Starbound Tiled discussion

May 08 12:42:23 <Kawa> metadept, you know what'd be cool?
May 08 12:43:32 <Varixai|work> <not meta>  What?
May 08 12:43:46 <Kawa> Word on the tiled stuff.
May 08 12:44:12 <Deloi> My guess would have been space penguins, but we have those allredy.
May 08 12:44:33 <Varixai|work> that would be fantastic. (the adapted Tiled that is)
May 08 12:44:43 <metadept> well there's like
May 08 12:44:45 <Kawa> Fun fact: if there's only one mobile penguin in the entire game, you don't really need a whole species for 'em.
May 08 12:44:55 <metadept> a script that generates tilesets based on the assets
May 08 12:45:00 * Kawa nods
May 08 12:45:04 <Kawa> I thought that'd be a thing.
May 08 12:45:05 <metadept> (using a utility that isn't yet distributed)
May 08 12:45:19 <metadept> and it can update the tilesets in a way that doesn't break things *if* you use them correctly
May 08 12:45:20 <Kawa> I made my own, but I might've done it wrong?
May 08 12:45:24 <Kawa> :D
May 08 12:45:55 <metadept> then you export the maps to json and put them through another utility that's an optimizer to take out the unused data
May 08 12:46:02 <Kawa> Right.
May 08 12:46:06 <metadept> buuuut i'm not sure how it works with mods
May 08 12:46:16 <Kawa> Only one way to find out ;)
May 08 12:46:26 <metadept> i think it'd take some modification of the tileset generator to allow it to specify a location
May 08 12:46:41 <metadept> currently it uses the actual root asset loader i believe
May 08 12:46:51 <metadept> and it's very possible to mess things up in a variety of ways
May 08 12:47:08 <metadept> whereby you'd get objects in tiled maps replaced with other objects and such
May 08 12:47:13 <Kawa> TBH I for one have only one or two custom materials. Unless you meant objects too...
May 08 12:47:45 <metadept> the way tiled handles objects is not ideal
May 08 12:47:50 <metadept> and materials too i guess
May 08 12:47:54 <metadept> based on positional indexing
May 08 12:47:59 <Kawa> My alternative: a TMX-JSON to PNG converter. Probably looks more like gnome barf than regular PNG blockmaps but HEY!
May 08 12:48:23 <metadept> hahah
May 08 12:48:44 <Kawa> It's... feasible, right?
May 08 12:49:14 <metadept> well we were hoping to not spend TOO much more time on it, and not to have to go back to PNGs, but we're still experimenting with the tiled stuff
May 08 12:49:22 <metadept> so nothing's set in stone
May 08 12:49:27 <Kawa> Were I to make such a thing I'd even have test data like the Monolith to work with :)
May 08 12:50:26 <metadept> ideally it'd be an exporter from tiled itself though, rather than having to export tmx to json to png
May 08 12:50:31 <metadept> if you were to do such a thing
May 08 12:50:44 <metadept> i dunno
May 08 12:51:05 <metadept> if you're interested in helping you should talk to tccoxon sometime, he's the one who's done the tiled stuff
May 08 12:55:51 <Kawa> A'ight so at this point TMX-JSON contain the full tiledefs in themselves. What I'd do is first entirely remove the lists that are only for the editor's sake, and leave the ones that actually link to mats/objects and such.
May 08 12:56:28 <Kawa> Then, what I'd do is remove all the unused entries, then... let's call it defrag.
May 08 12:57:20 <Kawa> [1,2, (removed 3 through 40) 41] --> [1,2,3] with all 41s in the tilemap replaced with 3, like that.
May 08 12:57:32 <metadept> yeah i think that's basically what the optimizer does
May 08 12:57:45 <Kawa> If I know my formats, that would still -technically- be a valid TMX file, just not fit for the editor.
May 08 12:57:51 <metadept> supposedly the tiled dev is working on some features that may help us a lot in the future
May 08 12:57:55 <Kawa> neat
May 08 12:58:02 <Kawa> Okay so the mod issue
May 08 12:58:02 <metadept> like being able to compress map data in the exported json
May 08 12:58:12 <Kawa> I think that's already a thing?
May 08 12:58:19 <metadept> not afaik
May 08 12:58:22 <Kawa> At least for some formats...
May 08 12:58:24 * Kawa checks
May 08 12:58:26 <Kawa> Anyway, mods.
May 08 12:58:50 <Kawa> Let's say I have my carpet mat, SOMEHOW added to the editor-suitable data.
May 08 12:58:56 <Kawa> Be it by hand or otherwise.
May 08 12:58:58 <Varixai|work> yea tccoxon's last post on the subject was "We actually have a utility program that strips out the unused data now. After that, most of the size of monolith is the tile layer data. The developer of Tiled is planning to add compression support for the JSON format soon, so the size will come down."
May 08 12:59:17 <Kawa> neat vari
May 08 12:59:50 <Kawa> Okay so let's say the last entry in the foreground tileset is #412, and I add my carpet as #413.
May 08 1:00:23 <Kawa> Unless I were to try to edit other people's maps, from their mods, I don't really see the issue here?
May 08 1:00:50 <Kawa> Would not the stripper still work?
May 08 1:01:13 <Kawa> Would the carpet's final tile index be relevant only to that particular map?
May 08 1:01:50 <metadept> i *think* so?
May 08 1:01:55 <metadept> the difficulty would be
May 08 1:02:01 <Kawa> Cos it might be the Kyary Pamyu Pamyu pumping into my skull cavity but hey
May 08 1:02:05 <metadept> you want to preserve the .tmx version of your map between updates
May 08 1:02:18 <Kawa> Edit-copies, distro-copies?
May 08 1:02:19 <metadept> but it might be ok if it's only ever you generating the tilesets
May 08 1:02:25 <Kawa> Right
May 08 1:02:40 <Kawa> Right, the .tmx version is edit, .json is distro.
May 08 1:02:46 <metadept> because if you generated the tileset with vanilla + your objects, then it would be fine to update that tileset with more vanilla objects
May 08 1:02:49 <metadept> right
May 08 1:02:50 * Santiclause has quit (Read error: Connection reset by peer)
May 08 1:03:00 <Kawa> And yeah, unless you start editing other people's maps you should be okay.
May 08 1:03:11 <Kawa> I could edit yours, if I had your TMX files.
May 08 1:03:26 <metadept> the update tilesets script can handle things being added and removed but only if it preserves a linear sequence of updates and is always in line with the maps you're using
May 08 1:03:36 <eevee> oh are we talking about how tiled's json is comically large
May 08 1:03:44 <Kawa> eevee: basically
May 08 1:04:01 <metadept> so yeah, if we donn't distribute the tilesets at all, and people are responsible for generating and maintaining their own, it can work
May 08 1:04:11 <metadept> but it's not exactly user friendly yet
May 08 1:04:22 <Kawa> And PNG blockmaps are?
May 08 1:04:30 <metadept> that said, the kinds of people who will be using it now are people who are generally more technically competent
May 08 1:04:30 <Kawa> </sarcasm>
May 08 1:04:36 <Kawa> XD
May 08 1:04:43 <Kawa> I'd use the SHIT out of it.
May 08 1:04:56 <metadept> we can talk about releasing it, then
May 08 1:05:02 <Kawa> I don't think of myself as particularly competent X3
May 08 1:05:15 <metadept> i don't think there's any major reason to hold back other than wanting it to eventually be usable by babbies
May 08 1:05:21 <Kawa> heh.
May 08 1:05:29 <Kawa> Get all Benjamin Button up in this.
May 08 1:05:39 <metadept> but there are a few things that need to happen before that anyway
May 08 1:05:41 <Kawa> First release for adults, consider the babbies later.
May 08 1:06:03 <Kawa> Like compression?
May 08 1:06:41 <metadept> eh, that doesn't stop people from using it
May 08 1:06:53 <metadept> it would be nice if the import/export stuff were built into tiled better
May 08 1:06:56 <Kawa> Get some RLE in there yo
May 08 1:07:01 <metadept> and there are some tiled settings that you need to use for it to work
May 08 1:07:17 * Astraltor- (~Astraltor@unaffiliated/astraltor) has joined
May 08 1:07:33 <Pfhoenix> hey meta
May 08 1:07:34 <metadept> mainly it's just
May 08 1:07:38 <metadept> not obvious at all right now
May 08 1:07:45 <Lumi> i can imagine tiled would make my life a lot easier
May 08 1:07:49 <metadept> but like you said, it's no LESS obvious than the png maps