Rpg Maker Developers Group

This script allows you to create "overlay maps" on top of each other. In other words, map layering.

Overlay maps allow you to create much more visually attractive maps since you now have control over different "layers", though you are unable to walk from one layer to another. For now anyways.



Download

Get it at Hime Works

Here is a demo: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sz6mpw5n2d6zxi2/MhL6lunze4/Demo/Overlay Maps demo.zip

For overlay map zooming, get this add-on script.

Tutorials

Here are some tutorials that may be interesting

• Using scroll rates to create depth perception

Description
An overlay map is just another map, except it is drawn over your current map.

The overlay map comes with the following properties

• It does not need to use the same tileset as your current map. This means you can merge multiple tilesets together in a single map
• Events on the overlay map are processed in the current map, although you are still not able to reference events from different maps.
• The player is unable to directly interact with the overlay map, or anything on the overlay map.
• The player, however, can indirectly interact with events on the overlay map by setting switches or variables that will trigger the events.
• To transfer between layers, you must use player transfer events
• Map layers can re-use each other, so if one map uses another map as the top layer, then that map can use the previous map as the bottom layer
• Each layer has its own screen effects
  
  
  

You can have an unlimited number of overlay maps, but note that having many map overlays will cause a significant drop in performance.
Usage

Create your maps as usual, taking into consideration how you want to layer them.

You might separate your maps into "floor" and "ceiling" or "floor, walls, ceiling", depending on how you like to organize things.

Note that because maps and overlay maps cannot interact with each other, all events on each overlay map are effectively bound to their own overlay map.

There are two types of note-tags: compact, and extended. The compact note-tag is short and easy to type, but the extended note-tag is probably better for organization.

Note that because maps and overlay maps cannot interact with each other, all events on each overlay map are effectively bound to their own overlay map.

To assign overlay maps to a map, tag the map with either

Compact:

<overlay map: map order ox oy scroll_rate sync zoom>Extended
The map is the ID of the map that will be drawn as an overlay.The order determines whether it will be drawn above or below the current map.

If it is negative, then it will be drawn under.

If it is positive, then it will be drawn over.

If it is not specified, then it assumes to be over, in the order that the

tags are specified.

ox and oy determine the offset of the origin. By default, the map's origin

is drawn at (ox = 0, oy = 0), but you can change this if necessary.

The x-value specifies the horizontal offset. Positive values shift it to the

right, while negative values shift it to the left.

The y-value specifies the vertical offset. Positive values shift it down,

while negative values shift it up.

The scroll rate specifies how fast the overlay map scrolls per step taken.

The default scroll rate is 32, which means it will scroll

32 pixels per move, or basically one tile. Higher scroll rates mean the

overlay map will scroll faster for each step you take, while slower scroll

rates results in less scrolling for each step you take.

Sync specifies whether the overlay map is synchronized with the current

map. This means that any screen effects such as shaking or weather will affect

the overlay map as well.

0 = not synchronized

1 = synchronized

The zoom value is a special option if you have installed the Overlay Map Zoom

script. Refer to that script for more details.

The opacity value specifies the opacity of the overlay map.



You can have multiple overlay maps by simply adding more tags. Note that the order they are drawn depends on the order you tag them.