CrayDragon's Mapping Dark Forest with Mack Tiles Tutorial

Here's a tutorial on creating
Dark Forests and Jungles
...with Mack's tiles! by CrayDragon
Look at the bottom for the final product!

Part 1: Base

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This is the point where I'm always thinking to myself: This map is not gonna be good...
Fear not, it'll get better.
Using the tree autotiles, make some blotches here and there.

Now fill in the grass. This should be very easy if you know how to create shapes other than squares.

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Part 2: Randomizing Trees

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Now, as soon as the words "dense forest" and "tile b" come into your mind, don't just go gallivanting off making SQUARES.

Eeeugh! No! Squares suck. So now what?
Pick a tree, any tree, and place it at random intervals of the map. But don't let this one take up too much room,
as you'll need to have room for other trees too.

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Now, take another kind of tree and place it at only semi-random places. Use the first trees as guidelines.
You will end up taking off bits of the previous trees. We'll fix that later.

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Yes, yes my pretties! Randomize! But leave walking space for the player. If not, the player will be caught at a dead end when he's supposed to keep going, and that's no good.
Once again, keep adding trees and pay attention to the boundaries of where the player can walk.

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Part 3: Little Plants

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Pay. Attention. To the boundaries. That's most of what I have to say here.
So, it's a bit hard to see, but I placed little bushes here in exchange for some tree bits. Once again, we will replace those. You'll see how.

Those I set as impassable. the next is a teensy bit tricky, so don't fall asleep.

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I've set up some flower patches here and there. But there is a desired order for them to be placed.

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From Left to Right, it goes from Outside to Inside.

Part 4: Events

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And now, we add empty events to fill in the spots we removed.
Like so....

And make sure whichever ones you want the player to walk under are set to "Above Characters" priority!
Make a new event now. Parallel Process. Top corner of the map (so its easy to find).
Click tint screen, and for best results, do the following:

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Of course, if it doesn't look right to you, you may tweak it.
Make sure the amount of frames to wait is 1, and tick off the box that makes the player wait!

Things you may want to consider about forest mapping (optional):

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You may want to improve the quality of your maps by using scripts.
One place to begin might be Woratana's Multiple Fog Script.

To add Woratana's Multiple Fogs Script for ACE go grab it here:
woratana-multiple-fogs-for-ace

To add Woratana's Multiple Fogs Script for VX go grab it here:
Woratana's Multiple Fog (VX)
**note that the script is in a VX game with many other scripts by Woratana**

Using this image
(put it in Graphics/Pictures)

along with Woratana's Multiple Fog script, in the event that does Tint Screen, use the event command Script (not Comment!) to prompt the following command:

Code:

$fog.name = 'ForestShade'$fog.hue = 0$fog.tone = [0,0,0,0]$fog.opacity = 41$fog.blend = 0$fog.zoom = 100$fog.sx = 0$fog.sy = 0$fog.show(1)

look down for the result.

And so, now I give you the result!
Please note, I took away some of the things I had in the previous images and added a script for the tree canopy shadow across the map.