Contributing to Andor's Trail - Contribution Guide

[Nut]

You surely have read the two documents about map making. Especially the second one answers many questions

wiki/test/andors_trail_wiki/developer_s ... aking.html

wiki/test/andors_trail_wiki/developer_s ... aking.html

About trees, they are nasty to do at first. But one gets used to it.
I always do it this way:
Get the 2 lower tiles in the stamp tool and put these anywhere into the map (Object layer). Do this for all your trees you want to place.
Then get the pink tile in the stamp tool and color all these tree stumps (Walkable layer)
At last get the two tree top tiles in the stamp tool, and make the trees complete (Above layer)

I think it's the quickest way to do it.

[codingpcjatristan]

Oh ok Thanks heaps, I get it now.


Also, is there a way to transfer multiple objects between layers?
And can I create my own layers?
I know how to, but is this allowed. E.g. One above walkable for shadows?

Nevermind, After rereading the tutorial and asking around I think I finally get the grasp of it now!

[Nut]

You could replace any part of these 5 layers (Ground, Objects, Above, Top, Walkable) dynamically, by using additional layers.

But you can not have these additional layers visible directly.

[codingpcjatristan]

Ok thanks. What is the top layer? It isn’t on the template. Can I place my shadows in this layer?
Thanks.

[Nut]

Yes, you can just add the layer, if needed. You could put anything in it, that shall be displayed above other things, e.g. shadow.

[rijackson741]

Every layer adds overhead when rendering the maps, so when the Top (I believe it is case sensitive, so it's Top, not top) layer was added it was not included in the template. It's typically used for shadows, where the above layer was already used for something else.

[codingpcjatristan]

Ah ok, thanks

[rijackson741]

An example is lakecave2.tmx (which is also an example of replace layers used to change the map). There is the floor in the ground layer. There is a table in the objects layer. There are papers on the table in the above layer. Therefore the only way to add shadows over the table and the papers is to use the Top layer.

[reizy]

I've made a small pull request with several unimportant content fixes... but when i see previous "#22 opened on Aug 6, 2020"... Does someone review and merge/decline it?

[QQkp]

I've made a small pull request with several unimportant content fixes... but when i see previous "#22 opened on Aug 6, 2020"... Does someone review and merge/decline it?

We definitely review these, and usually respond as well. (Before I joined the team, I contributed some fixes this way as well. ) I'm not sure why #22 is still open - we did include that typo fix in 0.7.13.


That said, content changes are tricky. We use a tool called ATCS for building new bundles of content. ATCS writes content changes in a temporary file format, and we only export this format into the main AT repository when an ATCS project is complete.

In effect, it means that if we merge a PR that modifies the same files that we're working on in an ATCS project, the merged changes may be overwritten as soon as we export the conflicting ATCS project. Dialog changes aren't too bad, usually, since we can read the diffs in the PR and carry over the changes into ATCS if there's a conflict. Mapping changes are much more complicated, though, since the layer encoding isn't easy to digest in a diff.

As an example, coincidentally, I do have conflicting edits in wild18 and wild19 right now, so I'll duplicate those changes in my ATCS project. (Good catch on those, by the way! Did you detect them programmatically, or stumble across them by manual inspection?)