SDL Level Editor

[Azorthy]

So I am working on a level editor in SDL with the tutorial : http://lazyfoo.net/articles/article09/index.php And I have made my self one that uses a 240 array for the tiles, which limits me to the size of the level, and my question is : How would you make it so you could have 10,000+ tiles?

I think using nested loops with nested arrays could do the trick, like : The array holding arrays would be the y level so: Array[0] = ArrayNestedOne[256];
Being that Array is the major and ArrayNestedOne is the x pos of the tiles so thats 256 tiles. So is this a good approach?

Please help me, also I am using a sixteen by sixteen tile sheet.

Images:

Version One:

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/2409 ... 011dx5.png
http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/5526 ... 012pn2.png
http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/1545 ... 013vf6.png

[Moosader]

So I am working on a level editor in SDL with the tutorial : http://lazyfoo.net/articles/article09/index.php And I have made my self one that uses a 240 array for the tiles, which limits me to the size of the level, and my question is : How would you make it so you could have 10,000+ tiles?

I think using nested loops with nested arrays could do the trick, like : The array holding arrays would be the y level so: Array[0] = ArrayNestedOne[256];
Being that Array is the major and ArrayNestedOne is the x pos of the tiles so thats 256 tiles. So is this a good approach?

Please help me, also I am using a sixteen by sixteen tile sheet.

What I have in my editor is a dynamic 3D array. The first dimension is the layer (which is only three), but then the max x and max y are dynamic and change based on what the user enters at the beginning of the program for what they want the level width and height to be.
In general for 2D maps, I wouldn't really store those in a 1D array, purely for readability sake.
You can have something like

class Level
{
TileClass tile[100][100]; //10,000 tiles, 100 horizontally, 100 vertically.
}

and the tile class would hold it's x and y coordinates, width and height, the position on the tile filmstrip, and collision properties and such.

I don't think it'd be wise to make a gigantic map, though. If you really try to make a 100x100 map you'll find that's... pretty big. Something smaller would probably be sufficient and, if not, you can always have separate maps and use some creative coding to make it seem like it's one big endless map (like Pokemon!)

If you're interested, my map editor (MusuGo) is open source so you can read what I have, or modify it as needed for your own use.
http://moosader.com/Resources.html

[Falco Girgis]

I think she covered it.

edit: Just tell me that you're using C++ and not straight C. I can see your next question being "How do I allocate a dynamic 3D array in C?" With a lot of malloc() calls and a lot of Tylenol.

[Azorthy]

Thanks for the help, so it is indeed multi-dimensional arrays. and I need a big map for making a Island and using my new theory for storing the map would work really fast.

[MarauderIIC]

I think she covered it.

edit: Just tell me that you're using C++ and not straight C. I can see your next question being "How do I allocate a dynamic 3D array in C?" With a lot of malloc() calls and a lot of Tylenol.

lolno see
http://www.elysianshadows.com/phpBB3/vi ... art=999999
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/cclass/int/sx9b.html
http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t ... -call.html

You can also use a vector of vectors, if you want a dynamic 2d array in C++ and don't mind using STL. Note that this has the advantage of not taking up more memory than needed, but the disadvantage that resizing is slow, so calling vector.resize ( http://www.devx.com/tips/Tip/5328 ) ASAP is the best approach instead of multiple push_back()s.

[Azorthy]

Thanks, and I know about vectors but I am not resizing, but I will keep that in mind.

[MarauderIIC]

Thanks, and I know about vectors but I am not resizing, but I will keep that in mind.

If your maps are different sizes, you could be =)
Essentially the point is that it removes the cap from your level sizes. If you want it to.

[Azorthy]

Thank you guys and girls so much.... I got a working level editor, I thought there was a problem and then I found out that my source wasn't showing the tiles =).
I will look into vectors and into the idea of picking a tile like Musugo, but in a separate window using aedGUI. And off to making huge levels, I am also taking pic's and I will post the source later this week once I got it user friendly.

Check the main post: Got some pics: