HoverEX : Map Editor

HoverEX map editor is the means of building maps and stuffs for HoverEX. Because we belive in providing good tools for any game, we put alot of effort in building a good map editor for HoverEX.

The goals of HoverEX Map Editor are:

1. designed for ease of use and shallow learning curve.
2. add as many feature that will help ease editing.

The map editor consist of currently two sections:

• TileSet Editor
• Map Editor

Before being able to make any map, a TileSet is needed.

A TileSet is a theme or a graphic for a map. Many maps can be made with a single tile set. But to make it cooler, we can have many type of tile set to build more types of cool maps.

TileSet basically consist of two layers:

1. Floor
2. Wall

Having two seperate layer allows us to overlay each graphics on top of each other. This means we can have a different type of wall melding seamlessly with a same type of floor. This cuts down the work of the graphic designer and also file size.

HoverEX’s tile set for each layer is fixed at 32×32 pixel. However, the tiles are supposed to be packed by the graphics designers themselves. That means one image for a tile set layer, ie:

1. floor.png
2. wall.png

However, to make map editing easier, it is best to put the tile set’s image width to be 32×5 pixel (5 tiles wide) while stretching the height of the tile set layer to whatever amount the graphic designer wants to have.

The wall tile set layer is a special layer. This layer requires that the image be an alpha transparent layer. So the only viable option for this layer is to use the png or tga format as jpg does not support alpha transparency.

NOTE: It is important to save your wall tile set layer with Alpha transparency or the wall line editor will not work.

Now this is the special part about HoverEX’s tile set system. The collision system of HoverEX uses tile lines. Hence it is essential for the graphic designer to tell HoverEX what is a wall and what is not. Hence come the wall lines.

Under this stage, the wall lines are set per tile basis. This makes things easier so when we make our maps, we don’t have to draw the lines again. The HoverEX map editor should do the job for us by merging the appropriate wall lines together into one big chunk for our game.

So.. assuming that you have read the TileSet section, you should have understood the layer idea.

Now, as any idiot would have guessed, the Map Editor is to make maps. Now, HoverEX is designed such that everything is themeable; well almost, gui style is sort of fixed (Hey, we need some kind of identity don’t we? ). Being that all stuff in a map is themeable, that means our player sprites and stuffs(EntitySet - there’s more to this later), floor, wall are all themeable.

Hence, this makes map making really flexible. Being so, a map will be dependent on a TileSet and a EntitySet.

• normal cursor
• selection cursor(something to select spawn point with)
• draw floor cursor
• draw wall cursor.