Tile Sizes and Defining Brushes
by Seth Willits · in Torque Game Builder · 03/05/2005 (12:50 am) · 21 replies
When I hold Option (I'm on a Mac) and drag the left mouse button to define a brush in the tile editor, nothing happens. I'm thinking this is a bug? I haven't seen it mentioned in any other threads.
As for the tile sizes, I originally had 8x8 tiles (I stole them and they were tiny to begin with), but in the tile editor i was seeing some funny artifacts, almost like the editor when reading the tiles was offset a bit. Tiles that should have been a solid color, were showing up with teeny pieces of the tiles next to them. I scaled the image up from 8x8 tiles to 64x64 tiles, and this seems to be gone, though it seems weird to me why this happened at all.
The image was 128x64. Now at 1024x256 with the cellWidth and Height as 64, it seems fine.
Another question, can I use imageCount and set it to.... 57 or something and then the editor will only read 57 tiles from the image?
As for the tile sizes, I originally had 8x8 tiles (I stole them and they were tiny to begin with), but in the tile editor i was seeing some funny artifacts, almost like the editor when reading the tiles was offset a bit. Tiles that should have been a solid color, were showing up with teeny pieces of the tiles next to them. I scaled the image up from 8x8 tiles to 64x64 tiles, and this seems to be gone, though it seems weird to me why this happened at all.
datablock fxImageMapDatablock2D(tilesImageMap)
{
mode = cell;
cellWidth = 8;
cellHeight = 8;
cellCountX = 16;
cellCountY = 7;
textureName = "~/client/images/tiles";
};The image was 128x64. Now at 1024x256 with the cellWidth and Height as 64, it seems fine.
Another question, can I use imageCount and set it to.... 57 or something and then the editor will only read 57 tiles from the image?
About the author
http://www.sethwillits.com/
#2
03/05/2005 (1:15 am)
I'll wait until they're confirmed or I'm at least told I'm not doing something stupid before I post there. Adminsitrative/Forum Suggestion to T2D owners 
#4
Thanks for the reports. Re: option key on Mac, Torque in general sometimes has problems with that key. We'll either fix the detection or re-bind the tile commands / keys for OS X in the future.
Re: tiles, bleeding, and seems... I haven't seen this before. Are you sure the source art is formatted exactly as you want it? No pixel gaps or off-by-ones anywhere? Melv and I will try to check this out, but I've got a bunch of stuff to do today, so we might not get a chance until later. Could you post your tiles somewhere so we and/or other folks here in the forums could test with them? Thanks!
03/05/2005 (11:44 am)
Hi Seth,Thanks for the reports. Re: option key on Mac, Torque in general sometimes has problems with that key. We'll either fix the detection or re-bind the tile commands / keys for OS X in the future.
Re: tiles, bleeding, and seems... I haven't seen this before. Are you sure the source art is formatted exactly as you want it? No pixel gaps or off-by-ones anywhere? Melv and I will try to check this out, but I've got a bunch of stuff to do today, so we might not get a chance until later. Could you post your tiles somewhere so we and/or other folks here in the forums could test with them? Thanks!
#5
03/05/2005 (11:48 am)
The art exactly as I want yes. I can post it so you guys can double check. The seams appear depending on what size the tiles are being scaled to. And I have the seen the funny artifacting as well. I'll take a shot of that and post it too. Gimme a few minutes... 
#6
03/05/2005 (11:53 am)
I get alot of the tile, but its not const. i.e it mght only appear every 4th row but then not every tile in that row would be affected, strange, i'll check this out with just 1 tile per tile set, this will just confirm for me if its the multi tiled sets or not
#7
The tiles are here: this is the big 64 tile version:
Yes it's Super Mario Brothers 1
03/05/2005 (11:53 am)
These clouds should look identical, though they don't.The tiles are here: this is the big 64 tile version:
Yes it's Super Mario Brothers 1
#8
03/05/2005 (11:55 am)
Odd I don't have seems, but I am using key style tiles
#9
03/05/2005 (11:55 am)
Key style?
#10
Since video hardware samples textures though, using keyed maps can lead to color bleeding....
Seth, thanks for the post re: art. We'll try to take a look here in the next few days. Well, personally, I'm slammed w/ GDC preparations, so I doubt I'll get around to it until after next week myself. :/
03/05/2005 (2:12 pm)
Color-key, see the tech overview or reference guide for detailed info, but this is a method of pulling frames in an imageMap from a picture where each frame is divided by a particular color. Lots of times the color is hot pink or pure-green... the image is chunked up into sections with each section surrounded by the key-color; T2D then reads the image and loads each color-separated section as a frame.Since video hardware samples textures though, using keyed maps can lead to color bleeding....
Seth, thanks for the post re: art. We'll try to take a look here in the next few days. Well, personally, I'm slammed w/ GDC preparations, so I doubt I'll get around to it until after next week myself. :/
#11
03/05/2005 (2:15 pm)
No prob. Seams are cool with me at the moment. I'm more interested in figuring out collisions and animated characters :^) 
#12
- Melv.
03/06/2005 (4:24 am)
Seems in tiles are on the list of things to do. Carry on with your games, let us sort that out for you. :)- Melv.
#13
03/06/2005 (11:06 am)
Very well. Off to get Mario jumping...
#15
03/06/2005 (11:39 am)
Hey, about the Alt key not working on the Mac, it's because somehow "alt" is bound to the Command key instead. It works every time here.
#16
03/06/2005 (1:15 pm)
Another bug..... If you define a brush to be 4 tiles in a square, and then drag over an area to apply it, the area isn't divided up into 4 tile pieces and then painted with the brush, instead, the top left tile of the brush is painted on to every tile in the area.
#17
I'm willing to change this behaviour though. Never did like it myself but I assumed that it would've changed by now in mappy and that it had a purpose.
- Melv.
03/06/2005 (2:52 pm)
This is by design. It's the way Mappy works.I'm willing to change this behaviour though. Never did like it myself but I assumed that it would've changed by now in mappy and that it had a purpose.
- Melv.
#18
Another thing, it appears collision info and all that isn't stored with the brush either. This makes applying collisions to all the tiles in a world that need to be a very laborious process. Additionally, brushes themselves aren't saved anywhere. Also, when fiddling with defining brushes, I often obliterated the current brush by picking a single tile from the image library. I think it'd be wise for Brush 0 to be reserved only for picking a single tile from the image library. Then whenever you pick a tile from the image library, it automatically picks Brush 0 so that you don't accidently obliterate whatever brush you were currently working with.
03/06/2005 (3:32 pm)
I think it makes absolutely no sense :)Another thing, it appears collision info and all that isn't stored with the brush either. This makes applying collisions to all the tiles in a world that need to be a very laborious process. Additionally, brushes themselves aren't saved anywhere. Also, when fiddling with defining brushes, I often obliterated the current brush by picking a single tile from the image library. I think it'd be wise for Brush 0 to be reserved only for picking a single tile from the image library. Then whenever you pick a tile from the image library, it automatically picks Brush 0 so that you don't accidently obliterate whatever brush you were currently working with.
#19
I originally had Brush#0 as the brush used when clicking in the image-selection. During testing, this was changed on request from a few people. We added the overwrite query so that doesn't happen as well.
Of course, this can be changed back again.
These editors will be changing considerably anyway so in the meantime I could post to show you how to make that minor mod.
- Melv.
03/06/2005 (11:09 pm)
All the info is stored with the brushes. This has been used/tried repeatedly. Maybe it doesn't work occasionally but it does work. Brushes arn't saved? You can load/save brushes from the brush-menu.I originally had Brush#0 as the brush used when clicking in the image-selection. During testing, this was changed on request from a few people. We added the overwrite query so that doesn't happen as well.
Of course, this can be changed back again.
These editors will be changing considerably anyway so in the meantime I could post to show you how to make that minor mod.
- Melv.
#20
Ahh... I see the overwrite query now. I didn't realize that the menu item was a toggle or what it did. That's a good way to handle it I guess, though if the default was to confirm it, I wouldn't have had this question.
Thanks again for pointing out my lack of eyesight and stupidity :^)
03/06/2005 (11:20 pm)
Okay.... I'm starting to feel really silly. I totally missed the brush saving. And I swear the tile info wasn't stuck in the brush when i tried it, but it is now. Ahh... I see the overwrite query now. I didn't realize that the menu item was a toggle or what it did. That's a good way to handle it I guess, though if the default was to confirm it, I wouldn't have had this question.
Thanks again for pointing out my lack of eyesight and stupidity :^)
Torque Owner Peter Dwyer
You should move these posts to the bug forum if you think they are bugs. You'll get a quicker reply there.