TileMaps and Tiles

Java 2D
#1

I’m not really sure if this community is one of those “sensitive” communities in regard of creating new topics =P

anyway

here is the deal, just a short question:
If you are making a game using TileMaps, any game from sidescollers to RPGs, you would have a default tile size, like 16x16, 32x32 or something like that.
Now my question is, if you would like to display a image, larger tile than the tile size… would you just load it regardless or like slice it into tile size parts ?

I’m developing a Sidescroller and I have used 64x64, which was too much actually, so I switched to 16x16 now. And it works well. Of course I have a map editor and for example for background I would still just put a 128x128 image on a 16x16 field, and the fields/tiles which would be overlayed are simply NULL, you know…
no problems there if its background of course

but when doing collisions its kinda hard that thing and… I guess I could slice then every image into 16x16

my real question is: how is it done ? by mainstream developing ?

#2

I’m not an expert for this, but I have done some tests.
I end up to have any size tiles (32x32 for base tile and far more for house/tree) store in an array.
For collision / interaction, I use another array base only on a 32x32 tiles.

My test was a 3/4 view so I also add 2 other tile layers (tile always behind and tile always under sprites).

#3

If your game uses a fixed grid for tiles I would suggest you keep your tiles to exactly that size or it’ll get very confusing.

On the other hand I can appreciate that occasionally it’s easier to work with larger images (like maybe a single tree sprite) instead of piecing together lots of tiles. This was one of the reasons why I made Analog, as it allows you to place sprites freely without being constrained to a grid.

It sounds like you’re using a single data structure for both your visual map (the sprites) and the collision data - I would recommend separating out the two. Then you can have a 16x16 collision map along with (say) a 128x128 background map and a 16x16 main map.

However without knowing what you want your game to look like and what your current sprites look like it’s hard to recommend anything specific.

#4

@Bonbon-Chan

ya seems like I will go for 32x32 too

actually, that is what everyone would say, but it isn’t… I can see what tiles are filled and which are not and where there is graphic content present…

well here is the deal: I’ve got 5 Layers
1 - WideBackground (used for open field views and perspective enhance)
2 - normal background (may be empty because there is only widebackground, if for example you would walk on a gigantic empty landscape =P)
3 - is interactive stuff (in my map editor I would put npcs and enemies here which are then inserted at those points in the game. But this layer would also be any field you could interact with, like switches or plot devices)
4 - structures, as i call them ( walls and stuff you collide with, the real level really)
5 - overlay graphics, again for enhance

so at the moment every tilemap has the sam tile size (16) which will change to 32 soon.
the only thing you would do is the widebackground layer, smaller than the others, for scolling and stuff