Help with the level-building / beta-testing the tileset etc.

[proud2beamerican]

Howdy! I built a tileset some time ago and have been playing in JCS to make a level out of it. Unfortunately I'm not that experienced and I'm facing lot's of problems.

For the most important thing JCS does not let me create more animated tiles even though I did not go over the limit. According to the info I've found the limit for TSF is 4095 tiles including animations. My tileset is 3520 tiles big and so far have between 200-250 animated tiles. When I try to add more I get the message "u can't add more frames, the max is 64".

I wanted to implement a new gun into a lvl which would act like a "switcher" just like in Violet CLM's "The Mighty Switch".
Also was wondering if there is any way to add more text strings than just 16.

If any experienced lvl mapper who also knows some angel script would be interested in helping out let me know!

[Blackraptor]

Hey, you can have pretty much infinite text strings if you use Angelscript and modify your jj2 ini so that the Text event looks like this:

207=Text |+|Trigger|Text| |TextID:8|Vanish:1|AngelScript:1|Offset:8

So if you run out of available text strings in vanilla, make sure the Angelscript parameter of your text event is set to 1, give it a unique ID and place a void onFunction# (where # corresponds to the textstring ID). So for example if you place a text string with ID 17 and Angelscript:1, you would have a few lines in your .j2as that would look like:

void onFunction17(jjPLAYER@ player) {
player.showText("Insert text here");
}

As far as your animation problem is concerned, it seems you cannot have more than 256 animations in a level or it will give you the same error you are getting now. Source: Got the same error on a WIP single player map when I tried to add more than 256 animations even with plenty of tile room.

[proud2beamerican]

Preciate your help!

As far as your animation problem is concerned, it seems you cannot have more than 256 animations in a level or it will give you the same error you are getting now. Source: Got the same error on a WIP single player map when I tried to add more than 256 animations even with plenty of tile room.

It would make sense, however that is a major bummer. My whole tileset / level was based around the idea of a heavily animated world where I'd need at least 350-400 animated tiles. :(
Is there any possibility to trick the system?

[proud2beamerican]

Howdy! Jeff here, again. It appears that my old account was deleted and I have just managed to create a new one using exactly the same nickname. Weird.

Any way. It's been 2 years or so ever since I left my project untouched. We're talking about the exact same one as described in the first post of the thread. Lately I was doing some cleaning on my hard drive and came across those files. Downloaded the latest version of MLLE and couldn't even open my level (by the way, the same problem with level 1, 4 and I believe 6 of HH17). I can open it with JCS but I can't add more animations. I spent lots of effort, it would be sad to just abandon it completely. Could anyone help me out here?

[proud2beamerican]

Sorry for double-posting, but wanted to put things into a clear perspective. Basically speaking:
I've constructed a huge tileset (3520 tiles long) and it contains lots of animations that are needed in the level. JCS doesn't allow me to add any more animations, while MLLE gives me the spinning wheel of death and freezes. I'm trying to figure out a way to add all the animations needed for my project.

I'd greatly appreciate any help!
Jeff

[Treylina]

In all honesty, it sounds like you're trying to run TSF levels on 1.23 MLLE/JCS. You should set MLLE to the TSF version if you haven't yet. To do that, click Tools at the top, Change version then to v1.24 (TSF).

I do recommend optimizing tile count regardless as a lot of tiles are prone to crashing the game regardless of version. I bet there would at least be some duplicates or unused spaces/tiles.

[Seren]

A level cannot have more than 256 animated tiles.

It's possible to accurately emulate animated tiles using scripts, in case of which they wouldn't be limited, but depending on your usage it might not convenient to work with in level editors, and might overflow tile cache.

[proud2beamerican]

In all honesty, it sounds like you're trying to run TSF levels on 1.23 MLLE/JCS. You should set MLLE to the TSF version if you haven't yet. To do that, click Tools at the top, Change version then to v1.24 (TSF).

Whenever I open MLLE itself and I go to Tools -> Change version, the default is always v1.20-1.23. When I click on 1.24, close the program and reopen it the default version is still the same (1.20-1.23). I also tried to change the version to 1.24 and then open the level but the result is exactly the same as I would simply click on the level file - it crashes the MLLE.

I get exactly the same issue with some HH17 & HH18 levels. Would you guys crash your MLLE while trying to load HH18_level01 as well?

I do recommend optimizing tile count regardless as a lot of tiles are prone to crashing the game regardless of version. I bet there would at least be some duplicates or unused spaces/tiles.

No duplicates, believe me. I checked many, many times. :P I have even eliminated all the tiles and animations that can be flipped.

A level cannot have more than 256 animated tiles.

It's possible to accurately emulate animated tiles using scripts, in case of which they wouldn't be limited, but depending on your usage it might not convenient to work with in level editors, and might overflow tile cache.

Yes, I do confirm. My level has exactly 256 animations and, while in JCS, I simply can not create any more. It may seem strange to you guys that someone has a need for having so many animations but in case of this project they are really needed.

"accurately emulate animated tiles using scripts" seems like my only solution, the problem is that I have no idea how to do that. Would anyone be interested in collaboration? I don't want to publish my files publicly before the project is fully done, but I would share it with anyone who would be interested in solving my problems.

Greatly appreciated,
Jeff

[Seren]

Yeah, I can do that, it probably won't take long.

[Violet CLM]

I can confirm that JJ2(+) does not support levels in excess of 256 animated tiles, and that the tileset in question has a massive number of unique tiles (though several could be avoided by assuming the level maker will use layer 5) and animated tiles. About how many more animated tiles do you think you would need, in an ideal world?

[proud2beamerican]

Seren sounds confident :D Sent you PM sir!

(though several could be avoided by assuming the level maker will use layer 5)

The reason why I have some tiles with layer 5 bg on them is simply because of the shadow cast by unique platforms. Layer 5 is still needed to build any reasonable level with this tileset.

About how many more animated tiles do you think you would need, in an ideal world?

Scratch what I've said earlier
It's been 2 years, forgot about all the details I wanted to include in the level. I wanted to animate some animations of circles changing sizes... Which would take lots of animations. Since we're talking about "ideal world" I's say that I would need twice as much animations. 500 or so in total...

[Violet CLM]

Oh, I forgot to mention this earlier, but I found and fixed the issue that was preventing MLLE from opening your level and the others you mentioned.

[proud2beamerican]

Oh, I forgot to mention this earlier, but I found and fixed the issue that was preventing MLLE from opening your level and the others you mentioned.

Perfect! It works like a charm. This update made MLLE really awesome, great job!
(1 question regarding MLLE: can I set 1.24 version as a default? Every time I open MLLE and try to load a TSF tileset I have to change the version of a level, as the default is always 1.23. It can get quite annoying).

So far I am stuck with the same problem of animated tiles limitation. I was thinking that maybe there would be a way to make a separate level that would use some of the background animations and would be just linked to the original level?

[Violet CLM]

really it should just switch to whatever the version of the tileset is, but in the meantime, MLLE.ini has a "DefaultGame" field which should accept "TSF" as a value.

[proud2beamerican]

It never does, but modifying MLLE.ini worked!
Also one more little thing that I have noticed: MLLE often times doesn't display the Tileset name when opening a level file. I don't know what it depends on.

[proud2beamerican]

And one last thing regarding MLLE: once the level has a set background color (for layer 8) it isn't possible to know the value of that color. As oppose to JCS where the RGB values are displayed.

[Violet CLM]

Well, of course it's possible: just click on the color. But if you don't like having a visual color picker, you can go into MLLEProfile - TSF.ini and change the line to <code>0=3D Planes (Layer 8) |-|Parallaxing stars|Red|Green|Blue</code>.

[proud2beamerican]

That's what I mean: when I click on the color I get the option to pick new custom color, but there is no information about the existing color.