Tile Layering
 

Basically you have three types of layers for tiles:

• Blockable
• NonBlockable
• Objects

Blockable tiles would be walls and stuff

NonBlockable tiles would be ground tiles (Grass, water, dirt, etc.)

Objects are the chairs, tables, beds, etc.

How this works is you first select the tiles that would be blocking the player, like the walls, a house, fence, trees, etc... Then you add your next layer, grass, floor tiles, and so on. (You don't need to do this, you can switch back and forth between the three layer tabs) Then you add the objects.

Blockable appears over the nonblockable tiles, and the object tiles appear over everything.

As TBE suggested in my other thread that I briefly suggested this idea in, there would be a new level format. There should also be an easier way to add tiles to the tileset without replacing other ones.

hmm would it not be better if you could lay the tileset out, on a layer below the player, (non block), on the same level as the player (block), and above the player (non block)?

Why would you have tiles above the player, I don't understand. Only way that would be useful is for going through a door, under a wall.

Anyway, you can edit each tile in some options and set them, like:

You enter the options, then you see a tileset image, and you click the tile you want to edit. Big X through a tile means it blocks; Big circle through a tile means it doesn't block; arrow or some other symbol shows it above the player.

RPGMaker uses this concept for thier program.

Exactly so you can make snazy tree's that you walk behind and also the npcs should be able to be placed on the different layers removing the need for drawunderplayer drawoverplayer ect... also 3 layers is good
1 under
2 same level
3 above
objects should be in the tileset and tilesets should allow for transparency and also allow for extension the .nw type 1 format should be able to handle a larger width on the image transparencies of course would only work right on top and middle layers. well thats all im slezpy 3and a half hours of sleep last night isnt that wonderfull?? now i go to school then to work get off @ 1:00am and do it again yay l8r

Pretty much EXACTLY what i said?

Hmm, so like 4 layers? Blocking, drawunder, drawover, and other? Hmm Sound good

other? no. draw over is other

im sorry then robin your exactly right then i didn't see what you said

Here is a screenshot from RPG Maker, showing the database, and tileset properties, there is more to it though.

I dont think anyone has said this but maybe....
You could define layers in the editor?
like maybe I want my level to have 5 layers then I just change the layer # to five and define each layer as *blocking / nonblocking / object(which is also blocking duh)
And I guess an option / checkbox for if that layer supports transparencies . Sound good?

I understand what you mean :P

Layer 1... then Layer 2 goes on top of that, and Layer 3... and so on and so forth.

What if you have a set of tiles that are intricate in that they have lots of diagonals? To my knowledge, Graal does not support tiles with diagonal sides (which would be useful :p)

Layering would be nice and it would lower the number of NPCs needed to achieve said effect.

Yeah, a new file format is a must to keep everything allready made as it is, but you could even have layers where players where attached to a certain layer too? like for houses ? and maybe im a stealthy guy and I want to attack someone by jumping out of a tree that would be cool to have the player attached to ground layers also :) That would make for nice bridges with out attachtoobj which I still don't have a perfect grasp on
Stairs could be an npc that just changed which layer the player was attached too ;) dunno just random ideas :D

*bump*

Very nice idea! :)

Whilst bumping here is something similar to subject that I made :)
http://forums.graal2001.com/forums/s...threadid=52019

Stefan must see!