Easy tile swapping

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Started by Tsukihime 20 posts View original ↗
  1. This tutorial goes over the Tile Swap script that I have recently revised. Some new changes have been made that make the tile swapping process very intuitive and easy to use.

    Required

    Tile Swap

    Introduction

    There are some concepts and terminology that you would need to be familiar with

    before effectively using this script.

    Tilesets in Ace

    RMVX Ace's tileset design takes a single tileset and splits it into 5 different

    tileset pages (A, B, C, D, E). It then takes the A-page and breaks it down

    into 5 more parts (A1, A2, A3, A4, A5)

    Tile Layers

    There are three layers that tiles may be placed: 0, 1, and 2.

    0 is the bottom-most layer, while 2 is on the top.

    In general, pages A1, A2, A3, and A4 tiles are drawn on layer 0 and 1, while pages A5 B, C, D, and E tiles are drawn on layer 2.

    Depending on the draw-order, you may need to specify which

    layer a tile should be drawn on.

    Referencing Tiles

    This script uses a custom concept of a "tile ID", which is a special string

    that represents a particular tile on a tileset page.

    The format of a tile ID is a letter, followed by a number.

    • The letter is the tileset page.
    • The number is the position of the tile on that page.
    So for example, "A3″ would be the the third tile in tileset page A, whereas"B12″ would be the 12th tile of tileset page B.

    A fast way to calculate the position is to use the formula

    ((row - 1) * 8) + column
    It is very easy to look up the position of a tile: just look at your tileset page and number the top-left tile as 1. Then, numbering left-to-right, top-to-bottom, you would get something like this

    tileSwapGuide.jpg

    For page A, it is a little different. This is assuming you have all 5 parts.

    If you are missing any parts, you will need to skip them appropriately.

    To avoid all the unnecessary math, simply fill up the empty slots with dummy tilesets to make life easier.

    tileSwapDummy.jpg

    Example

    Now that you understand how tile ID's work, here is a working example.

    In the oasis map, I want to reveal a hidden staircase at the bottom of the oasis

    tileSwapEx1.jpg

    This means that I will need to swap the water tiles with some sand tiles, and then add some stairs.

    1. Get the tile ID of the water tile in (row 2, column 3, so ((2 - 1) * 8) + 3 = 11)

    2. Get the tile ID of the dark sand tile (row 4, column 1, so ((4 - 1) * 8) + 1 = 25)

    Both tiles are in tileset page A.

    tileSwapEx2.jpg

    The script call I want to use to swap all water tiles with sand tiles is

    tile_swap("A11", "A25")Now I want the staircase. It is in page B, near the bottom.tileSwapEx3.jpg

    I would need to specify where the stairs will appear. I can choose to use a region swap or a position swap. In this case, I will use a position swap

    If you read the documentation, you will notice that I have a "layer" parameter.

    Tiles on pages B, C, D, E should appear on layer 2. If you are not sure which layer things should be on, just remember that autotiles are usually on layer 0 or 1, and everything else is on layer 2. In fact this doesn't really matter THAT much but if you run into strange tile issues it might be a layer problem.

    I want the stairs to appear at (21, 27), so the script call would be

    pos_swap(21, 27, "B223", 2)Now I want to add some plants at the bottom of the oasis. I will use a region swap to swap in one of the plants in page B to any region 10 tiles.tileSwapEx4.jpg

    The plants I want to use are "B89", on layer 2, so the script call would be

    region_swap(10, "B89", 2) Finally, I create an NPC that will perform these script callstileSwapEx5.jpg

    And now I can test the final results

    tileSwapEx7.jpg

    tileSwapEx6.jpg

    All tile properties are swapped, such as passage settings, terrain tags, damage floor, etc. so can walk across the sand.

    tileSwapEx8.jpg

    It might be nice to fill the oasis with water again. Since we made several changes, it would probably be easiest to just revert everything.

    revert_allA more appropriate method is to revert each specific change

    Code:
    tile_revert("A11", 0)    # we changed A11 to A25, so now we want to revert changes to A11 on layer 0pos_revert(21, 27, 2)    # reverting changes on position (21, 27) layer 2region_revert(10, 2)     # reverting changes to region 10, layer 2
    tileSwapEx9.jpgTalking to the NPC would "put" the water back into the oasis

    tileSwapEx10.jpg

    By combining all three different types of tile swapping modes (tile ID, region ID, position), you can make interesting changes to the map dynamically and easily.
  2. I was thinking i didnt need this but after reading through the whole example it could come in handy!

    -Does the passiblity change with the swap tiles also? Meaning can you walk on the sand now?
  3. Yes, this is a full tile swap, and not just changing the appearance. Whatever properties you have given to that tile (passage settings, terrain ID's, damage tile, etc.) will be swapped.
  4. so could i use this to make a bridge appear and walk over it?
  5. Yes. you might do something like


    Making a bridge


    1. Add regions for each bridge tile


    tileSwapEx21.jpg


    2. Swap them appropriately


    tileSwapEx22.jpg


    Result


    tileSwapEx23.jpg


    There are many ways to do it. You could use position swapping as well.
  6. Crack in the wall


    Setup your smash event and the tile that should be replaced with a hole.


    I used a pos_swap event since I am only changing that one position.


    tileSwapEx31.jpg


    tileSwapEx32.jpg


    tileSwapEx33.jpg
  7. Nice script, might use it for stuff like building a fence or hidden entrances :3
  8. So essentially, you are using this tile set swapping script to replace blocks of events or additional maps for large changes, right?
  9. deb said:
    So essentially, you are using this tile set swapping script to replace blocks of events or additional maps for large changes, right?
    That would be one use, yes.

    It provides finer control over how you want to manage your map, and most importantly it gets around having to deal with *other stuff* on the map.

    If you have a river in a city with a hundred events and a whole bunch of switches/variables going on, you are probably going to run into issues if you transfer to a new map just to empty out the river. Plus, duplicate events is poor practice: if you make one change, you're going to have to remember to make the same change to all of the duplicate events. Not much different from duplicate functions in programming.

    The engine comes with a "change tileset" event command, which allows you to change the entire tileset.

    This script provides a "change tile" event command, which allows you to change individual tiles.
  10. Tsukihime said:
    The engine comes with a "change tileset" event command, which allows you to change the entire tileset.

    This script provides a "change tile" event command, which allows you to change individual tiles.
    For which I am very grateful, as I can think of somewhere in my game where this will save me a lot of trouble.

    Thanks
  11. pos_swap(x, y, tileID, layer, map_id)]
    I want to swap the tile at the player's X and Y coordinates, can you show me how to do it?
  12. Is there a wait command, so you can make the draining of the pool (or the crumbling of a wall) area by area?

    I imagine it would be something like setting a separate region designation to each set of tiles you want to be changed out at a certain time, with a wait script in between (maybe a second half second wait time).

    Does anyone have any ideas about the wait command?
  13. For the wait command you go with this. Use pos-swapping or something with wait commands in between.

    wxDpmbS.jpg

    I can't think of a more efficient solution.

    Some sort of "area" swap might be useful as well, where you specify the position along with a width and height (eg: 3x2 rectangle swap), but I will have to think about how to implement that.

    numbuh1 said:
    I want to swap the tile at the player's X and Y coordinates, can you show me how to do it?
    Code:
    x = $game_player.xy = $game_player.ypos_swap(x, y, tileID, layer, map_id)
  14. I apologize ahead if I'm doing something basic in a wrong way, but I constantly get this error when using your script:

    "Script 'TileSwap' line 131: NoMethodError occured.

    undefined method `upcase' for 65:Fixnum"

    I tried it even on a project where I use no other scripts, yet it still happens when I try running the event that's supposed to swap tiles.

    This is what I have written in the event script "region_swap(001, "A98", 1, 001)".

    I also tried using other types of swapping, yet they all result in the same error!

    Thanks ahead!
  15. I'm unable to reproduce the issue. Are you using the most recent script?


    Post a demo.
  16. This script is for VX Ace. I don't know if it will work with VX or not.
  17. I sincerely apologize for being so blind and somehow not seeing it's only for Ace! Sorry for taking your time away, but still, thank you very much for trying.

    I apologize once more... :)

    Do you think, though, there may be a chance of adapting it for VX? It's a brilliant script, I'm sure it would be of use to many.
  18. No, since testing in VX is too slow for me cause having to start it up takes like 10 seconds, but someone else can do so if they want.
  19. When I use this script in playtesting, I end up with one of 2 problems.

    If I put the script call for a region swap exactly as above, i.e region_swap(10, "B89", 2) then when I click on the event nothing happens.

    If I put a space between region_swap and the bracket (which is what I did in error the first time) then I get the error message

    Script 'Game_Interpreter' line 1411: SyntaxError occurred

    unexpected ',', expecting ')'

    region_swap (62, "D243", 2)

    Apart from that difference of the space, I cannot see how my formula differs from the example. 

    Similarly, when I use position swap, I get the error message:

    Script 'Game_Interpreter' line 1411: NoMethodError occurred

    undefined method 'upcase' for 0:Fixnum

    Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

    Thanks