2 questions that I really need help

I'm very new to rpg maker and need some advice. I have 2 questions that I really need help with.

1 - Is there any posible way at all to increase the amount of tiles I can use in the game?

2 - Is it possible to use prerendered backrounds like in ff7, such as drawing a landscape from a birds eye view, making the all the screens nothing but battles and walking from screen to screen. (thats just one idea, any others would help)

Any help at all would be greatly apreciated, thanx.

*SUMMON BLUECUBE*

*SUMMON BLUECUBE*

Just how do I summon the mystical BLUECUBE?

I just did.

Now wait for the omniscient BlueCube to descend upon thee.

I'm very new to rpg maker and need some advice. I have 2 questions that I really need help with. 1 - Is there any posible way at all to increase the amount of tiles I can use in the game? 2 - Is it possible to use prerendered backrounds like in ff7, such as drawing a landscape from a birds eye view, making the all the screens nothing but battles and walking from screen to screen. (thats just one idea, any others would help) Any help at all would be greatly apreciated, thanx.

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1) No. There's only a certain amount of titles per tileset. You can edit the tileset, or add other tilesets, but you're only getting 480 tiles per set (yes, 480, some tiles on the lower layer "connect" to each other, however)

2) Yes, oddly. You basically set it up as a Panorama. (80x80 to 640x640, 256 colors). Then you'd add "borders" either by events or by making a tileset that's all clear, but one tile type can't be walked on. (In the database, Tileset tab, hit the Passability button and make one of the tiles have an X). This way, you'll have a background that you can walk around on..

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I think when Grav "summoned" me, he screwed up my ISP, because I couldn't connect last night for some odd reason... oh well.

I dont understand

--------------- 1) No. There's only a certain amount of titles per tileset. You can edit the tileset, or add other tilesets, but you're only getting 480 tiles per set (yes, 480, some tiles on the lower layer "connect" to each other, however) 2) Yes, oddly. You basically set it up as a Panorama. (80x80 to 640x640, 256 colors). Then you'd add "borders" either by events or by making a tileset that's all clear, but one tile type can't be walked on. (In the database, Tileset tab, hit the Passability button and make one of the tiles have an X). This way, you'll have a background that you can walk around on.. --------------- I think when Grav "summoned" me, he screwed up my ISP, because I couldn't connect last night for some odd reason... oh well.

As for your reply to question 1, I cant figure out where you get 480 tiles per tileset. I counted 162 for each layer which is only 324.

As for your reply to Question 2, WHAT?
Sorry, I'm new to kind of new to this so if you could elaberate some it would make things much clearer for me. I dont know what you mean by panorama or how you can put tiles on a battle screen. A little explanation of how to code the event would get me a long way.

As for your reply to question 1, I cant figure out where you get 480 tiles per tileset. I counted 162 for each layer which is only 324. As for your reply to Question 2, WHAT? Sorry, I'm new to kind of new to this so if you could elaberate some it would make things much clearer for me. I dont know what you mean by panorama or how you can put tiles on a battle screen. A little explanation of how to code the event would get me a long way.

About the panorama. A panorama is a picutes that you can put in the background. To import a panorama you go to the tools in that menu on top.
Then you look for a thing called resource manager and you click on it. From there you should see the panorama file. This has some default panoramas if you want to use them otherwise import the picture you wanted. After that all you do is edit your map and add a paralax Background. The panorama has to be a compatable size though.


As for the tilenumber i dont know how there is 480 but i guess BlueCube's version is different somehow.

As for your reply to question 1, I cant figure out where you get 480 tiles per tileset. I counted 162 for each layer which is only 324. As for your reply to Question 2, WHAT? Sorry, I'm new to kind of new to this so if you could elaberate some it would make things much clearer for me. I dont know what you mean by panorama or how you can put tiles on a battle screen. A little explanation of how to code the event would get me a long way.

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Each tile is 16x16, the whole tileset is 480x256.

(480/16)x(256/16) = 30x16 = 480

That's the specs for the tileset itself. In game, the number IS different, since some are animated (with 4 frames each), some "connect" to each other with 12 tiles each (like mountains and grass) and the rest are of the single-tile persuasion. Open a tileset in MSPaint to see for yourself.

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As Tsukasa said, you would Import a Panorama to use as a Parallax background. Using that, you can walk around on it like it's a normal map. (To use a parallax background, you'll need to have a transparent background, which, on the default maps, is the last pink square on the lower layer's set)

A caveat here, though. I REALLY, REALLY suggest only using 320x240 images as your background, and using only 20x15 sized maps. Otherwise, it'll make this extremely time-consuming. Don't worry, battle Backdrops are that size already.

Now, RPGMaker likes to make things confusing here. Time for a random step-by-step instruction thing!

1) You'll need to make a blank, 480x256 bitmap. Save it as blank.png
2) IMPORT it into the game using the Resource Manager (check the Tools menu). When the image to import shows, click on it to make it flash (that sets that color as transparent.)
3) Go to the Database, Tileset tab. Click on the Array Size button and increase that number by 1. You'll now have a blank line (probably 0006).
4) Click that blank line, and go to the Tileset File. Pick your blank tileset.
5) Click on the OX Passibility button. The blank tileset should have all O's on it. Change the upper-left O to an X by clicking it.
6) Create a new map, 20x15. Set the Parallax background to whatever you want your background to be, obvously. Leave the tileset as World Map for now.
7) Now, use the Paint tool to change the entire map to the "pink" square on the lower layer, which is the bottom-rightmost one. If you used a 320x240 map here, you'll see the background. Now, use the pencil tool to change anyplace where you couldn't normally walk to the upper-left most "water" tile.
8) When you're finish, go into that map's properties and change the tileset to your Blank one. All of the water will disappear, but you still won't be able to walk on it (which is a GOOD THING).

Edit:

Ack, I still have a habit of putting "Chipset" (RM2k) instead of "Tileset" (RM2k3). Fixed..

OK, I got to step 2.
I went into Paint, and set the size to 480 x 256 and saved it as blank.png.
When I try to import it however, an error message pops up saying "invalid color depth"
I also tried setting the blank pic size to 256 x 480 and it didnt work.

OK, I got to step 2. I went into Paint, and set the size to 480 x 256 and saved it as blank.png. When I try to import it however, an error message pops up saying "invalid color depth" I also tried setting the blank pic size to 256 x 480 and it didnt work.

Invalid color depth = save it as a 256 color bitmap. I have no idea why making a blank bitmap would be too much depth for RM2k3, but..

I had already set it to 256 and it didn't work

I'm not really crying

First off - if you're saving it as a 256 color bitmap, it's going to have .bmp as its extension, not .png. You can import it like that. Secondly, are you actually importing it into the Tileset folder? While in the resource manager, on the left side, you want to click the "Chipset" folder BEFORE you try importing. (Why is it called Chipset and not Tileset when it comes to the folder? Lazy programmers).

As to prerendered backgrounds, err.. that's the whole subject at hand, right? Unless we've had a major communication error, that's the whole point of using the tilesets and such..

First off - if you're saving it as a 256 color bitmap, it's going to have .bmp as its extension, not .png. You can import it like that. Secondly, are you actually importing it into the Tileset folder? While in the resource manager, on the left side, you want to click the "Chipset" folder BEFORE you try importing. (Why is it called Chipset and not Tileset when it comes to the folder? Lazy programmers). As to prerendered backgrounds, err.. that's the whole subject at hand, right? Unless we've had a major communication error, that's the whole point of using the tilesets and such..

Sorry, When I was going through your walk through I thought you were showing me how to make a prerendered backround out of existing tilesets, but i got it.

I have another question.
On step 7, how would I make it so I can see what exactly I'm editing. I painted the whole screen the Pink color, and now I want to add the water where the mountains and oceans are, but I'm having to guess where the oceans are, and test play it to see weather I put the water blocks where the actual oceans and mountains are.

You can't unless it's a 15x20 map and the image is 320x240. I honestly haven't tried a 30x40 map and 640x480 image yet (and I can't because I'm in college at the moment). Anything else will give you the "pink background".