I’ve just got through implementing the first iteration of a tile map editor for eclipse.
I’ve called it the Games Developer Plugin because I hope that if anyone thinks of additional tools they’d like to see integrated with Eclipse they’d let me know and we end up with one consolidate plugin.
Anyway… its here:
http://www.cokeandcode.com/gdp
Kev
hmmm.
I did a JAI plugin for Ant awhile back.
I wonder if you could so something similar with a gui for Eclipse.
Image processing is a basic part of game development.
What sort of image processing were you thinking of? Just sort basic art package stuff (pixel maniup) - or contrast/brightness/tone changes?
If you spec out what you’d like / let me know what was in your plugin I can happily stuff it into the plugin.
Kev
a nice feature i’d like to see is the ability to add entities to the map (like characters, enemies, portals, airoplanes) not sure how it would fit in with the tile map editor maybe it could be saved into another map style file, also what would be cool is a menu to modify these entities like color, type, path to move on? etc. maybe an xml style config file to edit the way the gui looks for entity editing.
Yep, as far as I’m concerned that fits happily into the tile map designer. The config file can list the entity types (much like tiles at the moment), the editor can support placement and properties of the entities. I’ll do that just as soon as much current project gets as far as needing entities 
Kev
how about multi layer map support, could be useful for a side scroll platformer with parallax scrolling
i have attached some screenshots of a half-finshed level editor of mine that for a zelda like game, as u can see it allows you to define links, sign grab and move tiles around the map, insert and define predeined tiles and select baddys, it also allows you to dump a fullsize image of the map as a png.
Yeah, I had a very similar tool (albeit a bit more scripty) for Mini Adventure. Thats exactly the sort of thing I never want to have to write again I want a generic to build a generic simple tile map editor that I don’t have to re-write each time I build a game. More - I don’t want to keep changing tool - IDE me man!
You have reminded me of something I use alot for Mini Adventure tho, different size tiles… tho there are many different ways to deal with storing them in the data… not quite sure whats the most common.
The current editor has room for layers but doesn’t implement them yet (since I haven’t quite decided whether I want to make tiles specific to layers, i.e. grass must always be level zero, or let any tile be at any level). With parallax scrolling you’d kinda want to have layers indpendently moveable, not quite sure whether that’d just make the tool hard to use.
Kev
for storing the data, i used GZip compresed binary files as they need to be small. but maybe some form of xml would be more generic, like in Tiled where the compressed data is inside an l field.
The output format for this one is initially is just an xml file coupled with a flat encoded binary file. I don’t much see the point of zipping things up if you’re going to stick them in Jars anyway.
However, I’m probably going to add an interface to allow developer to plugin their own map formats rather than having to stick to the one I came up with. At the moment it just about getting the GUI to have controls for enough to make it useable (although I’m currently happily using it for my stuff)
Kev
the reason for compression is that the level files will be sent over the internet in the game.
Please, no.
What you’re doing isn’t even a be-all and end-all for map design for games, let alone all the other parts.
Personally, I would only like to pull in the individual things I want - eclipse is enough of a memory hog already.
I guess that makes sense. I’d probably compress the stream rather than the actual file is you see what I mean.
Wow, shocker. Whats more it isn’t even the be all and end all for tilemapped games. Nothing can ever be.
That’d make it much harder to have integration between the different parts. But heh, I never expected you’d use it anyway
Kev
I meant “…so why do you want to call it the be-all and end-all?”
Maybe I’ve misunderstood / misread the name?
Ah. From my lay understanding of the eclipse view + perspective + etc workings, I thought you could have one perspective with many independent modules that plugged in to it. That’s not the case then, I take i?
I think maybe you’ve read to much in to the name. What I meant above was - “I’m not calling it the TileMap Editor Plugin because I want to add more things to it”.
Thats not so far off, its just you’d normally have a feature built up of a set of plugins (which of course you could deliver seperately - allowing you your flexibility) but are generally delivered together (from an update site).
However, I’ve yet to come up with anything more, so I guess I might aswell just give up and stick to the Tile Map Editor.
Kev
Oops. :-[ don’t mind me
When you start doing things other than tile map editing you start getting into level editing which to me seems to be game and implimentation specific. So, personally, I’d shy away from someone elses editor because I’d have to code to accomodate their assumptions; about map files, trigger layouts, etc…
Yeah, I’ve argued the very same thing many times. Map file format can be accomadated fairly reasonably with some sort of plugin system to allow developers to plugin in how they want to write it out - tho given the set of information that needs ot be saved from a generic level editor its probably more ego driving us to need to a specific level format than anything else.
Trigger/Additional information is absolutely true tho, this always ends up being game specific. This ends up with the developer fitting their needs to the properties system rather than the editor fitting the developer. Personally, I nearly always end up with a set of properties on entities/tiles that describe scripts/classes that get run when their interacted with.
Either way, it still comes down to, it you don’t think it fits you, don’t use it.
Kev
For anyone who is interested in using it I’ve just uploaded a 0.2.0 version which contains support for placing and configuring entities on the map (useful for monsters etc…)
Kev
i get an error when trying to create a new map
i’ve test on two different computers both places get the same thing
one was windows xp running eclipse 3.2
second is a linux running eclipse 3.1.1