Keyboard Shortcut List and Map Size

Started by Shade Aurion, January 05, 2018, 11:07:58 AM

Previous topic - Next topic
January 05, 2018, 11:07:58 AM Last Edit: January 23, 2018, 06:09:04 PM by Shade Aurion
Okay, watching a few tutorials and i'm wondering how to do some of the things seen in the tutorials in mapping. For instance, pressing the R key to resize. I've also noticed a quick way to replace something and i'd love to know how. A list of the shortcuts would be ideal or a link or directions on where I can find out for myself. Also what size maps can I make without hitting lag? For example, could I make something the size of Kakariko Village in LTTP in one screen or would I be looking at making it screen for screen like Link's Awakening?

1. All shortcuts of actions that have a menu item (Resize, Delete, Undo, etc.) are marked as such in the user interface. There are a few ones that cannot be explicit, so here are the useful one that really deserve to be remembered:
- Zoom in / Zoom out: Ctrl + mouse wheel
- Scrool: Mouse wheel + drag (much, much faster than using the scrollbars!)
In the map editor:
- Add multiple successive entities: right-click to add them (instead of left click)
- Select multiple entities: Ctrl+click
- Make a selection rectangle that does not select the entity where you click first: Ctrl+click

I am not sure of what you are talking about exactly by "a quick way to replace something" though.

2. The size of ALLTP's Kakariko Village map is 512x512, which is more than okay for Solarus. We have much bigger maps in existing games. We now use quadtrees to find very quickly which entities are close to the screen (for drawing) and to each other (for collision tests). If anyone is interested, you should read http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/spatial-partition.html
If you have a slowness on a map, it is usually not because of its size but because you are doing something wrong in a script.

Oh nice, thanks for the reply. Successive entities was what I meant by "a quick way to replace something" I meant to say re-place so my bad. Either way, you covered it. This should keep me going for a long time. Dividing up Adventure of Link's Western Map into sections has been a bit of a worry. I guess the only follow up question i'd have is, what would be the average maximum map size? Just so I can know how far I can push it without having to edit maps later.

It depends on the number of entities in the map. An empty map with a huge size runs very fast, and a small map with hundreds of moving entities in visible part of the camera might have performance issues.

It also depends on the number of pixel-precise collisions happening between enemies (if the enemies are very separared without collisions, the game will run faster). But still with a decent computer you can have a ton of enemies in the same map without problems:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QTbf4k_PAfg
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you. But if you really make them think, they'll hate you."