XNA Map Editor - Alpha Version

[Cloud9_]

Link to Download: MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

Screenshots:
http://shackpics.com/files/MapEditor...xzki92gjhv.jpg
http://shackpics.com/files/MapEditor...fwh8jlbz4a.jpg
http://shackpics.com/files/MapEditor...95grz8xcue.jpg
http://shackpics.com/files/MapEditor...kyspo1eukv.jpg
http://shackpics.com/files/MapEditor...vx9pk5lhva.jpg
http://shackpics.com/files/MapEditor...y0xtxkot8s.jpg

V1.0b
- Each tileset can now hold up to 40 different tiles per layer
- UI changes to make it look better
- You can now only change the current drawing layer by shift+clicking the button
- added some new textures for everyone to play with
- fixed a bug that wouldn't let the first 'object' texture to draw
- you can now click and drag on the Collision layer for faster map making
- fixed a few bugs that crashed me on my system... although I found a few more but can't duplicate them

Included in this file is the tile engine, in-game map editor, and basic battle engine.

I really want to get feedback on the TileMap Editor... as its the only reason I released an alpha version. Is it easy to use? hard to use? Found any other bugs? is 40 tiles per layer too little? Too much? Any UI improvements? Do you think Keyboard Shortcuts would make it better? or is the simplicity of the mouse good enough? When my game is finished I'll release the tools used to make it, so i want feedback on how you guys like it.

Also, note on battles; They're boring atm. The logic is there, but the input and the 'look' of it is really not very pretty.

Title screen: Press NumPad 2 to start.
TestGame screen:
W - A - S - D = walk around
Hold 2 to run
Num5 to bring up Stats screen
1 to cancel out of any screens you may have brought up
Enter to start a battle
E to bring up Map Editor

Battle screen:
A or D for "Previous Player" and "next player"
W or S for "Previous battle command" and "Next battle command"
Numb2 to select command.
If command is fight, cycle enemies by pressing A or D, then "Enter" to attack.

Each party member gains exp based on the level difference between the monster and their own level.

MapEditor Screen:
There are directions all over the damn screen, so i hope you can figure it out.

Give feedback please, I've only been programming for a little while and need experience And thank you to those who already suggested some of the above changes!

Bugs already found:
- if you're in Collision mode, and you try to add a collision tile where the preview textures are, even though they're hidden, you can't. Thats an easy fix though... and to get around it just hit the arrow keys to move the camera around.

- if you shift + click "save" or "load" to save or load your map

- While testing in debug mode, i tried clicking places i knew i shouldn't and in output window i got:
A first chance exception of type 'System.IndexOutOfRangeException' occurred in TileEngine.dll

it didn't crash though because I have the section enclosed in a try / catch statement... Is there anything else I have to do to ensure that it wont crash if someone does that in a release?

Anyway, let me know what you guys think on how to improve the map editor

[Froofy-D]

Originally Posted by Cloud9_

- While testing in debug mode, i tried clicking places i knew i shouldn't and in output window i got:
A first chance exception of type 'System.IndexOutOfRangeException' occurred in TileEngine.dll

it didn't crash though because I have the section enclosed in a try / catch statement... Is there anything else I have to do to ensure that it wont crash if someone does that in a release?

Yeah just do a simple sanity check in the Tile Picking function (or whatever you call it). I assume you have something like:

- Tile Map: 2D array of tiles of size X,Y
- Tile Picking function: when you click the map, it converts the mouse pointer screen position to X,Y coordinates in the tile map.

In the Tile Picking function do something like:

- calculate X,Y tile coordinates of the clicked area
- if either coordinate is less than 0 or greater than X/Y (out of range of the tile array) then do nothing
- else select tile X,Y

[Froofy-D]

Tried it out. Should definitely allow mouse input for the game, not just the editor, for it to be user-friendly.

The editor is pretty fun. However it needs:

- 'undo' command
- didn't see a way to delete an Object
- you should keep the camera from being able to scroll too far off the map

[Cloud9_]

Originally Posted by Froofy-D

Tried it out. Should definitely allow mouse input for the game, not just the editor, for it to be user-friendly.

The editor is pretty fun. However it needs:

- 'undo' command
- didn't see a way to delete an Object
- you should keep the camera from being able to scroll too far off the map

heh and add new textures to that list

The undo command i was thinking about. I kept reaching for ctrl + z several times To delete an object, i have that mapped to right clicking the object right now... i think in the alpha release it was shift + left click.

The camera thing yeah, cool.. i'll add a clamp to it. I just got used to hitting 'space' to reset the camera when it got too far off the map on accident haha.

Thanks for the input man, i'll see if i can get an undo-command in there. Did you find any other bugs? (clicking off the screen i already fixed, it still gave an unhandled exception in the alpha)

[Froofy-D]

- maybe make it so you have to shift-click to change your paint brush, not just to change menu (i keep accidentally clicking them) but...

- but maybe that's because the tile selection menu sticks out to far into the scene. Align it to the right like in pic 1 + 2 below. That's how most 2D map editors do it (Starcraft, etc.). To enable maximum scene viewing area, and less tools menu area.

- in Pic 3, I couldn't touch those tiles. I think maybe the tile menu picking is enabled even though I can't see the tile menu.

[Cloud9_]

i actually had them lined up like that at the start, but i forget why i changed it.. there was something that i must have done wrong because I couldn't select a texture.

Im thinking of adding a way to just ONLY pop that up when you need to change a texture... that way i can have way more textures per TileSet, but i have not put much time into it yet

Oh, and yeah... you're dead on with the not being able to draw in the corner because the rectangles are still 'there' but not 'drawn' ... i changed that to 'dim' them in the release I have on my computer because it annoyed me to no end ;D