Is right-angle movement on maps required?

[Einsame Hirte]

Is it expected that maps should be navigable using only orthogonal moves? I recently tried navigating with a keyboard, which doesn't allow for diagonal moves, and got stuck at this point...

Screenshot 2021-04-08 080532.png

The marked tile needs to be walkable to allow for right-angle movement. Visually, it doesn't seem to be intentionally non-walkable. I wasn't exhaustive, but a few maps I checked seem carefully designed to allow orthogonal movement, at least for mission-critical paths.

[rijackson741]

Yes, orthogonal movement to any critical place should always be allowed. The one you marked can't be walkable though, because then you could step up or down the cliff on a diagonal. The dead bush needs to be removed, and that tile made walkable. I'll fix it. Thanks for finding this.

[Einsame Hirte]

Oh, I see... I missed that requirement. Wonder if it would be worth designing a way to put a movement "wall" between tiles, to allow for more flexibility in map design? Probably not, I guess, but it's an idea.

[rijackson741]

The way the map is structured does not permit walls between tiles. For the graphics we use third party software (called, appropriately, Tiled), so we don't have control over this.

[Nut]

It is possible indeed to simulate such 'walls' between two tiles. Look closely at the hill south east of Guynmart castle for an example.
But it is done with 2 or 3 sets of layers, that are exchanged depending on your actual location.
Too much development work if not really necessary.

[rijackson741]

It is possible indeed to simulate such 'walls' between two tiles.

The key word there is simulate
A clever trick, but as you note rather a lot of work to implement.

[Einsame Hirte]

Interesting... 6 walkable layers, must have been a headache to get adjusted right, but nice trick. I can see how the guynmart_nondisplay quest is used to track player position, but what actually switches the layers in and out? I don't see anything in ATCS, so there must be custom code to support it?

And yeah, definitively too complicated for the issue at hand. Just move the bush

[rijackson741]

These are replace layers. In ATCS look at the "Replace" events. These are used in many maps, and there are easier examples to look at. One is the graveyard, another is roadbeforecrossroads5 (and fallhaven_ne), where you can create a shortcut. The replace events have requirements that, if met, will replace some or all of the map (usually only some, because it's less work) with different graphics and/or walkable layers.

[Einsame Hirte]

I was wondering how the "walk the plank" bit at the castle was done... pretty cool you can do all that without modifying source code. It is a little hard to follow sometimes, though... but I just realized the replace events are constrained to particular areas (like you said), which makes more sense. So on the fallhaven_ne map, when it sets Walkable and Above both to layer_replace (which is blank), it's basically clearing them, but only in that one region. And the Objects layer gets replaced to show the stumps; nothing was there before before because the trees were in Above which gets cleared. Nice, but that's got to take a whole lot of planning... incredible the amount of work that has gone into this over the years.

Couple questions about ATCS...

1. is there a way to get it to alphabetize the lists of objects on the left? When I first installed it, it was all mixed up. It's gotten better by itself, but it's still a little out of order.
2. Is it designed to require a really high-res screen? There is no scrollbar on the map pane, so I have to scroll the entire page down to see the bottom of the map, which puts the layer selectors, etc. off the screen on the top... is there a work around?
3. is 0.6.16 the latest version?

Just found the AT Design Outline hidden in the help... gonna have to read that...

[rijackson741]

1). No. They are pretty much in the order they were created in the game. If you know what you are looking for you can click on "Items", then start typing the name of the item and it will find matches. If you right click on "Items" there is an option for "Items comparator". That's a table, and clicking on the header of any column will sort by that column.

2) I think a very large high res screen . I really only use ATCS to add mapevents etc. I look at the maps in Tiled, where it is easy to zoom in or out.

3) Yes.