isoEngine - Documentation

This post documents how to put your own images into the game. You actually have complete freedom to put any size or type of image into the game. This tutorial will just show you the easiest way to customize it. I am no artists so you will have to bear with my “programmer” art for the time being.

Base / Floor / Grass Tiles

The first item you will want to modify is the floor tiles. These tiles are laid against on the bottom of the map.

Here is the template for the floor tiles. It is 74 px wide and 45 pixel high. Alter and spruce yours up how you would like:

My finished Tile…

Once your tile is complete, you will need to upload/save it to the “imagesFloorTiles” folder. At this point it will be available on the map editor tool.

Units/Character Tiles

The next thing you will want to edit is the unit or character tiles. Again I have a template that I start with. It is 150 px wide and 150 px high. You will need to confine your creativity to this size for the time being. (Play with the Map Editor “Extra Options” if you are looking for smaller or large units.

And here is mine after I spruced it up…you will need to keep the unit centered in the image.

To make the units able to be used in the game, upload them to the “imagesUnitBase” folder. You can name the image what ever you want, but it must be a “gif” and the last part of the image name must contain “_male”. (If you have enabled the gender option, you can save a woman as “_female”. For example, I might save the above image as “warrior_male.gif”.

You can then edit the Jobs and Classes in the admin panel and use these images. In the admin panel, you enter just the image name, not the extension. For example to use the warrior, I would enter “warrior” in the Image text box.

Objects and Items on the Map

The next item to customize is the objects. Objects can actually be ANY size you want, however they work better if they fit within the template image.  My templates are 74 px wide and 100 px high. To build larger objects, I make a number of tiles and put them together using the map editor.

You can put anything in an object, so there really is no template. But I do have an example:

Save this image in the “imagesObjTiles” folder as a gif. You can then add it to your maps using the map editor. It will appear in the tiles section.

Items and Equipment and other Stuff

The game engine will layer images to show equipped and un-equipped items. You can create as many items as you want.

Step one, create the item. Again the default tile size is 150 px wide and 150 px high. You must place the item in the same position as where you want it to appear on the unit. (Image if you had printed the unit and the item pictures and then glued them on top of one another.

Each item is made up of two images. One which is layered on top of the unit, and one which is shown in the stores and inventory panels (an icon)

So for example to create a sword. I create two images. First the image that gets laid on top of the unit. (Notice I left an empty area so that his hand will show up gripping the sword)

I will save this as “sword.gif” in the “imagesUnitItems” folder.

I will also create another image, which I will save as “sword_display.gif” in the “imagesUnitItems” folder. All display images must end with “_display.gif”

(Notice this is smaller and it shows the entire sword)

I can then edit any of the items, weapons or actions in the game and use the image base “sword” to have that show up as the image for that particular item.