Questions reguarding tile limitations

I ran into some arbitrary limitations preventing me from making visually interesting maps, limitations that other mes games dont seem to have, im going to use a game called shatterhand as an example

1. How do i have more than 24 tiles per tileset? a bunch of games i tested had 64 tiles.
aHJxcwH.png


2. How do i make 8x8 tile assets ? shaterhand uses a bunch of 8x8 and 8x16 tiles in combination with 16x16 tiles for precision details.

Building screens in nesmaker feels like im playing with building blocks made for babies
kRjNg7b.png


while games like shatterhand are made out of lego blocks
2upwAPb.jpg


3. Is there a way to have different tiles from different sets on the same screen?
 

dale_coop

Moderator
Staff member
NESMaker limits to 16x16 for tiles. And you have access to only 1 tileset per screen.
Sorry
 

digit2600

Member
this is where you need to get clever with your paths and screen specific tiles. my game calls for some high detail as well... i found that the pathing system can really help add the fine detail you need and dynamically create interesting objects. it operates on an 8x8 grid also.
 

digit2600

Member
SuperMar10Brothe said:
Ill look into it, thanks.
Can i use paths to create 8 pixel height platforms instead of 16?

Not that I've discovered yet, but what I do to get "smaller height" platforms, is simply create a tile, half of which is black- While it might not be what you're looking for, it can either add a nice shadow- or if it is the same color as the background, give off the illusion of being narrower.
 

SuperNatetendo

New member
SuperMar10Brothe said:
Building screens in nesmaker feels like im playing with building blocks made for babies
kRjNg7b.png

To be fair, NESmaker is meant to be easy and versatile. Using 16x16 meta-tiles allows for a much larger game than using 8x8 tiles. There's a ton of optimization that can be done for specific games when you're just coding for that game, but there's a lot more that needs to be done for an engine to allow for infinite possibilities.

Shatterhand's code is only for shatterhand.

NESmaker's code is for Mystic Searches, Troll Burner, my game, your game, everyone's game.

A better analogy would be more like - you want to make an plastic action figure out of plastic legos. Same material, but one is meant for building and one is meant to be what it is.
 
I did a quick test using tiles from Shatterhand in NESmaker and got this.
NESmakerShatterTest.png
That's with just the 24 tiles. You could have even more tiles with screen specific/using paths.
You could make 8x8 tiles, build a test screen of them in Tiled and make larger needed (16x16) tiles from that (I did this for my PC game).
 

MistSonata

Moderator
NESmaker uses 16x16 metatiles for backgrounds because it saves on rom space, and the reason so much space is needed is because the code needs to be versatile enough to handle many many different types of video games. It needs to be versatile enough to make games that are as different as night and day. The developers of Shatterhand had the benefit of only needing to program for one game: the game they were making. If you want to make something as specialized as Shatterhand in NESmaker, you need to either learn how to program 6502 assembly, dig into the code, and especially tailor it to your needs OR you can wait and hope someone with enough programming knowledge posts the code you need to specialize the engine in the way you want. Joe has said that NESmaker can do anything the NES can do with the UNROM-512 board, and this is true, but in order to unlock the full potential of that you need to dig into the code.

Basically, to borrow your lego analogy, you're not experienced enough to play with big kid legos. You need to learn how first.
 
digit2600 said:
SuperMar10Brothe said:
Ill look into it, thanks.
Can i use paths to create 8 pixel height platforms instead of 16?

Not that I've discovered yet, but what I do to get "smaller height" platforms, is simply create a tile, half of which is black- While it might not be what you're looking for, it can either add a nice shadow- or if it is the same color as the background, give off the illusion of being narrower.

UltraNarwhal said:
I did a quick test using tiles from Shatterhand in NESmaker and got this.
NESmakerShatterTest.png
That's with just the 24 tiles. You could have even more tiles with screen specific/using paths.
You could make 8x8 tiles, build a test screen of them in Tiled and make larger needed (16x16) tiles from that (I did this for my PC game).

Thanks


MistSonata said:
NESmaker uses 16x16 metatiles for backgrounds because it saves on rom space, and the reason so much space is needed is because the code needs to be versatile enough to handle many many different types of video games. It needs to be versatile enough to make games that are as different as night and day. The developers of Shatterhand had the benefit of only needing to program for one game: the game they were making. If you want to make something as specialized as Shatterhand in NESmaker, you need to either learn how to program 6502 assembly, dig into the code, and especially tailor it to your needs OR you can wait and hope someone with enough programming knowledge posts the code you need to specialize the engine in the way you want. Joe has said that NESmaker can do anything the NES can do with the UNROM-512 board, and this is true, but in order to unlock the full potential of that you need to dig into the code.

Basically, to borrow your lego analogy, you're not experienced enough to play with big kid legos. You need to learn how first.

Sorry i just thought that was what modules were for, to offset that load of the main engine and only give it what it needs to handle the specific game type instead of being a swiss army knife by itself
Also this kinda goes against the whole "Make NES games without writing a line of code!" because this tagline is what made me spend money on this, my job takes priority so i cant spend that much time on this.

about the big kid lego, no need to be smarmy, big kid blocks would be something like lego technic with programable computer modules and stuff
lASsTNr.jpg


i just want the blocks in between the baby blocks and thechinc blocks.

so simply an explanation that you cant use 8x8 blocks in nesmaker because the way its setup to save rom space, would been enough.
 

MistSonata

Moderator
SuperMar10Brothe said:
MistSonata said:
NESmaker uses 16x16 metatiles for backgrounds because it saves on rom space, and the reason so much space is needed is because the code needs to be versatile enough to handle many many different types of video games. It needs to be versatile enough to make games that are as different as night and day. The developers of Shatterhand had the benefit of only needing to program for one game: the game they were making. If you want to make something as specialized as Shatterhand in NESmaker, you need to either learn how to program 6502 assembly, dig into the code, and especially tailor it to your needs OR you can wait and hope someone with enough programming knowledge posts the code you need to specialize the engine in the way you want. Joe has said that NESmaker can do anything the NES can do with the UNROM-512 board, and this is true, but in order to unlock the full potential of that you need to dig into the code.

Basically, to borrow your lego analogy, you're not experienced enough to play with big kid legos. You need to learn how first.

Sorry i just thought that was what modules were for, to offset that load of the main engine and only give it what it needs to handle the specific game type instead of being a swiss army knife by itself
Also this kinda goes against the whole "Make NES games without writing a line of code!" because this tagline is what made me spend money on this, my job takes priority so i cant spend that much time on this.

about the big kid lego, no need to be smarmy, big kid blocks would be something like lego technic with programable computer modules and stuff
lASsTNr.jpg


i just want the blocks in between the baby blocks and thechinc blocks.

so simply an explanation that you cant use 8x8 blocks in nesmaker because the way its setup to save rom space, would been enough.

I feel like this is the reason myself and other people don't like the "no programming required" tagline, while it's technically true, it creates the expectation that you're going to have a full degree of control over your game just like you would if you were programming from scratch, and that's just not true. NESmaker is incredibly versatile, but you need to know assembly to make full use of that versatility, at least for now. Like I said in the previous post, if you're adamant on not learning any assembly, you have the option to wait until someone comes up with code that will do what you want to accomplish. NESmaker is still very young, and I wouldn't be surprised if, a couple years from now, there isn't a code you can plug in that allows you full control over your tiles. The only thing you really need to do is wait, NESmaker is still very young, but there's a lot of passion in the community so far.

And yes, I was being smarmy with what I said about the legos, but honestly the analogy was fairly insulting to begin with. Making video games is super complicated, and any game-making program that allows you to make a game without programming is not going to give you the same degree of control that you would have if you were utilizing the programming language. You should expect the amount of control you have to be limited, you should expect the baby blocks, because using the technic blocks in this analogy is writing your own engine from scratch, and the in-between is coding custom scripts in NESmaker. I think it was Kasumi that said it, but programming in assembly is pretty easy, the hard part of programming for the NES is dealing with the limitations of the system, which NESmaker mostly takes care of for you. This is why I'm able to write my own path drawing script, but I'm nowhere near to the point where I could write an NES game from scratch.

So, just explaining that NESmaker can't do 8x8 blocks is essentially untrue. It CAN do 8x8 blocks (in fact, for the special screens, that's exactly what it does), but right now it won't be able to do it unless someone writes the code that allows you to use the 8x8 drawing code for gameplay screens. Problem is, not everyone has the time for all that, and I recognize that you're one of those people. My recommendation would be to try to be creative with the limitations of the tool as they are now. There are several people making stunning looking games, despite having to use metatiles, because they find creative solutions to the problems they run into. Embrace the limitations, because no matter how versatile NESmaker becomes, there will always be limitations to deal with.
 
lol well im not adamant on not learning it, i will pick it up naturally over time messing with other people's scripts, thats how i learned HTML and PHP when i was a kid and than LSL (second life scripting) later on. I was just frustrated because i always wanted to make my own nes game and it felt like nesmaker was dangling a carrot in front of me.
 

chronosv2

New member
As Joe has said in the past, the engine is still under heavy development and things we make might break anyway, so now's the time to learn rather than working on your opus.
So it is kinda' dangling that carrot, until the system becomes more stable, more feature rich and those of us in the community fill in some of the gaps that go beyond the scope of NESMaker. :)
 
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