountain you're main goal is to reach the top. And that's why added the ladders. From solving pussles on the inside you find your way out of the cave and up to another level from the outside again. I love that kind of stuff and that's the feeling I wanted to add to this map. And I think it worked out quite well.
I don't have much else to say. Add upper layer stuff at your own free will.





Step 6:

Onto the last step. I'm going to teach you something you maybe didn't know before. Every single chipset you use has somekind of secret, there's a way to use some tiles in the chipset in a way you could never have guessed.
Now those rocky mountain areas where it goes straight into the dark bothers me. They look too empty! So I decided to look for a cure, and after a while of exploring the chipset I found something interesting.
This:

Now what is that and what can it be used for? I decided to try and replace some of the rocky ground edges on thwe lower part of my map with these soft edges instead. And as you can see on the image below it worked. After that I got the idea of trying to fill the rocky mountain areas with the same kind of thing.
That's something I didn't know worked until yesterday. If you're making a huge mountain I highly recommend that you use that technique. It fills the emptiness on the rocky areas perfectly, and that might as well be the whole reason that I became so satisfied with this map.
I also used event layering trees for the forest like you might have noticed, something I recommend as well.
However, this is the final result:




Remember, I'm not telling you that you have to do any of these things I do. Nothing is right or wrong with mapping. I'm just giving you the info on how I made it.

[Robotam]

Recently I've discovered a couple of hidden bridges in three different chipsets. I have never seen anyone who's been using them but myself, so I feel very proud for inventing them. Even though I'm probably not the first. Anyway, I'll teach you how to make them.

 Bridge 1
->The chipset I used<-

+

+

=

[Robotam]

 Bridge 2
->The chipset I used<-

+

+

+

=

[Robotam]

 Bridge 3
->The chipset I used<-

+

=



The last one is very simple, yet very nice looking.
I hope any of these were usefull to you.

[Moosetroop11]

Woo, the first one was. I hadn't thought of that, thanks

[Osmose]

Didn't read through the entire thread, but...
Big don'ts that I've seen far too many times:

-A big thing for a lot of people is adding way too much stuff in a single screen. A lot, and I mean a LOT, of people think that adding more flowers or a bunch of different animals and such will make a scene look more natural or more detailed, when too much clutter just overloads a map and makes it look too busy.

No offense, Robotam, but your map above is a prime example. Especially at the bottom, there is far too much clutter around there and makes the map not look natural, but rather, look like a failed attempt at detailing. Let's take a look at Zelda for SNES:

 

It's kinda small, but you can see that there are things like trees and stones and fences, but it's much cleaner and much more professional looking than the snow map above, stuffed with extra preservatives and pumped up. Think Arby's fish commercials.

-Another thing I've been noticing lately is horrid use of overlay effects. Sure, clouds on a mountain can look nice, and when used at the very top of one for a single map or two, it works, but again, this is taken by people to be a simple multiplier to the quality of a map. Again, a map does NOT look better if you smack an overlay on it. They should be used sparingly, if at all, to accentuate that the weather is different. Rain, for example, would be nice in a darker part in the story, but it's not something that should be a constant - one scene with rain is enough.

[Robotam]

First off, me and Meiscool are the only people allowed to add to this tutorial. He said so himself a few posts away.

And secondly, I really don't understand how you can say that map is so over-cluttered with details, and to be honest I think you're alone with that point of view.

What do we have... some grass, a bit of the earthy type of ground and two stumps, and that's over-cluttered to you? When a map is over-cluttered is when you can't move because there's too many things in the hero's way. And that Zelda map is whole different type of style. Of course it wouldn't be the same with more details.

[ZeroKirbyX]

Originally posted by Robotam
First off, me and Meiscool are the only people allowed to add to this tutorial. He said so himself a few posts away.

And secondly, I really don't understand how you can say that map is so over-cluttered with details, and to be honest I think you're alone with that point of view.

What do we have... some grass, a bit of the earthy type of ground and two stumps, and that's over-cluttered to you? When a map is over-cluttered is when you can't move because there's too many things in the hero's way. And that Zelda map is whole different type of style. Of course it wouldn't be the same with more details.

I have many examples where I hear people call me one of the greatest map makers here at charas. Why do you think that is?
I give people what they want to see, not what you want to see.

Robo, you're lettin their praise go to your head. Don't do that.

[Robotam]

Mm.. Yeah, next time someone gives me a compliment I'll tell him to **** off. -_-'
I apologize if I get a bit carried away, but I haven't got as satisfied with any map like I did with this one in a long time. First thing that happens, it gets attack and defined as prime example of sucky detailing. I get to hear it's an over-cluttered map.

I like that map, and I guess that's what mathers.

[Meiscool-2]

Please spare the fighting.

As to the Zelda Vs Robo mapping, you can't compare them at all. Zelda is an ABS without tiled mapping. Rpg Maker is normally RPGs with tiled mapping.

Further comments on this, if any, please be directed via PM.

[Meiscool-2]

Well, I've been complaining that I need to update this some. so here I am.

Thunder Script:

For all your outdoor, storming needs, here is an event that can slip onto your map and become a simple storm.



The Event:

The event starts out by playing a rain sound effect, changing the tint so it seems overcast and darker, and starting the rain on that map. The volume and strenght of the rain sound effects and visual effects are up to you. I choose Strong and 70%.

Next comes the flash of lightning, and the optional overlay, which I will explain later. The flash will be instant-like, and then the tint will remain lighter for a short period before reverting back to normal. Meaning, that when the flash of lightning comes, I had the tint get lighter to make it seem more realistic.

After that comes the pauses between each thunderbolt.  As you can see, I only have a 3.5 second wait between each bolt, but you can set it to whatever you want.

Now, for the optional thing. This is for only if you're in a forest or area with trees. What it does, is by using the overlay I'm going to post below, you can make a picture that scrolls with the map that acts like the shadows of trees everytime the thunder flashes. This shadow will start at about 55% transparent, and go to 100% over the 1 second time period.

Example:


More will come, probally most of it will be event coding for your maps. I really don't know how I could give ideas on how you should map without actually telling you exactly what to do. Each map has to show their owner's traits  

V Tree Shadow Overlay For Script V

[Meiscool-2]

This time, I've got a little bird event for you.

Everyone should know how to do a bird event, but if you don't, just make an event that's above hero, and put it's custom pattern to this:

Phasing mode on
Face Random Direction
Move Forward
Move Forward
Move Forward
Move Forward
Move Forward
Move Forward
Move Forward
Move Forward
Move Forward
Move Forward
Move Forward
Move Forward

Both Repeat and Ignore should be checked.

Now, this is about putting a shadow under the bird. By looking at the attachment below, you can see what it looks like, and how it's done. This, if done right, will create a bird-like shadow. You can place it a few tiles below a bird event, or you can just have it be a bird that's up high and you can only see it's shadow.

If you want it to be under another event, then you'll have to custom code both events with the same custom movement.

Note that for the flash sprite, it would be completly black. You don't need to have a black event to have a shadow, because the flash will turn the charaset black. Also, don't check repeat movement on the movement in the paralle event, only the custom movement.

[Jek]

can i please have that chipset that you used in your first pic?

[Ruler of the Dark]

That was a topic kick.  May > July.

This could've easily been hhandled via PM.