Are tilemaps so necessary?

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:bust_in_silhouette: Asked By Syl

To implement interactive world map, when a drawned image with some area2Ds could do the job?

:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: KoBeWi

If you are using tilesets, tilemaps are supposed to speed it up. Also, tilesets are themselves supposed to speed up making maps, because they are made of repeatable parts you can quickly draw.

But if you prefer to use full image, there’s no real disadvantage, other than it usually takes more time to make.

and you need to be able to draw one in the first place

Bartosz | 2018-03-25 21:44

Ooook, so that’s just about the creation of the map. But before the makin of the tiles, you gotta learn the whole lot about tiles softwares and edition, and findin the right set, for a repetitive and unoriginal work…
I’ll stick to gimp drawnins then. Cheers!

Syl | 2018-03-25 21:52

:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: Nathan Lovato

In short: it depends on the look of the map. If it’s like a drawing sure, you can use a Sprite node:

If you need a map that’s mode like old Japanese RPGs and you’ll edit it a lot, better use a tilemap instead.

Final Fantasy 4 tile-based world map

You can always use tilemaps for the background and other scenes/node types for interactive elements, like Area2D.

The advantages of tilemaps:

  1. It can be a lot faster to edit maps with the builtin editor and autotiles, or with Tiled
  2. Tilesets help to streamline your art. All tiles should be the same size, and autotiles should generally work the same so it’s easier to produce art-wise
  3. They teach you to work in a modular way, to draw reusable textures. It’s hard at first but well worth the investment if you’re working on a big project.

They just wont work well for a hand-drawn look.

Good luck!

Ok, thxs for your coment, though for now, frankly, it’s much easier and faster to learn map drawin from gimp. There are no similar parts on my map, it’s all unique, not to mention that you gotta find the tilesets for your taste.
Searched and searched, in vain. Maybe if you buy… Dunno.
Good luck!

Syl | 2018-03-26 15:10