Map Editor w/ GAGE

Java 2D
#1

I have been playing with the gage stuff a little. I am thinking about starting a new project using it. Two Questions:

  1. Is there a map editor which is well featured enough for me to do an rpg with it. I can write a loader from map-> GAGE as long as the format is well documented.

  2. Could Gage be easily extended to isometric Games?

#2

  1. There is no map editor at this time. Mostly because there is no file format. Maps are handled as arrays of integers where each integer represents a tile image. You should be able to write a converter/loader program for just about any exisitng map editor. Alternativelty, you could write a converter to convert from some sort of text document to a map. A map editor exists for Planetation , but it’s pretty tied to the Planetation code. A converter would be best there.

  2. Dunno, I haven’t investigated it. I assume so since the map is exactly that, a map. You might need to tweak the engine to draw tiles overlapping, but otherwise I don’t see a problem.

#3

Thanks for the Quick Reply 8)

I know there isn’t a built in editor, what I meant was are there any (Java or Other) map Editors that have support for multiple layers, attributes on tiles,etc. Where the map file format is well documented, so I could write a reader for the format, and import it into gage.

#4

The closest one I know of is the Planetation editor. The editor does ISO and tile tagging, but parallax is beyond the capabilies of any map editor I’ve seen so far. You could just create each parallax map inidividually, then composite them in GAGE. (BTW, I don’t think Planetation yet does ISO in its rendering engine, just the map editor. Of course, maybe ZParticle fixed it and is going to come by and smack me. :))

Otherwise a bit of googling turns up results like these:

http://www.tilemap.co.uk/mappy.php
http://www.tenermerx.com/sc3maped/
http://www.greggman.com/pages/tume.htm

Don’t be afraid to hijack one from another game if it meets your needs. :slight_smile:

#5

JBanes;
I think i will write my own map editor that will use Gage under the covers, it will help me flesh out the attributes I need for the world/items anyways, and will give me good practice. Does Gage allow for the various layers(maps) to be of different resolutions(tile sizes) ?

#6

Does Gage allow for the various layers(maps) to be of
different resolutions(tile sizes) ?

Indeed it does! Each map is treated as one large image by the Parallax class, so the tile size doesn’t matter, only the total map size.

If you release your map editor (and loader APIs I assume), let me know and I’ll link to you. :slight_smile: