Windows Wrappers for Common Tools

For more detailed information, please refer to the Common Tools section.

We understand that artists may want to participate in tilesets, but not everyone is familiar with programmer's tools and environments. To optimize artists' time and workflow, we provide some wrappers that offer automation with preferred interactions such as double-clicking and drag-and-drop.

These wrappers might have less functionality, but in most cases, their results are acceptable.

Infrastructure Building Tools

// TODO: Remember to update this section when 'updtset.cmd' is divided.

1) Installation

To work with tilesets and test them in the game, you need a clone of the tileset repository on your drive and download the game itself. You can refer to this page for details.

The current updtset.cmd wrapper is written for the Windows Command Shell and is supposed to run on every Windows version from Windows XP to Windows 11 23H2. However, according to this statistic, older Windows versions can be excluded and the script can be rewritten in Powershell.

At this time, the installation of necessary environment tools is tied together with preparation steps and the composing process.

The installation tool updtset.cmd will install the following on its first run:

  • Python
  • Necessary Python modules (pyvips and numpy)
  • Necessary VIPS library and binaries

git_symlinks.cmd is a small script that runs commands necessary for symlinks to work in the repository. However, there is another method described here.

2) Preparation

There are some additional small scripts that are also written for the Windows Command Shell and should be rewritten in Python later, as Powershell does not support drag-and-drop over ps1 files.

set_game_path.cmd is a subtool that can be run separately from updtset.cmd and will set an environment variable pointing to the game. If you want to check your modified/added sprites in the game, tools need to know where the game is.

set_tileset.cmd - This subtool will fix a tileset for future composing runs. It is helpful if you prefer to work on only one tileset.

set_vips_path.cmd - This subtool allows you to define another libvips location.

All these wrappers can be launched by dragging and dropping the appropriate folder over them. They will check if that folder has the correct files (game executable, libvips binary) and set the corresponding Windows user environment variable. Here's the revised version with improved style and grammar:

Slicer

The Slicer wrapper, slicemt.py, is a wrapper for the common tools and performs the most repetitive process - slicing source files and composing tilesets. However, it cannot perform complex tasks such as multivariate multitile slicing or animation creation.

If you need to slice multitiles and check the result in the game, you can do the following:

  1. Create a shortcut for slicemt.py on your desktop.
  2. Create a source subfolder in the object folder inside a tileset repository.
  3. Export a png file from your graphic editor to this source folder and name this multitile source accordingly.
  4. Drag-and-drop the source folder over the said shortcut.

You will receive 16 sprites and a json file that will be used for composing. You may leave the source folder in the repository as it is ignored in the PR process. (example with screenshots)

Under the hood, the following process occurs:

  1. The script (slicemt.py) will try to check if there is a source folder to work on. If it was launched from the CLI inside the object folder, it will try to find the source folder one level deeper.

  2. If the script can find a folder with png at the beginning and NxM following, it will assume that it runs in a tileset repository and NxM are sprite dimensions. This will allow it to make an assumption about where updtset.cmd is located.

    Otherwise, the script will stop working.

  3. The script will try to make four different checks. Each check will try to find source files with a special name pattern. But you do not need to provide all of them. I will use t_floor as an example tile name.

    • Slicing Variants

      The pattern is *_var*.png so you can provide following files: t_floor_var_1.png or t_floor_variants.png each file will be sliced into 16 separate files and each file will have a name t_floor_var_XX.png, where XX is a number from 00 to 15.

      If you provide more than one source file (for example t_floor_var_1.png and t_floor_var_2.png) you will receive 32 files numbered from 00 to 31.

      In this and only in this case (slicing variants), you may provide a source file with a name different from the object name (t_floor). It can be used if you want to have variants for a subtile.

      Providing a source file named t_floor_unconnected_variants.png will produce variants named t_floor_unconnected_var_XX.png.

      Running this script over the same source folder with only one variant source file two (or more) times will produce separate images with names numbered from 00 to 31 (or even more). So each run will append the existing set of variants.

      Do not forget to empty the object folder for each slice run.

    • Slicing Simple Multitile

      The second pattern is object name+.png so for our example, it will check for t_floor.png in the source folder and treat it as a multitile source.

      Slicing this source will provide 16 named as multitile sub-tiles and a json file (t_floor.json).

      This is the most common usage of this wrapper.

    • Slicing Transparent Multitile

      The third pattern is object name+_t*.png so you can provide names like t_floor_transparent.png, t_floor_trans.png or even t_floor_t.png. The resulting set will be named as t_floor_transparent and consists of 16 subtile images and a json file.

      This pattern/name is useful for high objects and the game can swap them in close proximity to the player.

      Please read this document.

    • Seasonal Multitiles

      Same as simple multitile, but the pattern is:

        object_name_winter*.png
  object_name_spring*.png
  object_name_summer*.png
  object_name_autumn*.png

      Resulting sets will have names like t_floor_season_winter, etc.

    • Seasonal Transparent Multitiles

      Everything is similar to the previous sections, except for the pattern. objectname_seasonname_t*.png - t_floor_winter_t.png will work.

    After slicing, the script will run updtset.cmd with the tileset name inferred from the path.

Composer

For now, simply run updtset.cmd.