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Question - IDE [Suggestion] Autotile with animation

Ednei

Member
animation 0.png

animation 1.png


Colleagues, since GM1.4 I've been studying the best way to create Autotiles. I acquired GM2 primarily because of this functionality.

My first school in game creation was with RPG Maker and since when I started using GM I've been trying to simulate animated autotiles (like Rpg Maker) in GM2.

GM2 has Auto Tiling and Tile Animation, but there is no Animated Autotile (combination of the two). Am I right?

So I've improvised this feature in GM2 as follows.

1 - On Pic 1 I got a water tile (used in Rpg Maker) with 3 frames.
2 - Covered the tiles (the 3 frames) for the format accepted by the AutoTile of the GM2 (I used the program Tile47jo).
3 - I put the 3 frames in a single sprite and I imported it for GM2. Then I created a tileset (bck_water).
4 - I created an autotile with the tileset created.
5 - To simulate water movement in 3 frames I had to create 47 animations as shown in pic 2.

This Animated Autotile is working properly. It serves perfectly to simulate Water, Lava Vulcanic and other things.

I was happy with the result. But I started to wonder if there is a simpler way to do this (without having to create 47 animations). In Rpg Maker I made this effect in seconds (I'm not advertising the other program).

Because I created this topic. To suggest an easier option to make an Animated Autotile on GM2.

If there is a better way to do this, I also accept suggestions.

Thank you.

Ednei
 
Last edited:

csanyk

Member
Animated auto-tiling is built-in to GMS2.

Create animations.
Create an auto-tile set, using the first frame of animation for your auto-tiles.

The tiles will auto-tile, and will animate.
 

Ednei

Member
Thanks for the answer.
I do not know if I could express myself correctly. (Portuguese is my native language).

What I mean is that GM2 has separate Autotiling and Animation. When you create an AutoTiling (with 47 tiles) there is no option to make it animated automatically.

You will have to use the Tile Animation option separately. For Autotiling to be animated you need to create 47 animations in Tile Animation as shown in Pic 2.

In my opinion, it would be easier to import a sprite (with 47 tiles) with several frames. You would transform this sprite into Autotile and it would be automatically animated.

I read the manual and did several tests. And this was the only way I found of doing an animated autotile on GM2 without using codes.

Maybe I'm wrong. But if anyone knows an easier method than this, please teach me.

I'm making available three frames below to create a water autotile:

frame1.png frame2.png frame3.png

Thanks,

Ednei
 

Mick

Member
But if anyone knows an easier method than this, please teach me.
Different technique altogether, but your example would be perfect for color cycling (palette shifting). This was very popular on the Commodore Amiga. Mark Ferrari is a master of this method, you should study his work. :) There is a palette switch shader on the marketplace that can probably be used. But again, this is totally another method of doing animations.
 

rIKmAN

Member
Different technique altogether, but your example would be perfect for color cycling (palette shifting). This was very popular on the Commodore Amiga. Mark Ferrari is a master of this method, you should study his work. :) There is a palette switch shader on the marketplace that can probably be used. But again, this is totally another method of doing animations.
Mark Ferrari is amazing, even for anybody who isn't an artist I would recommend his GDC talk on 8bit art just so you can admire the skills and techniques this guy has developed over the years.

Literally a pioneer.

 
C

Chotton

Guest
I appreciate you sharing your method of doing this, and that does seem quite troublesome.
 

Ednei

Member
Different technique altogether, but your example would be perfect for color cycling (palette shifting). This was very popular on the Commodore Amiga. Mark Ferrari is a master of this method, you should study his work. :) There is a palette switch shader on the marketplace that can probably be used. But again, this is totally another method of doing animations.
Thanks for the answer. This Mark Ferrari is incredible, I will study your tips.

I appreciate you sharing your method of doing this, and that does seem quite troublesome.
I agree that it is a troublesome method. But it's the only one that worked with me.

This is why I created this topic. I believe that the main goal of a tool like GM2 would be to facilitate the creation of games and not create difficulties.

So I have an obligation to suggest functions that facilitate our work.

I'm trying to create a rpg on GM2. An Animated Autotiling is fundamental to create, for example, a great World Map. On the world map there are oceans, lakes, streams, waterfalls, volcano lava and other things.

I'd like to avoid creating 47 animations for each Animated Autotile of my game. I do not think it's a smart method.

There are methods that work that work by using code, but it is not the proposal of this topic.

My suggestion is to create a GM2 functionality to import a sprite (with 47 tiles or 16 tiles) with several frames (the amount you want) and when an autotile was created with this sprite this would already be animated (with the Option to enable / disable animation, speed).

I am open to suggestions.

Thank you.

Ednei
 
Last edited:

Mike

nobody important
GMC Elder
Sorry, but creating seamless animations using this (across the board) will be next to impossible. Because you're taking basically "quarters" of a tile to make each 47 set, each part of the animation would have to seamlessly connect with each 1/4 not matter which position or section it's coming from. This would be an utter nightmare, and way more work than just doing it normally. Trying to make even simple animations cross these "seams" for more than just water, is next to impossible.

While we are looking to add the simple 6 tile to 47 tile generation, this is just to help get you going - not as an end solution.
 

Ednei

Member
While we are looking to add the simple 6 tile to 47 tile generation, this is just to help get you going - not as an end solution.
Thanks for the answer!
Increasing tile options (6 to 47 tiles) is great news.

Ednei
 
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