Problems with Tiled, Retro Game Asset Studio etc.

[ervin]

Hi folks.

Not sure if this is the right sub-forum; my apologies if it's the wrong one.
I wasn't sure where this post would fit best.

Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone can help me.

I'm working on my game for cpcretrodev2017, and I'm at my wits end trying to figure out how to get tiles into my code efficiently.

I'm trying to learn how to use Tiled, as recommended by the cpctelera docs, and it does indeed seem like a nice piece of software.
The problem is that I can't figure out how to make it create a list of unique tiles for use in my game objects.
If your object contains 5x5=25 tiles, it will create 25 tile definitions, even if several of them are the same.
This is of course no good, as memory is very limited when doing amstrad dev.

I've also tried using Retro Game Asset Studio (RGAS), but that doesn't seem to have a way to import an image as a "level", which can then be broken up into tiles.
Also, RGAS crashes a lot. 

It's getting to the stage now where I'm wondering if it's worth continuing with my game, because I don't think I'll have time to type out all the tile definitions, and tile references, manually.
Nor do I actually feel like doing that. 

Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks.

[Arnaud]

I'm not sure to understand well your problem.

Here an example, i created a map 20x20 then there are 400 tiles.
And i have 40 differents tile definition (only 25 are really used) to fill my area, not 400.

[attach=2]

[Axelay]

Not sure if it helps, but the way we've been using it for maps is to use multiple files.  So you have a set of 'characters' in your charset for one file, and in this you create one instance each of your required tiles made up of what ever you character dimensions are.  Save this as an image and use that image as the charset in another tmx file with the dimensions set appropriately for the size of your 'tiles' in that charset, and you can make a map with as many instances of those tiles as you want, using only one pointer for each tile used.

[arnoldemu]

Does anyone have any advice?

Don't give up.

I use tiled map editor.

I have attached a python script that will extract the map and generate a load of defb with the tile indices.

Make a png with the gfx of your tiles from cpc, import into tiled, use this to draw the map. Use the python script (with python 2.7 I believe - I can't remember)

Run it like this:

set PATH=%PATH%;c:\tools;c:\python27;
python extract.py Level_1.tmx Level1.asm

I believe there is a way to take an image and generate unique tiles from it.

[arnoldemu]

This seems interesting but I didn't try it:

https://github.com/bjorn/tiled/wiki/Import-from-Image

http://www.bold-it.com/python/generate-map-tiles-from-image/

[arnoldemu]

@ervin: If you believe it will be too much to get your game ready for CPCGameDev then I advise either to release a demo with 1 level for it or accept it'll miss it and go for a release after to realise your design in full.

[ervin]

Thanks so much to everyone for your suggestions and advice - it means a lot. 
I'll try your ideas tonight when I sit down for my next coding session.