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

[WarxePB]

Well, technically, it's stickied, but I do agree that it was not the greatest reason to bump a topic. Next time, Jek, please use a PM rather than bumping a thread.

EDIT: And also, Jek, please remove the link from your title and put it in your sig instead. It's stretching the forum needlessly.

[Meiscool-2]

Been awhile from meh last update. Now that I'm a bit better at mapping, I should probally just redo this entire tut... maybe.

Anyways, today I'm going to post how to do lighting effects.

First off, make your map.

Mine ended up looking like this:


Now, take a screenshot, or however many screenshots you need to create a whole map, and assemble them in paint.

Now, here's where you actually start doing things. First, make WHITE boxes/circles where ever you light to be. Also, any areas that you don't want Black in, color WHITE.

Mine looked like this:


The next thing to do, is go click 'image' at the top, and scroll down to 'attributes'. When there, click the circle saying: "Black and White" and press ok. This will turn the old image into this:


Alright, next, find a light overlay. If you don't have one, or don't know what it is, use this:


Cut the ENTIRE black and white image out onto the overlay. Most light overlays, like the one above, have several colors and shades of black and white to work with.

Next, open up the same overlay again in another paint window. Copy and paste from that overlay into places on the black and white picture with the white boxes. I got something that looked like this:


And lastly, set it up as a PICTURE with WHITE as it's transparent- background color. Make an event that lines the picture up with the screen, click: "Picture moves with screen" and animate it to where it's around 50% on up transparent. This will make it seem like a dark room with light coming through the windows.

The Final Product:

[DarkFlood2]

did you use different overlays for that final pic than the one you gave as an example?

[Tomi]

I was wondering how this was done...

[MrMister]

MiC, your overlays are so IN YOUR FACE overdone, though.
Like, I'd put the transparency much more.. transparencier.. on most of your screenshots.

[Meiscool-2]

Originally posted by DarkFlood2
did you use different overlays for that final pic than the one you gave as an example?

Yes.

Originally posted by MrMister
MiC, your overlays are so IN YOUR FACE overdone, though.
Like, I'd put the transparency much more.. transparencier.. on most of your screenshots.

Meh, I'm sure they are a bit less Transparent then they should be, and even though it's true that you can see better in-game then with screenshots when overlays are applied, I didn't feel like lowering the transparency then putting it back just to take screenshots.

[Linkizcool]

Cool, but how would you do flickering, like say from a fire or a lamp?

[Meiscool-2]

You would change the color or size of the picture by using RPG Maker.

Below: Use the red circle to change the color of the fire (make it darker or lighter) Use the blue circle to change size (like it's flickering, make it larger or smalled) and use the green circle to change it's transparency (make it brighter/more visible or darker)

[Linkizcool]

I know that, but how would you do the loop to make a flickering animation?

[Meiscool-2]

I'll post how to do that later. I'm feeling overly lazy at the moment.

[Linkizcool]

Lol, ok. Thank anyway.

[Me5kuTis]

Thanks for the tut. Now I'm not a total newb at mapping although I used the overlays and lightning effects a long time ago. I knew some advanced stuff but I sucked at the basics.  

[Meiscool-2]

Originally posted by Linkizcool
Lol, ok. Thank anyway.

EK! I never answered your question.

Alright, here's what your looping picture event should look like:

>Show Picture
> Begin Loop
      > Move Same Picture (Let's saw you're making a flickering fire, in that case, I would increase the size by 5%, make the color a little brighter, and increase the transparency by 10%, all over a 1 second time frame. Put Wait ON)
         *Because wait is on, you can go directly to the next command*
      > Move Same Picture back to original Show Picture Color, Size, and Trans. Put the wait to 10 or 1.0 second.
> End Loop

[GrooveMan.exe]

Hopefully, this topic is recent enough for this to not count as necro-posting.

You covered Castle towns, but what about modern towns with Skyscrapers and stuff? Modern buildings are a bit more rigid in design, so how do you stop them from becoming stale in maps?

[Linkizcool]

Sweet, thanks Meis!