Tilemap => possible to sort z-values of each tile separately?

[Ragetto]

Hi!

Everything is in the title

I think I know the answer, but I need to be sure before starting to test time-consuming solutions/workarounds.

Is there a way to sort z-values of each tile separately?

(if not possible… would be pretty convenient )

[britzl]

@Ragetto

Is there a way to sort z-values of each tile separately?

No, I’m afraid not.

[Ragetto]

Ok thank you!

It was for that kind of situation (already mentioned in another post so I’m not surprised by the answer)

I think I’ll just add a custom property (ex: game object “ID”) to some tiles and spawn game objects over them to manage the z-order with the characters.

(but the feature mentioned above may still be interesting in the future )

[Mathias_Westerdahl]

Have you tried adding those “top” pieces in a different layer of the tilemap, with a higher z-value?

[Ragetto]

@Mathias_Westerdahl
It was my first move, but my map will be much bigger and probably “dynamically” generated (not sure about how to implement that… I’ll create a dedicated topic ), with the same objects, displayed many times:

Example of a “dungeon” built by the player (vertical growth always based on the same type of “rooms”):

I would need many, many layers to do what I have in mind… wouldn’t I?

So I thought that it would be way easier to spawn game objects over the tiles in question (with the exact same sprite so players won’t make the difference), and then just make sure they’re always over the characters.

[Mathias_Westerdahl]

@Ragetto

I would need many, many layers to do what I have in mind… wouldn’t I?

I don’t think so?

my map will be much bigger and probably “dynamically” generated (not sure about how to implement that

The files are in text format, so should be easy to generate

[ross.grams]

• If the player is always behind the tops of the pillars, then you just need one extra layer.

• If the player can be in front of or behind them at different times, then you need game objects with some sort of dynamic Y-sorting.

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I think there’s a couple threads about dynamic level generation. It’s as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Any tutorials for tile-based dungeons you find for other engines should also apply to Defold. You can change tilemaps dynamically however you want, you just…tilemap.set_tile(). The only weird part with Defold is that you have to pre-set some tiles in the corners since it pre-allocates the bounds of the tilemap.

[Ragetto]

@ross.grams

• If the player is always behind the tops of the pillars, then you just need one extra layer.

• If the player can be in front of or behind them at different times, then you need game objects with some sort of dynamic Y-sorting.

Yeah that was my concern… I may have some characters that will be big enough to be displayed behind AND in front of the “top pieces” mentioned above, but I can still change my mind.

If it appears to create a huge constraint (for a small benefit), I’ll give up the idea.

@ross.grams

The only weird part with Defold is that you have to pre-set some tiles in the corners since it pre-allocates the bounds of the tilemap.

I suppose it doesn’t mean that I won’t be able to create “infinite” tilemaps? (even if the bounds are pre-allocated, I can dynamically increase the tilemap “inside the bounds”?)

@ross.grams

I think there’s a couple threads about dynamic level generation. It’s as simple or as complex as you want it to be. Any tutorials for tile-based dungeons you find for other engines should also apply to Defold. You can change tilemaps dynamically however you want, you just…tilemap.set_tile().

I created a topic to shortly describe my use case, do you think you could take a quick look at it?

Tilemap => How to create re-usable "pieces of tilemaps" templates?

Hi! edit: I’m currently using ‘Tiled’ to create and export my tilemaps (both as collections and lua files). In my “dungeon building” prototype, the player can build their dungeon by adding “rooms” and the dungeon grows vertically. Everything is made with tilemaps for now, but not like a super-advanced tile-based dungeon, far from that… Not sure about how I should proceed, maybe I’m missing some basics [image] As you can see, the last “room” always ends with a wall at the bottom …

For now, my problem is more about how to create “sub-tilemap” (??) templates? (not even sure of what I’m talking about)

Anyway thanks of your answer, I’ll take a deeper look at everything available here and there about dungeon generation.

[britzl]

@Ragetto

I suppose it doesn’t mean that I won’t be able to create “infinite” tilemaps? (even if the bounds are pre-allocated, I can dynamically increase the tilemap “inside the bounds”?)

It doesn’t make much sense to create a tilemap of infinite size. I would suggest that you use a number of smaller tilemaps as the segments/chunks of the map nearest the player and update those as the player moves around on the map. I have an example similar to this here: https://github.com/britzl/publicexamples/tree/master/examples/infinite_map