Draw with selected title as the key 5 ?

dale_coop

Moderator
Staff member
Something really usefull would be a key to draw with the selected tile, like the key 5 is used.
(Or like the key 7 does with the tile type).
Because I often click-click-click just for draw some walls or grass empty areas. I could save some clicks and some seconds.
 

RadJunk

Administrator
Staff member
It's a great idea, AND whereas the original Mystic Searches Screen Tool And Game Engine made use of keys 6-0, they're not all innately functionaly the same way anymore and I think Josh has even removed 7 8 and 9. So we might be able to make one of those keys "paint the tile" and another "paint just the collision data of the selected tile" which comes in super handy sometimes!
 

dale_coop

Moderator
Staff member
Oh yes, it would be very great!
Or maybe paint with the selected title when keeping the left click held/pressed... something like that.
 

darkhog

New member
Or, you know, make it paint tiles while mouse button is being held down like in regular drawing program.
 

RadJunk

Administrator
Staff member
Yes, that's the idea, but it's not a *regular drawing program*. Since 'tiles' can be different sizes, and attribute data is handled one way, and collisions another, and tile data another, it's a bigger challenge than it might seem. You're doing a lot more than just painting with a brush.

For instance - key 5 can "erase" tiles by altering the single tile you're on to a 'null' tile. However, what if you have a 3x7 castle face tile you've created? The program would have to keep track of that tile's width and height to know if it should place another, which could get very complicated with the way attributes (colors) are handled on the NES. So it's not quite as easy at it might seem.
 

dale_coop

Moderator
Staff member
You right, paint would not be usable.
So can you (Josh and you) could bring back the « 7 » key functionality, it was so useful <3
 

darkhog

New member
TheNew8bitHeroes said:
Yes, that's the idea, but it's not a *regular drawing program*. Since 'tiles' can be different sizes, and attribute data is handled one way, and collisions another, and tile data another, it's a bigger challenge than it might seem. You're doing a lot more than just painting with a brush.

For instance - key 5 can "erase" tiles by altering the single tile you're on to a 'null' tile. However, what if you have a 3x7 castle face tile you've created? The program would have to keep track of that tile's width and height to know if it should place another, which could get very complicated with the way attributes (colors) are handled on the NES. So it's not quite as easy at it might seem.

Please get yourself a copy of RPG maker (any that's on Steam will do) and observe how it does behave when you try to paint multi-tile objects such as trees. This is the best example I can think off to solve it editor-wise.
 

RadJunk

Administrator
Staff member
Oh, I fully understand how to do it, but again, it's not that simple with our asset system. If EVERY asset was a 16x16 metatile, this would be simple. But since you can literally make any size asset that you want, this becomes a bit tough, as you have to determine where the *next* tile would start based on the width of the current tile, height of the current tile, etc. Not to mention, a program like RPG maker or GameMaker or Unity doesn't have to worry about things like painting attributes, which line up on a 32x32 grid, with quadrants that have to be defined...which of course, is not how assets themselves work. This is super complicated to do by any means, but trying to do what you're describing, for any sized asset, is incredibly complicated. Not impossible, but where there are so many things to better refine and fix, the inconvenience of clicking to add tiles is a bit low on our priority list! haha
 

erockbrox

Member
I thought collision data was always 16x16 in size. You are telling me that I can create a solid tile that is 12x7 in size?
 

RadJunk

Administrator
Staff member
It's always in 16x16 tiles...however ASSETS can be up to 8x8 tiles in size. You could make a house, for instance, made up of five tiles wide (16px x 5) and three tiles high (16px x 3) and make the middle of the bottom a portal while all the rest are solid, so you don't have to make houses tile by tile. So that's super possible.

If you made a house that was that size, and you were holding the 6 key to draw it, where would it know to draw "the next one"? That's the challenge.
 

darkhog

New member
Oh it's quite simple, it would draw graphics on a grid the size of house, starting with the offset from 0,0 to the first house's 0,0. Again, going back to RPG Maker example, in RM you can select any area in the tileset and place it pretty much like you do with assets in NM. Or you can draw it and it places precisely next to each other. Just look at this video. Yes, you may see me drawing "half assets" here, but just don't do it and draw the next house at the next possible position a house can be in.
 
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