How to render floors?

[nightm4re94]

^{This post has been migrated automatically from the old LITIENGINE forum (2018 - 2022).
Posted: 2019-06-12 21:31:29
User: CalvinMT [] (age: 1451 days 🔥; posts: 114)}
Hi!
In the top-down view game I'm currently on, I need the player to be able to go from one floor to another. Let's say, going from 2nd floor to 1st floor by taking stairs. When the 1st floor is reached (or somewhere midway form 2nd), the 2nd floor goes invisible to allow the player to view what's on the floor he is on without having any rooms obstructed from the floor above. Without forgetting to mention that lower floors are dimmed, and visible from higher floors.
Here are ideas I had, of which I'd like opinions on:

• - Use RenderType on each layer of the .tmx map. (although this solution might work, it is limited to six levels. Which doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be able to have a maximum of six floors)
• - Create RenderType groups we could name Floors. The idea is that a Floor with a higher value would be rendered above all other lower valued Floors. And for each of those Floors, render things like it already is rendering with the RenderTypes.
• - Still with the idea of Floors. But instead of having one .tmx map, I would have as many .tmx map as I have floors and name them like: ~~*~~mapname_floor_0.tmx*, ~~*~~mapname_floor_1.tmx*, etc...
  I would greatly appreciate any return. Let it be negative or positive.
  If you even have other suggestions, or if something already exists (or is possible), please do not hesitate.

[nightm4re94]

^{This post has been migrated automatically from the old LITIENGINE forum (2018 - 2022).
Posted: 2019-06-12 23:48:12
User: steffen [Admin 👑, Mod 🔧] (age: 1568 days 🔥; posts: 100)}
I would definitely try to make a solution with multiple .tmx maps work. Maybe stage 2 could have stage 1 as a static background image. Also having everything in one .tmx map could get very messy. But I think it depends how many stages you intend to have.

[nightm4re94]

^{This post has been migrated automatically from the old LITIENGINE forum (2018 - 2022).
Posted: 2019-06-13 11:45:13
User: CalvinMT [] (age: 1451 days 🔥; posts: 114)}
steffen
Thanks for the fast reply!
I was then thinking that the name of the .tmx maps would be: [b]<map_name>-0.tmx[/b], [b]<map_name>-1.tmx[/b], etc...
And in utiLITI's side panel in which we can see the list of maps, we could have a small tree view like this:
[quote]
   map0
   map1

• map2
     ├─ map2-2 (or map2-0 ?)
     ├─ map2-1
     └─ map2-0 (or map2-2 ?)
     map3
     map4
  [/quote]
  I'm willing to use the word [b]~~*~~Stage*[/b], but I'm not sure it is intuitive enough to define what it will be used for. For example, a ~~*~~Stage* in javafx is viewed like a theatre stage.
  I would've used the word [b]~~*~~Layer*[/b], but we already have layers in maps. So having layers of maps and map layers would be too confusing. I also thought about the word [b]~~*~~Level*[/b]. But that might also be confusing if the game has game levels, which also have map levels.
  That is why I chose the word [b]~~*~~Floor*[/b], which is a synonym to layer. If you imagine a tall building, you can slice its floors just like layers.

[nightm4re94]

^{This post has been migrated automatically from the old LITIENGINE forum (2018 - 2022).
Posted: 2019-06-13 23:15:57
User: CalvinMT [] (age: 1451 days 🔥; posts: 114)}
@steffen
I just finished what I think to be the easiest part, which is to replace to list view into a tree view in the utiLITI as above. It could need a bit more work on to make it "prettier", but it's working as it's supposed to with the tests I've currently done.
Before pushing a new branch on GitHub so you can have a look, I'll wait for you to finish with the [b]~~*~~utiLITI cleanup*[/b], as I saw I'll have a very small merge to deal with in [b]~~*~~MapList.java*[/b].
Any ideas on how to take on the important part?
You said we could use a static background image to show what's underneath. But, for example, what if one would want to make some creatures move in the background? Do you think it would be fair to render two or more .tmx maps at the same time instead?

[nightm4re94]

^{This post has been migrated automatically from the old LITIENGINE forum (2018 - 2022).
Posted: 2019-06-14 08:56:03
User: steffen [Admin 👑, Mod 🔧] (age: 1568 days 🔥; posts: 100)}
> That is why I chose the word Floor, which is a synonym to layer...
I totally agree on the terminology here.
> I just finished what I think to be the easiest part, which is to replace to list view into a tree view in the utiLITI as above
CalvinMT
In general, we've thought about extending the plain list to a tree for another reason as well: we're planning to provide the possibility to better organize the maps with "folders".
I'm honestly not sure yet whether the concept of floors is general enough to be covered in the editor. I think we should first discover and discuss the ~~**~~different kinds of "child-maps"** that might exist. I remember that we had a "cave-system" in the original LITI game that was realized very similarly to your use-case. At that time we solved this with an additional layer that blocked off vision and that wouldn't be rendered anymore when the player entered the cave. Maybe there are even further examples of "child-maps". We should investigate this first and then plan an implementation accordingly to suit the most cases.
> Before pushing a new branch on GitHub so you can have a look,
For the aforementioned reasons, I'd suggest to first finish the conceptualization and discussion on what we actually want in the engine. The engine should provide a solution for a general problem and I think that the floor concept might be too specific.
> Do you think it would be fair to render two or more .tmx maps at the same time instead?
Right now the engine is not prepared to render multiple environments at a time and I even think that this would interfere with some of the engines API and design decisions (i.e. only one ~~~~Environment can be loaded/managed at a time).

[nightm4re94]

^{This post has been migrated automatically from the old LITIENGINE forum (2018 - 2022).
Posted: 2019-06-14 10:55:01
User: CalvinMT [] (age: 1451 days 🔥; posts: 114)}
> steffen In general, we've thought about extending the plain list to a tree for another reason as well: we're planning to provide the possibility to better organize the maps with "folders".
It's true that the map list can get long fast. Fortunately, it is at least alphabeticaly organized.
I don't mind giving the code to give you a start. Unless you have another way of doing it without JTree; which is, as I believe, what I saw in ~~*~~TextList.java*. Obviously, I'll remove the part that group maps by floors.
> steffen I'm honestly not sure yet whether the concept of floors is general enough to be covered in the editor. I think we should first discover and discuss the different kinds of "child-maps" that might exist. [...] We should investigate this first and then plan an implementation accordingly to suit the most cases.
I can leave this to be the last thing to do before the release of my game. But I'll need this kind of feature in a near future, along with future updates.
I guess I'll come back on the topic then.