Location map editing is really painful.

[Fauntleroy]

I copied an existing map into map C9, which is unused in the vanilla game.

The map works great... until I make any changes to the tiles. Like, any change at all.

Any tile I edit becomes impassable, even if I have tile properties set to walkable.

These tiles don't show as solid if I turn solidity view on, but I still can't move through them.

I don't get it. I must be missing something fundamental here but I'm just not seeing it.

[Mauron]

Could you save a PNG with with solidity view enabled?

I find setting explicit paste very helpful. Layer 1 should be the foreground, and Layer 2 should be the background.

[Cherenkov]

You seem to have quite the editing project going Fauntleroy, what kind of hack are you making? Or is it a secret until it is finished?

[Fauntleroy]

Mauron, when you say foreground and background--which is the layer that the sprites should move about on?  I could see it being either, depending on the situation.

Here's a PNG.  This is all on layer 1. As soon as the party moves into this location, they are locked in place.



Cherenkov: This is a pretty vanilla hack for the most part. But I've cleaned up the text, expanded some scenes, added more of the party members talking back and forth depending on who's in the group, put in a few new techs, added a few locations, there's some new weapons, etc.

The coup de grace (and what I'm working on right now) is a quest in 12,000 BC to rescue Schala. Someday, I'd like to do a 2.0 of this hack where Schala is the 8th playable character.

I don't know if you're familiar with my Playable Golbez Edition or General Leo Edition hacks on romhacking.net, but this is basically the Chrono Trigger version of that. Like, the 1995 Woolsey release, cleaned up, and updated with new content that the 15 year-old me wished for back then.

[Mauron]

Sprites are on a sprite layer. The default is to draw them above layer 1 and 2, but the priority setting can be used to place a layer 1 tile above a sprite.

Those are all very background tile looking. You want things with transparency in layer 1, like chairs and the leaves on trees.

What are the coordinates you used for entering the map?

[Fauntleroy]

So, the walkable areas and floor should be on level 2?

I guess I'm not seeing why this matters. Whether the map is drawn to level 1 or level 2, shouldn't the wide main area of the map still be passable?

I don't think it's a problem with the coordinates. For testing purposes, the party warps to the large open area. Here's a screen of what happens. All the tiles in this area are set to be walkable.

[Mauron]

The layers are important for general map building, not the walkability settings. Right now you couldn't add a ladder or crates to that map.

I'm not sure what's causing it.

Hmm, I kinda remember encountering something like this before. How are you getting the party there?

[Fauntleroy]

OK, I see what you're saying. I'll move the tiles to Layer 2. (Makes sense now that I think about it, since that's how the overworlds are set up.)

The party warps to this map from the Last Village overworld.

I've created several new locations but they all used maps that already existed in the data. I think there is something with the map properties or tile properties that I must be bungling when I try to create a new map.

[Mauron]

I'm kinda puzzled by the issue. Could you send me a patch and SRM file?

[Fauntleroy]

Sure! Thanks, Doc.

[Mauron]

I think I found it. That whole map is set to Z Plane: Transitional (Solid). Change it to Plane 1 and it should work.

[Fauntleroy]

Sweet! I'll have a chance to try this tomorrow night.

I had a feeling it had to be something like that.  Thank you for the diagnosis!


EDITED TO ADD: The long saga is over. It's working!

You have to disable ZPlane Solidity first. Then you can shift the Z Plane to Plane 1 and make the tiles passable.

What sucks is that tiles default to an impassible state but there's nothing in the documentation that explains this or how to change it.