Level editor conversion tool. Tiled, PyxelEdit, etc... (Need community feedback.)

Hello!

My buddy Jiyone and I have been working on a project to convert maps/levels to become loadable in Fusion 2.5. There will be a MFA that goes along with it so all you would need to do is convert your map files, setup your layers, active objects, strings, and values to mirror the level editor of your choosing. No need to code anything and it should be very easy to setup! We plan to sell this tool once we finish so developers can enjoy the benefits of having their favorite map making software work side by side with Fusion. So far we have been adding support to the following software:

Tiled Map: Please login to see this link.
PyxelEdit: Please login to see this link.

If you have any other map making software you would like to see in this conversion too or any questions please let us know.

Thanks Simon. I can't wait to get this finished

I'll give you some information of how it will work.

You will have two files that will be included in the package. One file will be to convert the map so it's easily readable with ClickTeam Fusion 2.5. Then you would create your artwork and map with the software that you prefer. Once you finish you would use the provided MFA to load and code your game with.

Inside the MFA the only steps you would need to do is to import all your objects and configure it to mirror your map. In other words... Your layers, object names, object/global alterable strings, and tileset names will need to match what you have in your map file. Then you run your game and voila! The map will load automatically!

You will have two choices to load your tilesets.
1. Active Object. (Which gives you the freedom of storing unlimited strings to code each tile the way you want AND it supports ALL exporters!)
2. Active Picture. (Uses less RAM and CPU power, but are limited to a single "Collision" value.)

These are just some of the features we will be adding INCLUDING loading your own maps at anytime during runtime!

As for your other two questions I believe for now offsetting can be configured in the layer properties and currently the only ETA I have is very soon.

Hello dsilvers,

Hopefully I can answer your questions for you

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This sounds like something I could really use for the game I'm releasing next month, especially if I intend to support more content going forward. Right now my "maps" if you will are the different layouts for blocks, but there will be 60 layouts included in the launch version (and I plan to patch in more over time). I'd much rather load these externally into a small handful of frames (3 main block shapes in total, so ideally I would load maps into the 3 frames than the 20 frames per shape I have now). I had planned to potentially switch to loading levels from coordinates listed in a text file, but something like this sounds a lot easier going forward.

With this tool you can potentially use a single frame for all your level loading. You would just call the converted map file during runtime and have all your sprites/tiles in a single frame, from there you can do all your code to work with your shapes. When you use "Tiled" (for example) any information about object/tile sizes and placement in the frame will be there so if you have level 1's shapes at 16x16 and level 2's shapes at 32x32 it will adjust accordingly.

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Question 1: Will the converter work inside or outside of Fusion? Like, will it be possible to distribute games with the converter, if we want to allow for user created levels?

The level converter will be a separate application specifically made to make the map files work with the provided MFA so it wouldn't be possible to add the converter to your game, but you can how ever distribute your game and sell it. There is no license to sell your game with the map files so you can distribute your game and make as much money as you like. A lot of math was involved to make everything run like it should so I would think it would require a lot of time in coding a level editor to make it work. If you plan to make a level editor using the maps I would suggest to make your own level editor, because the coding for both the converter and the provided MFA was really complexed to make. Unless you want to hire us to do it for you which can be discussed over a PM.

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Question 2: Will the code from your MFA be easily copy+pasteable into our own code, say, if we already have a lot going on? (see above)

I believe this could be possible. You can paste the level loading code/objects to your MFA or vise versa where you copy your own code into our provided MFA.

I hope this answers your questions and if you have any more please feel free to ask.

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Do you have an idea of how much this is going to cost yet?

Do the layers in either supported program support parallaxing? (So we can see in real-time how offset each layer will be from the other before importing to Fusion and having to constantly tweak background/foreground layers.)

Any ETA on release?

How will this work actually? Like . . .if you have ONE rock tile but used it 200 times the MMF level editor will get ONE rock tile and not 200, right?

Sorry.. I just realized I didn't answer your rock question...

If you use the active object it will create several instances inside the frame so it would load the images once into memory thus it's one rock with many instances and not 200 different rocks.

You would have different options to use within the converter. Active objects (with or without pasting backdrops) and Active picture.

The difference between using active objects and the picture object:

Active Objects:
- You would have to import your tiles into an Active Object's animation frame.
- You have the option to automatically paste backdrops using a collision value inside your map to specify what kind of collision you want.
- You have the option to keep them as Active Objects so you can do what you want with unlimited strings/values to code with.
- Works with all exporters!

Picture Object:
- Automatically pastes backdrops using a collision value within your map.
- Automatically loads the tileset by loading the PNG within the directory of your map file. (You can also edit the tileset PNG without needing to import it with every change you make!)
- Limited to only the Windows exporter. (Due to it not being coded for it unless this bug is fixed: Please login to see this link. )