Devlog 7 - How We Added Depth to Our Top-down Game

We take a deep dive into how we added depth to our tile map layers. To accomplish this, we use a shader to gradate the cliff texture, and pull it off with rows in the tile set. And, a peak at our multi-level map and cave system.

[@Felsefe_Adami]

good project !

[@FeyFen]

That's what I'd call good problem solving skills in action.

[@crypticaurum]

I love this because it’s so subtle yet looks so good and it shows how committed you are to making the game as good as you possibly can and won’t settle for less than what you can visualize

[@Matt-jp6if]

I wonder if it would look nice to have the higher area get slightly darker, but not as much, to clearly show the player it’s a different tier?

[@timmygilbert4102]

Every time people learn gamedev:
- I wonder how they do this...
- That's the neat thing they don't
😂

[@TheWizardsRoom]

I've only been using godot for 4 months.
How are you managing the collisions between changing between Layer0 and Layer 1?
I've tried implementing Area2D and some trigger mechanics to have layers turn off and on, along with their collisions. But it never really works right.

[@DuoRiftGames]

Hi @TheWizardsRoom! This is a fair question and I wish that someone could have given me the answer a year ago. I hope my explanation/solution makes sense. If anyone else would like me to do a video about managing collision elevations, please feel free to like or comment on this post. I am a bit reserved about long winded explanations, but here is how I did it:
The problem: You have several cliff/wall tilemaplayers on different z-indices and want to travel up and down between them.
1. Set each level on a different collision layer. Maybe say 0 for the main level (Level 0), 1 for the Level below (Level 1), and -1 for the level above (Level-1) For me, my cliffs have a separate top and bottom layer for each set of collisions and I cycle between 4 levels - I may add one more if I need it, but that's 8 collision layers reserved just for hard world collisions.
2. Each of these collision layers are active for all levels, so the player's collision mask should only be assigned to the level the character is on - change that mask when the player goes up and down - not the tilemaplayers. For me, the top of a cliff in the layer just below would be on the same collision layer that the player's collision mask would still be active for. If the edge of a cliff below was visible, I would want it to block the player; if it was buried under a ground layer, I would want the player to pass over it. So I would read the ground layer and if a tile existed, I would momentarily turn off the player's collision mask while on that ground tile - then switch it back on when there was no ground tile.
3. Managing duplicate Tilesets with different collsion layers is not sensible while creating a game. Draw all levels with the same Tileset and .duplicate() them when you start the game, then assign the different collisions.
4. Decide how many levels is necessary to have active at the same time. If a level is 2 z-indices above or below the player, you can probably turn it off. Meaning that you can cycle between the same hard collision layers among infinite levels. You don't have to use up all of your layers.
So yeah, that's a long winded explanation, it doesn't even include how it was coded and I'm not sure if it made any sense. But at least those are the rules. I'm trying to decide how many people really want this kind of a deep dive or if it's just going to go over their head and bore them to death. So once again, if enough people like or respond to this post, we will see what we can do!

[@TheWizardsRoom]

Yes, I would love a tutorial video on this. It could be a basic beyond basic example of how to transition between the two or if possible 3 layers.
From what I'm understanding is, you have a bunch of TileMapLayers, each layer has its own collision physics layer.
The player detects where it is, and turns off its own collision mask or by sending a signal to turn off the TileMapLayers collision masks.
Either way something is telling another thing to turn off collisions?
Right?

[@DuoRiftGames]

Correct. Once the Tilesets are duplicated and collision layers assigned on ready(), only the character's colliders are adjusted when they traverse the elevations.

[@TheWizardsRoom]

@@DuoRiftGames I'm going play around, see if I can get it to work. But non the less. Thank you for confirming my suspicions, It gives me a starting point to work from. Thank you thank you.

[@kantallive]

Where is the steam page?

[@DuoRiftGames]

Yep! We're working on it. Still need a good title screen and a couple other environments flushed out. Trying to decide if the demo should be ready when we launch as well.