SuperTux tilemaps are composed from tiles, little 32x32 pixel wide images. These tiles are defined in an [[S-Expression]] based file, data/images/tiles.strf.
These tilesets are included into the level by a tileset
entry.
A tile
has an ID number a set of images (it's an animated tile if it
has more than 1 image) and contains a set of attributes like solid,
icy, anim-fps...
An example of a simple solid tile looks like this:
(tile
(id 7)
(solid #t)
(images
"tiles/snow/snow1.png"
)
)
An animated waterfall tile (animation played with 10 fps):
(tile
(id 175)
(images
"tiles/waterfall/trans1-1-1.png"
"tiles/waterfall/trans1-1-2.png"
"tiles/waterfall/trans1-1-3.png"
"tiles/waterfall/trans1-1-4.png"
)
(water #t)
(anim-fps 10)
)
It's also possible to extract parts of bigger images to create tiles. This extracts the upper left edge of the foresttiles-1.png file:
(tile
(id 1000)
(images
(region "tiles/forest/foresttiles-1.png" 0 0 32 32)
)
)
Note that in Milestone 2, the last variant is deprecated in favor of a more compact approach at defining multiple tiles:
(tiles
(width 3)
(height 4)
(ids 7 8 9
13 14 15
10 11 12
16 17 18)
(attributes 0 0 0
1 1 1
1 1 1
0 0 0)
(image "tiles/snow/convex.png")
)
In this example, a block of 3x4 tiles will be extracted from an image with only the middle rows solid. To ignore a portion of the image, use an id of 0 in the appropriate place.
More complex variants are also supported:
(tiles
(width 11)
(height 4)
(ids
7 8 9 0 1826 1827 0 1837 1838 1843 1844
13 14 15 1829 1830 1831 1832 1839 1840 1845 1846
10 11 12 1833 1834 1835 1836 1841 1842 1847 1848
16 17 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 1849 1850
)
(attributes
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 1 1 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 17 17
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
)
(datas
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 18 34 32 16 2 0 66 48
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 50 64
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
)
(image "tiles/snow/convex.png")
)
17 is used for slopes, and the appropriate data/slope-type is put in datas. Alternately, you could go minimalist with no data or attributes:
(tiles
(width 12)
(height 14)
(ids
2212 2213 2214 2215 2216 2217 2218 2219 2220 2221 2222 2223
2224 2225 2226 2227 2228 2229 2230 2231 2232 2233 2234 2235
2236 2237 2238 2239 2240 2241 2242 2243 2244 2245 2246 2247
2248 2249 2250 2251 2252 2253 2254 2255 2256 2257 2258 2259
2260 2261 2262 2263 2264 2265 2266 2267 2268 2269 2270 2271
2272 2273 2274 2275 2276 2277 2278 2279 2280 2281 2282 2283
2284 2285 2286 2287 2288 2289 2290 2291 2292 2293 2294 2295
2296 2297 2298 2299 2300 2301 2302 2303 2304 2305 2306 2307
2308 2309 2310 2311 2312 2313 2314 2315 2316 2317 2318 2319
2320 2321 2322 2323 2324 2325 2326 2327 2328 2329 2330 2331
2332 2333 2334 2335 2336 2337 2338 2339 2340 2341 2342 2343
2344 2345 2346 2347 2348 2349 2350 2351 2352 2353 2354 2355
2356 2357 2358 2359 2360 2361 2362 2363 2364 2365 2366 2367
2368 2369 2370 2371 2372 2373 2374 2375 2376 2377 2378 2379
)
(image "tiles/castle/background.png")
)
Tiles can have the following attributes:
Name | Value | Description | Data field |
---|---|---|---|
solid | 0x0001 / 1 |
defines if the tile should be considered for collision detection | |
unisolid | 0x0002 / 2 |
the tile will only be considered for collision detection when tux is falling down. That is you can jump through the tile from below but not fall through it. Must be used in conjunction with attribute solid. | |
brick | 0x0004 / 4 |
A brick that can be destroyed by jumping under it | |
goal | 0x0008 / 8 |
The level should be finished when touching a goaltile. | 0 Trigger endsequence, 1 Finish level instantly |
slope-type | 0x0010 / 16 |
The tile is a slope. Must be combined with solid. | Type of slope (deformation). See below for possible values. |
fullbox | 0x0020 / 32 |
Bonusbox | Content of the box., 1 Coin, 2 Egg / fireflower, 3 Star, 4 Tux Doll (1 up), 5 Egg / iceflower |
coin | 0x0040 / 64 |
The tile is a coin | |
ice | 0x0100 / 256 |
the tile will be slippery | |
water | 0x0200 / 512 |
The tile is a water tile (needed for fish enemy) | |
hurts | 0x0400 / 1024 |
The tile will hurt you when you hit it |
Each tile
definition can have a data
section (“datas
” when using
the tiles
definition). This section is used when the
yes/no-information usually stored in the attributes definition isn't
appropriate for the type of information. Currently, this section is
only used to store slope data.
Each type of information stored in the data section needs to reserve a
range of values for itself. The slope information, for example, uses
the values zero through 67 (64+3), so the mask is at least 0x007f
.
To allow for future extension, the mask 0x00ff
has been reserved.
Name | Mask | Meaning |
---|---|---|
Slope information | 0x00ff (actually: 0x0073 ) |
Valid only when the solid attribute is set. See #Slope types below. |
The deformation means the following. The “circle” on the right shows the 20 different possibilities.
Name | Value | Meaning |
---|---|---|
Deform1 | 16 | Only the lower half of the tile is used. |
Deform2 | 32 | Only the upper half of the tile is used. |
Deform3 | 48 | Only the left half of the tile is used. |
Deform4 | 64 | Only the right half of the tile is used. |
The important part is that the deformation determines which part of
the tile is used and not the actual form of the tile. For example,
the 0+48
tile is a (steep, south-west) triangle, while 2+48
is a
(steep, south-east) trapezoid.
The following defines several tiles, some of which are slopes. Their slope information is stored in the datas section.
(tiles
(width 11)
(height 4)
(ids
7 8 9 0 1826 1827 0 1837 1838 1843 1844
13 14 15 1829 1830 1831 1832 1839 1840 1845 1846
10 11 12 1833 1834 1835 1836 1841 1842 1847 1848
16 17 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 1849 1850
)
(attributes
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 1 1 17 17 17 17 17 17 17 17
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 17 17
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
)
(datas
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 18 34 32 16 2 0 66 48
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 50 64
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
)
(image "tiles/snow/convex.png")
)
You can simply add new tiles with your favourite text editor. However we also provide an easy to use editor to make this task easier (especially extracting regions of bigger images). You can find it in the tools/tilemanager directory. It's a mono/gtk# app so you have to have these 2 things installed and should invoke make in that directory then. It'll create tilemanager.exe which you can then start with mono like this:
mono tilemanager.exe
NOTE: You should be careful when choosing tile ids to not overwrite existing tiles. You should also keep in mind that existing levels will break if you change tile numbers later (the levels just save a big a list of numbers that reference the tile file).
WARNING: Unfortunately the tilemanage application is broken at the moment and does not work correctly! You'll destroy several tile attributes like slopes and some of the tiles created from multiple images, when opening and saving a tileset with the editor!
Simply open the flexlay or ST# editor and the new tiles should appear.
Note that some tiles aren't actually used in-game. Right after the level is loaded, various tiles in the solid tilemaps are replaced with objects. These include all with the coin, fullbox, brick, or goal attributes, and tile id 112 (invisible block). But the game doesn't end there. It also adds light sources to torches and lava, which are then hidden unless the level uses a lightmap.