questions copied from asset store page

[sstark]

Hi there,

I know sometimes the comments in the asset store tend to not be checked as often, so I thought I'd ask my questions here as well. The below is copied / pasted.



Nice integration, best I've seen in the store. I do, however, have some suggestions and an issue. I'm hoping the dev can help out?

So I don't use Maya in my pipeline, and this did cause an issue using your plugin. Main issue is that the adjust positioning sometimes wouldn't work right in unity, however for that I found that unity now has snapping support, so I use that mostly.

A big issue for me is getting the image of the tilesheet from unity to Tiled. I'm actually having to take a screenshot, load up photoshop, paste and size to what I guess is close enough. This leaves me with creases in my tiled maps. Not the end of the world, but I would rather an accurate and automated process from within Unity here.

Do you have some more resources for getting the most out of Tiled itself? I am getting it, but I think there may be some tricks I am missing out on.

Finally, a major bug. If I use, in Tiled, the 'Stamp', or 'Fill', tools instead of the 'Terrain' tool, the loading of the map will fail as soon as it hits the tile that stamp, or fill, was used on. Everything up until that point will work just fine.


Also, please make it more clear that the file format for tiled requires 'uncompressed', because the default setting here is 'compressed'

[sstark]

for anyone interested, this is a great intro video for tiled:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlL-JZU5gbI

[dez]

Hi Stark,

I'll try to answer each as best I can, let me know if something is not clear.

So I don't use Maya in my pipeline, and this did cause an issue using your plugin. Main issue is that the adjust positioning sometimes wouldn't work right in unity, however for that I found that unity now has snapping support, so I use that mostly.

yes snapping is a way around using it which is helpful, however neither object names nor the use of Maya or not has any effect on the snapping tool, so my guess is that you are not placing your tiles within x+ z+ ?
Is that the case?

A big issue for me is getting the image of the tilesheet from unity to Tiled. I'm actually having to take a screenshot, load up photoshop, paste and size to what I guess is close enough. This leaves me with creases in my tiled maps. Not the end of the world, but I would rather an accurate and automated process from within Unity here.

That would be nice, but it is something that I don't have planned for now. In fact, I recommend drawing a simplified tileset image first for Tiled and making it work the way you want in Tiled before doing anything in 3D at all.

Do you have some more resources for getting the most out of Tiled itself? I am getting it, but I think there may be some tricks I am missing out on.

For me, I just use cntrl while using the terrain tool and that is pretty much 90% of tiled right there!

Finally, a major bug. If I use, in Tiled, the 'Stamp', or 'Fill', tools instead of the 'Terrain' tool, the loading of the map will fail as soon as it hits the tile that stamp, or fill, was used on. Everything up until that point will work just fine.

This description is too vague for me to help you. Almost certainly there is something wrong with the setup of the tileLoader, take a look at the error and then take a look at the FAQ in tutorial.txt, if you can't find whats happening post here again with the error.

Also, please make it more clear that the file format for tiled requires 'uncompressed', because the default setting here is 'compressed'

Yes I forgot to mention that in the video tutorials, but it is the first thing mentioned in tutorial.txt
All maps need to be base64uncompressed!

[sstark]

Thank you for your replies.

To keep things simple, let's focus on the major issue I have here. This is easily reproducible with your demo assets for me.

In unity, load your demo map. Everything works great.

Now, load up your test map in tiled, then use the 'stamp' or 'fill' tools in Tiled to change the map a bit.

Now go into Unity and load the map again. This time the map will fail to load completely. When it gets to the tiles where you used the 'stamp' or 'fill' tool, the loading of the map stops and no other tiles will be loaded. This results in a partially loaded map.

Does this make more sense? Or should I take screenshots?

[dez]

I was not able to replicate the issue.

On a side note...
I was able to replicate if I place tiles with no corresponding prefab...
But of course that can't work and should throw an error for you.
My guess is that you did this unintentionally and tried placing tiles that are not defined in the tileLoader (ie tiles that are not streets/park that are just blank tiles on the side).
The fact that Tiled to Unity stops immediately and tells you exactly what is wrong here is a feature.

if that isn't what happened can you send me your tmx?

EDIT:
btw here is the error I produced:

Aborting tile placement. The map is asking for tiles that the 'tileLoader' component doesn't have: tile gid 51

it's telling me the tile with "gid" 51 doesn't have an associated prefab. In other words, Tiled to Unity was never told what prefab to use for that tile. It is impossible for Tiled to Unity to resolve that by itself. If you ever see that error, and you are trying to place a tile that is not a 'garbage tile' it just means you have to run step 1) on the tile prefab for that tile in your tile setup scene.

[sstark]

no, that isn't what's happening here.

I'll prepare screenshots and send the tmx tonight, I'm just at work now.

just a little more background here. In my .tmx, I only have 18 tiles here total, two textures made of 9 tiles each. This is as simple as possible just for testing things out. So using a tile that's not in unity actually isn't even possible in my setup, as all the tiles are being used when using the texture tool.

additionally, the console doesn't give an error here.

I am suspecting that there is a version issue here. Be it windows, the version of Tiled, or the version of Unity.

If course, I could very well be the cause as well, but that's not what I'm thinking is the problem just yet.

thanks again.

[sstark]

To the main issue is that I was accidently hiding errors in the cosole but showing warnings. oops. It was the gid issue.

What I was, mistakingly, doing was applying step 2 to one display object, then step 3 on another, instead of them both on the same object. For some reason I was thinking step 2 was a global thing.

thanks for your help here, it's working now.

[sstark]

That would be nice, but it is something that I don't have planned for now. In fact, I recommend drawing a simplified tileset image first for Tiled and making it work the way you want in Tiled before doing anything in 3D at all.

I guess I'm going at it a bit backwards then, as I have already purchsed my 3d tileset from the asset store.

[dez]

I guess I'm going at it a bit backwards then, as I have already purchsed my 3d tileset from the asset store.

Well in that case, imo I would make a simple representation in photoshop... all you need is colors representing the different terrains, really. Just make sure it fits together in the way you want. You will find that certain combinations in the tileset you have are missing or need modification etc. Better to have it all sorted out and know ahead of time what you have and what is missing than try to sort it out while in 3D, this is my strong advice.

good luck!
post again if you get stuck

[sstark]

What I was, mistakingly, doing was applying step 2 to one display object, then step 3 on another, instead of them both on the same object. For some reason I was thinking step 2 was a global thing.

I was mistaken about what the issue was here.

The real issue is that Tiled doesn't create any data in the .tmx for the tiles that have not been added to a terrain. Adding all unused tiles to a single 'junk' terrain made it so the tile data was in the output .tmx, and thus able to be loaded into Unity.

[dez]

If you want to use tiles outside of a "terrain", you can still use them.

Do it like this:
- Click on the tile in the tileset in Tiled.
- Click the + to assign a a new attribute to it
- Call the attribute "prefab"
- Assign the value like so: Assets/path/myPrefabName

That way you can assign custom prefabs to any particular tile.

[sstark]

If you want to use tiles outside of a "terrain", you can still use them.

Do it like this:
- Click on the tile in the tileset in Tiled.
- Click the + to assign a a new attribute to it
- Call the attribute "prefab"
- Assign the value like so: Assets/path/myPrefabName

That way you can assign custom prefabs to any particular tile.

oh cool, so can I use that with 'oversized' tiles? Like if I have a prefab that takes a 4x4 tile, I can do this to setup Tiled to work with it?

[dez]

Yep!
If you do that be careful not to place other tiles underneath the overlap of your big 4x4 tile.

I personally use it to place objects in the world.

[sstark]

that's awesome