THE SCREENSHOT TOPIC RETURNS

author=Dyhalto
A nitpick, Sana. There wouldn't be a fire inside a tent unless it was open at the top like a teepee. Or if you wanted to smoke everyone out, and potentially burn the tent down.

There's a small opening on the top of the tent; it's visible outside, just not inside. :)

Cut it in half. It's far too large with far too much empty space. So much emptiness... it's like a black hole of empty. Sucking in my soul... dear God, the empty.

Here, I whipped something up very fast. Just so you know, you're using the diagonal rails wrong - they're for diagonal stairs. I guess you could use them like you have... if you had diagonal walls to go underneath them, but alas, no such walls on the chipset.
(Yes there are mapping mistakes. I was just whipping a quick example. I wasn't gonna delve in to event mapping for layers' sake)

Looking at Shinra Mansion and just mansions in general they are a little empty but not like that. You have to think about how fast/big the movement of your characters are. They go by a tile-to-tile basis. FF8 and FF7 looked large but they weren't when compared to the movement of the characters. Add in that Shinra mansion was abandonned so it was missing a lot of things a normal mansion would have had.


Look at it this way: one tile equals one step, okay? So, let's dissect Shinra mansion. It would take about 4-5 steps from the front door to the stairs. The ground room of the foyer is about 10x10, if that. The rooms are about 5x5. From the front door to the door under the stairs would be about 11 steps.

Adding in the jutting out of the rooms and the roof, this would translate to a map of about 20x20 at the most. The map I showed at the top is 30x30.

Also, if you're unsure about how to make it look, try looking through google for images. Here's a few I found:
01 02 03

As you can see, they all have something that makes them stand out different from each other without having shit tons of empty, boring space.

Dude, please don't just leave it as is. Even if you have to mess with events, half-arsing a map is pretty sad especially when you asked for feedback and help with it.

Here's the thing - people aren't going to put effort into games that you don't put effort into creating. It's just the way it is. Besides, you have some talent. I want to see what you can do when you put your mind to it and really challenge yourself. I'd bet it will look pretty damn fine.

So, here's a recommendation. For your next dungeon, instead of doing huge-ass maps, try making a series of about 20 smaller maps that connect to each other instead - 20x20 being the biggest. Try it and see how that works out for you, because the whole huge map thing isn't helping your mapping skills.

(Of course, it's just a suggestion. If you don't feel comfortable doing so, feel free to ignore.)

@Xenomic
You really need to downsize your maps.
The bigger and emptier a map is the more boring to look at it is (not to mention it takes ages to walk through).
You should take every single map you've shown in this topic and make them 50% the size.
Empty space is bad space. Make your maps as big as you need them to be to fit the necessary elements (such as doors, enemies, events etc) and remove the rest.

Your maps are also all square. It doesn't matter if there is some empty space in your map, it's not like you HAVE to use every square pixel of the map.
Example: The front foyer can be divided into 3 rectangles/squares.
The incredibly big 1st floor square, with a square room inside, and the rectangle upper floor.
It's not like there aren't mostly square rooms in the real world, but it doesnt hurt to try and break the pattern.
You are on the right track, judging by the forest rework. Keep at it.

Looks a lot better - it might feel claustrophobic making it, but it looks and plays better in game.

Also, 2k9 does have the option Craze was referring to - let me go check on my laptop how to pull it up.

Here we go: switch to one of the two non-event layers, then hit Ctrl+0. Move your cursor out of the way and take a screenshot - it'll have everything the same brightness. There's no way to show the content of events that I know of, though.

Oh...well if I knew that I could use Ctrl+0, I would lol. Now I know!

@Nightowl (almost typed Snowowl @_@;; ): Ehhh...I know what you mean, though I'd assume that the second floor would be slightly higher up than 3 tiles methinks (actually...do commercial RPGs go by 3 tiles themselves? I'm curious now...).


This'll be the last one I post for the mansion (since again, avoiding clogging this up with my stuff, even though I am anyways...)


Old Map (120x60):


New Map (82x54):



Now yes, I know there's still some errors here (c'mon, it took me a while just to cut out 38x6, believe it or not). The reason why it looks huge is because I actually took the entrances to each area from the front foyer and used those as bases for the exits here. I'll still need to trim down that left hallway, but I think it looks better than what it used to be. Yes, it's still bare, bare with me (oh god why...)!

The Es on the tables are actually me using Events for mapping since I couldn't put plates or bottles on tables due to them both being on upper layer.

I know that. Movement speed for mine is at default (which doesn't seem that slow) and I DO have a character, once again, that does double walking speed (well, it increases it by 1 speed, but that's all that needs done). I did factor in some of the movement speed into some of the mapping (regardless again, some of them are too big anyways). My Voile right now is kinda terrible too (it's a bookmaze, but a big bookmaze regardless of being revamped. Then again, even in the manga it was big from what I saw @_@;). Maybe I'll post that up later via that Development method or whatnot.

The corridors again are as big as they are because I used the front foyer entrances as points to where to map (though they're too big anyways so they need trimmed down regardless). Trying to keep that area as realistically close to the front foyer points as possible (which is generally what I try to do for each map...which may or may not be what backfires on me).


EDIT - Also, I did shrink my front foyer down to 30x30 like how Liberty's was. That's still big?? o_O??

author=SorceressKyrsty
dude just remap the whole things and start with 20x15 and expand as necessary.

I do this myself if I screw up really bad when making a map(if I don't have a set outline). If you can't figure out what to put in an empty space just shrink the map down until it's the right size you want for it.

author=Xenomic
EDIT - Also, I did shrink my front foyer down to 30x30 like how Liberty's was. That's still big?? o_O??

Yes, yes it is~ ;D