Hello everyone, im really new to Programming, i'm reading books and also follow Online Tutorials to create my own RPG game as a "Learning" project.

Ive runned into this Problem tho, ive tried to search it up but havent found any usefull help so i'm posting here to see if anyone could crack this problem to help me out.

I got this beginning of a RPG game with a Character with Sprite Animation, also Screen Scrolling, now im trying to add Tile maps and im not applying them directly in my code, i have a seperate .txt file that im trying to load it from, but somehow i cant get this to work, when i run the code i dont get ANY errors, just that the tiles are invisible... The online tutorial ive been follow did the exacly same thing and its working for him, i tried after hours and hours to copy his code and just run it to see what happend, and same thing happend nothing... code runns perfectly in my compiler with no erros but nothing shows up... is it something wrong with my Compiler? my installation of Allegro5? I mean everything els works in the Allegro 5 Library so i dont really understand..

id preciate if anyone could look over my code and see if im doing something wrong!

Here is the code:

If you want to post code, just place it between <code></code> tags.

Thanks alot LennyLen,

for some reason my mind set was set at [] instead of <>

Heres my code to a simple Tilemap application thingy, it loads a map thats 32*40, 32*30 and instead of drawing each tile separately (like you do) it makes a bitmap from the tiles, which can be easily updated/drawn - reducing cpu% from 30-50 to around 4%
You can edit it/do whatever you want with it if it helps
http://i.imgur.com/11tVr.png

Thanks alot Angeljruiz!

I will have to read through this code for a VERY long time
i recognize alot of it but im very new to programming as you can probebly see, thanks alot tho for sharing your code with me to help me with my problem

ifstream Map("Map1.txt");
Hmm, getting error, dont really know where you are going with it, think its a typo but cant figure out what it should say.

I was thinking about going with this approach with my current game, but my maps are 1024x1024 tiles big and the tiles are 16x16 pixels. This translates to a 16384x16384 image which would take up 1 GB of video RAM.

...yeah, had to take a different approach, more like how the NES works.

Yeah my code wasent really optimal, but thats fine i love to learn, so people that could improve my knowledge i really appreciate it, tho right now im having problem with the ifstream Map("Map1.txt"); in Angel's Code, hmm like i said my Knowledge is really thin im learning new things everyday!

Yeahh making it into a bitmap only works if the map isnt that big :p
But im not at my house right now so i cant give you the map but the format is really easy its just 0-4 40 number wide and 30 numbers high, tiles with the #0 are solid the rest arent
I guess ill give you the sprites to go with it too :p

@Kris - how did you load/display your tiles?

yeah that would be great Angel so i could have a look how everything is working together, its just in the code the ifstream map("map1.txt");

The ifstream is a typo isent it? because i get an error,if stream map,fstream map, doesent work either,ive tried to think what it should say but im stuck there

I dont know why you would be getting a error like that. If you didnt already know ifstream is a (i)nput (f)ile stream. Its used to open read/write to files. Its functions are declared in the fstream header so if you have #include <fstream> in your code it should work

That is extremly odd, yeah i got <fstream> included, and thank you for explaining what ifstream does, hmm... this is very odd...

void loadmap(int Tiles[][30])
{
    int x(0), y(0);
    int temp;
  ifstream map("map.txt");
    if (Map.is_open())

ifstream map("map.txt"); <---- identifier ifstream is Undefined
if (Map.is_open()) <---- identifier "map" is undefined

Im not sure exactly... If you have the header file included and using namespace std right under it and you're compiling it as a c++ file, not a c file, it should work

Alright i got the ifstream to work now, the problem was i forgot the "using namespace std;" stupid noob mistake, now i get the 'map' undeclared identifier, so i gotta look why it is undeclared, i must have forgot something in the code, Anyway if you could attache the sprite image and the .txt so i could just have a look at it how it works i would appreciate it a ton! When your at your home that is. thanks again Angel

You have ifstream map and Map.is_open() , there capitalized differently :p
Ill be home i about 2 hours but you could easily make the map.txt file by just filling 40x30 with ones and just use any sprite for the character

Yeah thank you i missed the small M so now my code runns into NO errors, tho nothing shows up when i use the txt file, to be exact im writing the 1's like this:

1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
1 1 1 1 1 1

Anyway the same problem like my own code, nothing shows up.
and im sorry i meant the tiles not the sprites before, i think im messing something up in my .txt file or my tiles.png file and thats why nothin shows up, so ill just wait until you get the time to send me your files so i can have a look what i'm doing wrong here

map1.txt

http://art.devsader.com/content/contributions/sprites/BoyKnight_Moosader.png <- Save as Player.png
http://art.devsader.com/content/contributions/textures/FloorTiles_Moosader.png <- Save as Tiles.png

And uncomment the first set of switch statements and comment out the 2nd set

EDIT:
Also go check out moosader.com , its where i got the sprites from (they have no copy right so you can do whatever with them) , it has alot of free sprites and tutorials, its actually what got me coding

Alright, thanks alot Angel, trying everything out right now, i get the concept now ive learned ALOT by starting this Topic, i see now that i have to make every tiles 32x32 and then the program will just crop 1 image 32x32 and assigning a numer to the tile right so lets say, 1 = grass tile, if i assigne it to be the first 32x32 in the png to 1?

Also i get this error now, Debug error R6010 Abort. i have no idea why im getting it i guess something has the wrong value in my code, ill just post my new code if anyone ever got time to throw an eye on it.

[EDIT] When i switch the position of the :
loadmap(Tiles);
updateBitTile(Tiles, BitTile, tiles, display);
to higher up in the code the Error R6010 abort is gone, but still no Tiles are shown, just a black window with my lonely Character sprite , tho if i uncomment the Switch code Case 0 and Case 1, and then comment out the al_draw_bitmap_region(tiles, Tiles[x][y]*32, 0, 32, 32, x*32, y*32, NULL);
i get no error but still no tile map, if i uncomment the:
al_draw_bitmap_region(tiles, Tiles[x][y]*32, 0, 32, 32, x*32, y*32, NULL);
i get Error again, same one R6010, hmmm

Loading's easy. Just have them all together on a single bitmap and load it in, then create sub-bitmaps off of it for sake of simplicity for each kind of tile.

The maps themselves are procedurally generated at present, though eventually I have to incorporate saving and loading of them since a single run through my game will take several hours.

But as for displaying them, I took a page out of the book of the NES. Older game consoles don't have the power to constantly refresh the tiles on-screen, nor the memory to store an active bitmap of an entire map/level, but because these older systems were specifically designed around a tile/sprite concept, they have a tile page (sometimes referred to as the "name page") where a series of tiles can be stored and this page can be drawn to the screen from any spot, wrapping around at its edges. This way, only tiles that have freshly come on screen need to actually be updated, and the rest are simply there already from previous drawing operations.

This is essentially the same approach I've taken. I have a tile page which is essentially a 4096x4096 texture (largest safe size, takes up 64 MB of video RAM) that wraps around and only has tiles written to it when they change or come into view. At present, the only way to pull this off with Allegro is using the primitives add-on, as textures will not wrap with the standard bitmap functions. To know how many rows/columns to draw, I track positional data relative to the edges of a camera frame and as this frame moves, the system tracks how many new rows and columns worth of tiles to draw. I can also request the system to redraw the entire tile page, which is necessary when first booting in or if the camera needs to jump to a new spot immediately.

This is definitely the hardest way to do it, but offers the best performance possible. With very small tile sizes like I'm using, this method is a must to avoid the overhead of thousands of tile drawing calls per frame. With typical tile sizes though, it doesn't make a huge difference on modern hardware.

Ohh thats really cool, ill have to check that out. Could you give some sample code?

As for EnClave it seems like you never actually draw the tiles, just the character
Just draw the BitTiles bitmap as you would normally with its x and y positions as 0 minus the offset values (OffsetX and OffsetY in my code)

Its wierd tho Angel even if i copy your code straight off, if i save the Tiles, and Knight png to my project folder, if i create a cPlayer class in Header file and check that no errors accure when i debug the program i get ERROR R6010 Abort, and i cant do anything with it, thats what is very wierd...I know im being a Pain in the ass right now but i seriously cant figure it out... been trying to fix the Tilemaps 3 different ways now i either get nothing or Error R6010... i dont get it

Alright try this