Why isn't there a proper (non tile based) 2d editor?

[mode7]

Hey guys,

I'm currently developing an 2d engine, which is not tile based, as I think using tiles is making your life unnecessary hard (good tilesets are hard to do) and also slow as LÖVE doesn't seem to be designed with tiles specifically in mind (correct me if I'm wrong, but then again use a tilesize wich is not retrogaming oriented 32 or 64px and run it on a Netbook and you know what I mean).

Then again I know why so many people are using Tiles. There are plenty of good editors out there (or at least there's tiled which is great and AdvTiledLoader integrates it perfectly) which makes it easy to make a tile based game. Still it's kind of sad as non tile based games and maps could look so much better and are less tedious to dreate. Look at Braid or Muramasa for example.

It's not really hard to implement something like this into LÖVE but it was hard to find an editor to create these kind of maps.
The closest thing I found was Gleed2d but the original version didn't even run, and from the the rewrite I could compile a version you can at least create maps with. But it's far from stable, weird bugs and crashes are very common.

But basically that's it! There''s hardly any other editor, at least not a generic one, that does these kind of stuff. Strange isn't it? It would be really great to have a tool that works as nice as the Editor in construct (You could even hijack this, as it's saving xml but it doesn't store all information necessary to recreate the map).

There should be a Tiled for non-tile-based graphics. Somebody gotta code it!

[markgo]

Well instead of asking for one, perhaps you can be a good guy and code the first one in LOVE?

[Davidobot]

Well instead of asking for one, perhaps you can be a good guy and code the first one in LOVE?

Yes please!

[ivan]

Mode7, I think this issue is more complicated than it looks.
Placing textures in a 2D space is simple but for me, the primary use of a generic non-tile based editor would be to define the collision shapes.
When you are defining collision shapes then the issue becomes: how is your game going to simulate those collision shapes.
If your game is going to use Box2D then you have many limitations that you have to consider.
Not to mention all the different joint types and other features that such an editor must take into account.
What I'm saying is, it might be more useful to make a Box2D editor rather than a "generic non-tile based editor".
In fact, from my experience it's even better to make an editor of a very narrow scope that supports only the specific features used in your game.

[mode7]

Ivan, interesting point! I've never used box2d as I think there are not that many games which require acurate physics. noneththeless i can see your point. that might be the reason why many games have generic editors like braid. yet i don't think its impossible. the construct editor supports box2d physics and it didnt seems to hard.

[LuaWeaver]

Well, I'm not sure if it's just me, but tile-based games aren't 'bad' at all, and they just give you a good... feeling. It may because the only games I played as a kid were all tile-based, and Pokemon was entirely tile-based (you were restricted to staying in the tiles) and those were pretty fun.

I like to make tile-based games *cough*half finished projects that never get more than half finished*cough* because I like it better.

[Schbaltz]

It's easer than a tile based map...You just need a gameObject collection, each gameObject has a texture and a position...every update iteration, update it ... i did it some years ago with xna and farseer... it's simpel to implemen, drag and drop with mouse... go ahead and do it!!!

[LuaWeaver]

It's easer than a tile based map...You just need a gameObject collection, each gameObject has a texture and a position...every update iteration, update it ... i did it some years ago with xna and farseer... it's simpel to implemen, drag and drop with mouse... go ahead and do it!!!

It's not always easier, it depends on what type of game you're doing and how you are implementing it.

[Schbaltz]

It's not always easier, it depends on what type of game you're doing and how you are implementing it.

A map editor (regardless of type) must be able to export a map that can be used in any game. If you don't think about reusable code, you'll be much unproductive... i took a look at some tools to build maps and i found very good ones that exports in many formats (LUA,JSON,XML,etc)... the objects you create in the map using a map editor usually allows add events and behaviors to these objects (in lua, is easy to send function "pointers" as param ).

[T-Bone]

About tile performance, I'm not really sure what you mean. My current game project is tile based with 32*32 pixel tiles, and it runs in like 100 FPS on my crappy Netbook. It also runs at 60 FPS steadily on my phone.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean, but I think LÖVE works great with tiles. And you certainly don't need a specific program to create the maps, just put a level editor in your game or something.