i look at the guides at the website about making youre maps, but i dont understand the part about saving maps... like saving a map <mapname>_0a00 or <mapname>_0001. can somone help me plz with this.




{edit} post your mapping related queries here and you'll get a better response ;-) ~ Theo

Look at the pictures - examples there. In time you'll learn it.

this is one of the trickiest things to get your head around.
do you know much about x,y co-ordinates? you could think of this as very similar. except when you get to -1 you replace it with a, and -2 is b etc.
keep plugging away and you'll get there

Have you got a plan drawn on paper? I find that helps with orientation.

Think of compass directions, N, S, E and W. Then you have your first map called mymap_0000, called the 'origin'. The first two digits of any other map are how many tiles it is east of the origin and the second two digits are how many tiles it is north of the origin.

So mymap_0100 is one tile east of the origin and mymap_0001 is one tile north of the origin. Like Theoris says, you can't have negative numbers in the name, so we use letters instead if we go the other way. So a map one tile west of the origin would be called mymap_0a00, and one southwest of the origin would be mymap_0a0a.

That's as clear as I can make it!

Heres 16 maps arranged starting from the SouthEastern most one. Thats relatively simply.

0003/0103/0203/0303
0002/0102/0202/0302
0001/0101/0201/0301
0000/0100/0200/0300  

And now, getting a bit more complicated... Youve got you 16 maps and you think 'I want to have a path coming off to the west DUM DA DUUMMMM!!! Well...

0c03/0b03/0a03/0003/0103/0203/0303
0c02/0b02/0a02/0002/0102/0202/0302
0c01/0b01/0a01/0001/0101/0201/0301
0c00/0b00/0a00/0000/0100/0200/0300

That should help you to visualise the process. If you have extremeties though, and your paths wind their way northwest and south, there wont actually be a most southwestern map. So you have to 'imagine' that there is one to be named - in this senario - map_0f0d and then you will end up with...

0f03/----/----/----/0c03/0b03/0a03/0003/0103/0203/0303
0f02/----/----/----/0c02/0b02/0a02/0002/0102/0202/0302
0f01/0e01/0d01/0c01/0b01/0a01/0001/0101/0201/0301
/----/----/----/----/0c00/0b00/0a00/0000/0100/0200/0300
/----/----/----/----/0c0a/----/----/----/----/----/----/----/----/
/----/----/----/----/0c0b/----/----/----/----/----/----/----/----/
/----/----/----/----/0c0c/----/----/----/----/----/----/----/----/
/---/---/---/0d0d/0c0d/----/----/----/----/----/----/----/

The /----/ are simply areas on the grid with no maps attached.

Thats about as simple and big as the whole thing really is, but as many people have said: Draw out your maps onto paper first, then you know at a glance which map goes where.

Have fun

EDIT: Thanks Grom, I got carried away you're right -- Fixed

Nice explanation Trepie, but you got a bit carried away with your abc - in your second example the maps are still going north, so top left one is 0c03, not 0c0c. Same for the other 8. Also the 3rd example needs fixing. Otherwise the OP is going to get confused

Like I said, nice and clear apart from that.

Thx all...cuz these was one of my main problems.

Lol, i tried doing something similar to trepie, but got bored and gave up...
damn my short attention span, anyways...

*wanders off*

what do i naem a map that is under or above a map?

If surface map = mymap_040c
then one level below surface = mymap_a_040c
two levels below surface = mymap_b_040c
one level above surface = mymap_1_040c
two levels above surface = mymap_2_040c

and so on.

Maps should line up vertically, so that (x, y) on mymap_a_040c is directly below (x, y) on mymap_040c (so stairs up/down would be on same square on the two maps).

thx