Part One: Importing Assets and Creating a Simple Map
In this tutorial, we cover the first steps in IG Maker: how to create a simple map and place a player gadget on it.
Defining the player character was really simple in RPG Maker, but don’t let the apparent complexity of Enterbrain’s new engine discourage you – once you get over this first stumbling block in using IG Maker, the engine will hopefully start to make sense.
IG Maker - different types of game genres
IG Maker currently has 3 genre plugins: platform, shooting and RPG (the demo plugin has a different function and we won’t cover it in this tutorial). In all 3 of them, it is assumed that one of the “gadgets” will be a player character. The player gadget is treated as a special gadget that can’t be deleted and has its own dedicated events that trigger switching actions. In this tutorial, we will show how to put the player on screen in RPG mode, but the same basic rules apply to other plugins, too.
By following these basic steps, we’ll set up a very simple map and a very simple player character that can move around the screen. So let’s begin!
1) Setting up a new project:
Setting up a new project in IG Maker
Start IG Maker and click the “New Game” button on the top page’s toolbar. When the New Game Wizard is launched, click “next” once and then select Action RPG as the genre. Click the Next button again, keep the resolution at the default 640 x 480 and name the project “test” (this will be used as the file name for saving the game you make). After clicking Finish, the New Game Wizard will be closed and we can begin importing graphics and changing settings.
2) Materials: Importing the raw graphics.
We’ll be using a very simple placeholder tileset and spritesheet. Let’s import some graphics!
First, save the image on the left (a placeholder tileset just for learning purposes) to your local hard drive (right-click, save as).
Return to IG Maker, go to the Materials tab -> Graphics and click “Create” on the toolbar. Select the placeholder tileset from where you saved it and open it. (see the screenshot below)
Importing graphics into IG Maker.
3)Defining the tileset
In order to use it as a tileset, we first have to edit the selected graphic’s data. First, let’s rename “placeholder_tileset000″ (see (1) on the screenshot below) into something more memorable – double-click on the name and change it to “village”. Next, we need to define the tile size (see (2)) : set Split Graphic (Horizontal) and Split Graphic (Vertical) to 5 and 6, respectively. Uncheck the uses (see (3)) we don’t need – everything except “Tiles”. The screenshot shows the state before all these changes.
The marked parts have to be changed
The image is now ready to be registered as a tileset. Switch to the Action RPG Plug-in (1) and select the Tile tab (2). Click “Create” on the toolbar (3). IG Maker might ask whether it’s fine to erase the undo data – click “OK”. An undefined tile is added to the Tile List. Double click the name of the tile (4) to edit it – let’s change it to “test-tileset”. Select “village” from the drop-down menu under Collision Detection & Type Settings (5).
An image appears, but the grid size seems to be wrong. Let’s click on Per Plug-in Settings and change it to 32 x 32. IG Maker will flash a warning – click “OK”. Let’s leave the wall and auto-tile settings alone for now, we’ll be covering that in another tutorial.
4)Constructing a simple environment for the player character
For some reason, IG Maker seems to have a non-standard name for everything. The tile-filled area of the screen where the player, NPCs and enemies move (room, map, level) is called “Canvas”. Let’s switch to Canvases (1) and Per Canvas Settings (2). Select “test-tileset” from “The Tile to be Used with this Canvas”menu (3). Now we can finally begin putting those tiles on screen!
First, switch back to Layout (1) and select Layer 3 (2). Different layers have different purposes and we’ll be covering that in another tutorial, but for now, let’s put all the tiles on layer 3. Select the flower tile (3) and place a few on them on the canvas by clicking where you want to put them (4). Let’s fill the rest with grass: select the grass tile (5), then click on the bucket icon on the toolbar (6). Fill the canvas with the selected tile by clicking on any unoccupied part of it. You can deselect the fill tool by clicking on it again.
That’s it! Don’t forget to save your project. We won’t be placing any trees and houses on the canvas yet because those require additional settings and will be covered in another tutorial. For now, the first canvas is finished – we will be putting a player gadget on top of that in the second part of this tutorial.
Don't forget to save!
Questions? Comments? Developer’s Corner on Nekomura forum has a special section just for IG Maker!
Split Graphic (Horizontal)
