A few concerns…

[jangofett287]

Hey guys, I'm back! Did anyone miss me? Didn't think so, I doubt anyone still here remembers me…

Anyway, nostalgia is not the point of this topic, this topic is firmly rooted in the present version of Eclipse.

I've come back after a great long time to find much has changed. Some for the better, some for the worse. Its good to see that progress is now being made and updates are happening, but I do have a concern. Hearing that a previously open source project went closed source set alarm bells ringing. Has anyone chased up the licences for the versions above EO4 in the 'code tree' that is the long and colorful history of the Eclipse Engine to check compatibility?

On a slightly lighter note, I'm starting a new game project, but can't find any info on the formats/layouts etc. for the art assets. I mean, I can see that they're all png files, but I have questions like;

Can I make the tiles an arbitrary size?

Can I make sprites an arbitrary size?

How do autotiles actually work?

What order do the frames come in on sprite sheets?

and so on...

Is there a handy-dandy "all you need to know about creating art assets for Eclipse" that I can send to my artist friend?

[jcsnider]

Welcome back. I am going to attempt to answer as many of your questions as possible. Please keep in mind that my answers apply for EO3, EO4 and anything based off of EO3 or ripped EO3's graphic loading system.

1\. Yes but we recommend you keep tilesets under 512 by 512 just for complete compatability with older systems that alot of 2d gamers seem to have. (Some graphic cards simply cannot handle large textures well.)

2\. Yes, when the sprite is handled in the engine the width/height of them are determined by the size of the graphic. Not a predetermined size like in the past. (This has been around since EO2).

3\. An autotile is a special kind of tile made up of a lot of 16 by 16 tiles. Basically you select the region that is desiginated as an "autotile" in your tileset and the game will connect pathways and such for you of the same autotile. (It is weird. If you try it out you will understand it much better than I can explain.)

4\. Same order as rpg maker xp. You can refer to this little guy off of a quick google image search :D.

There is no all-in-one guide that I know of but we are happy to answer all questions you may have.

[jangofett287]

2 more questions have come to mind while browsing the data folder:

How do I make fog?

and what is the purpose of the picture folder?

also, I'm assuming tilesets are always 8 columns wide, correct?

[jcsnider]

Fogs are a 256 by 256 pixel image like this one.


You can assign a fog to a map and it is tiled over the game screen.

Pictures are random images, they can be anything but it goes hand and hand with a newer event system command which is show/hide picture. Basically you can show pictures on the screen on command without programming.

[http://media.indiedb.com/images/articles/1/125/124262/auto/26.png](http://media.indiedb.com/images/articles/1/125/124262/auto/26.png)

Finally, no you CAN have 8 columns of tiles in your tileset but you are not restricted to 8.

[jangofett287]

Wait. If Tiles can be an arbitrary size, and tilesheets any number of columns wide, how does the engine know how big the tiles are?

[jcsnider]

Sorry. I misunderstood. Tilesheets as a whole are arbitrary (as to how many rows/columns of tiles you have) however each tile is 32 by 32 pixels, that is constant.