Hi, I have questions.

[Maria]

Hi, I really don't know where to start talking/typing.

So I will introduce myself.
My name is Maria. (wish I could of put that as my User name but I didn't thought about it twice. D:)
And I really enjoyed the game. I have had a wonderful time playing it, the art and the story is very beautiful as well.
At first, I wasn't sure if it was going to be fun, but my curiosity won my mind.

Lately I have being thinking of making games, but I wasn't sure. When I saw this game and it had that Modding. I was very surprised.
I wanted to try and see if I was some what good at it and be patient about it. I am going to ask as many questions to make sure I understand it. So please bare with me.

Sometimes I need to be explained many times, and I a mean MANY, to understand just one thing.

My first question is, How do you make a map? what program? is it paint?
I have seen some where in the forums that it's black and white with the little areas.

Thank you so much and I hope you make more games like this.

[Danger Mouse]

I suggest using the search feature to find answers to your questions about starting with modding as they have all already been answered.

It doesn't matter what art program you use to create the map image. But there are specifics here already posted on what size dimention in pixels the images can be, as well as what colors to select, ie white (RGB 255,255,255) for travelable areas and black (RGB 0, 0, 0) for non-travelable areas. There's an example in the _mods\aquariatemplate\maptemplates folder. That should give you an idea.

Glad to see another interested in modding! Good luck, and feel free to ask questions that you absoluately can't find an answer to.

[Chibi]

Also, you can change your username by entering your profile and selecting "Account Related Settings." Welcome to the forums, Maria! 

[Maria]

I suggest using the search feature to find answers to your questions about starting with modding as they have all already been answered.

It doesn't matter what art program you use to create the map image. But there are specifics here already posted on what size dimention in pixels the images can be, as well as what colors to select, ie white (RGB 255,255,255) for travelable areas and black (RGB 0, 0, 0) for non-travelable areas. There's an example in the _mods\aquariatemplate\maptemplates folder. That should give you an idea.

Glad to see another interested in modding! Good luck, and feel free to ask questions that you absoluately can't find an answer to.

Ooooooooh! Thank you!
I do have another question.
I was practicing on the Mod map, and it said that "T" flips.
I tried it on one of the fish that points to the left, but it doesn't flip to the right.
It does flip, but it doesn't when I past it.

Does it work on only non active objects?

Also, when I try to point the fish looking up it still goes left to right. Did I miss something? 

Also, you can change your username by entering your profile and selecting "Account Related Settings." Welcome to the forums, Maria!   

Oh! that is awesome, thank you!

[Edwards]

I was practicing on the Mod map, and it said that "T" flips.
I tried it on one of the fish that points to the left, but it doesn't flip to the right.

"T" will only flip tiles horizontally, not entities.  There's no way that I am aware of to flip entities, such as fish, in the editor.

Also, when I try to point the fish looking up it still goes left to right. Did I miss something? 

No, you didn't miss anything.  In order to make that type of fish go up and down (or any direction other than left and right) you would need to modify its script file.  Unless you already have some experience with programming, I'd suggest holding off on that until you know the editor a bit better.  If you want to try it, though, copy a script (such as crotoid.lua, which is the fish you're talking about) from the data/scripts/entities folder into the mod's scripts folder, and start modifying it in any text editor.  You can find an introduction to Lua (the scripting language the game uses) here, and a quick introduction to how the game uses Lua (along with several other mod-making subjects) here.

- Edwards

[Maria]

Also, when I try to point the fish looking up it still goes left to right. Did I miss something? 

No, you didn't miss anything.  In order to make that type of fish go up and down (or any direction other than left and right) you would need to modify its script file.  Unless you already have some experience with programming, I'd suggest holding off on that until you know the editor a bit better.  If you want to try it, though, copy a script (such as crotoid.lua, which is the fish you're talking about) from the data/scripts/entities folder into the mod's scripts folder, and start modifying it in any text editor.  You can find an introduction to Lua (the scripting language the game uses) here, and a quick introduction to how the game uses Lua (along with several other mod-making subjects) here.

- Edwards

Um.. I think I will just leave it be. I don't know much of programing things yet and I don't want to mess up things, hehe. But thank you!

Okay, I have made my Black square with white background, how do I know how big the rooms or passage ways should be? Because I don't want to make a  room to be too big nor too small. Do I just guess? I know silly question. 

[Edwards]

Um.. I think I will just leave it be. I don't know much of programing things yet and I don't want to mess up things, hehe.

I don't blame you.  I know what I'm doing, and I've managed to accidentally make an entity that consistently crashes the game one second after you hit it.   You can do quite a lot with the built-in entities, especially if you don't feel like you need to make new bosses.

Okay, I have made my Black square with white background, how do I know how big the rooms or passage ways should be? Because I don't want to make a  room to be too big nor too small. Do I just guess? I know silly question. 

Mostly just guess.  50 pixels in an image editor ends up about the height of the screen at normal swimming zoom, if that helps.  I'd guess a normal passage at being closer to the 20-pixel range.  Play around in that range, and see what you like.

Also, don't forget that once you've made the template file, you'll need to tell the editor to regenerate the level from the template.

- Edwards

[Maria]

Okay, I have made my Black square with white background, how do I know how big the rooms or passage ways should be? Because I don't want to make a  room to be too big nor too small. Do I just guess? I know silly question. 

Mostly just guess.  50 pixels in an image editor ends up about the height of the screen at normal swimming zoom, if that helps.  I'd guess a normal passage at being closer to the 20-pixel range.  Play around in that range, and see what you like.

Also, don't forget that once you've made the template file, you'll need to tell the editor to regenerate the level from the template.

- Edwards

Oh, I thought you just make the map and save it in the maptemplate file and that is it. Do I PM him?

[Edwards]

To create a new map template:
1) Make a new image (or modify an existing maptemplate).  This image must be square, with a side length of 2^n pixels (256x256, 512x512, and 1024x1024 are good sizes).
2) Fill the image in with black, and then draw your map in white.  Widths: 50 pixels seems to be about the size of the screen, 1-3 pixels is about the right size for a fish passage.  If you open a map in the editor and delete the tiles along the border, you can see how large a pixel ends up.
3) Save the image as [mapname].png in your mod's maptemplates folder, where [mapname] is the name of one of your mod's maps (those are saved in the maps folder, as xml files).
4) Launch Aquaria, load your mod, and load the map you created a template for (if you're working with a copy of the aquariatemplate mod, the level "template" is loaded by default).
5) Go to the menu, and select the option "Regen rock from maptemplate".  This will change the outline of the map to match your template image, but will not affect anything else you've placed in the level.

- Edwards

[Danger Mouse]

I would just stick with a file dimension of 1024x1024 for your maps, and btw, you can't have larger than 1024x1024, the editor doesn't support it, it automatically clips it to the 1024x1024 of the left bottom most portion of the image. It really doesn't cut down loading times having a smaller size map template. The only thing that will slow down the map load time is how many tiles and entities are loaded for the map.

[Maria]

To create a new map template:
1) Make a new image (or modify an existing maptemplate).  This image must be square, with a side length of 2^n pixels (256x256, 512x512, and 1024x1024 are good sizes).
2) Fill the image in with black, and then draw your map in white.  Widths: 50 pixels seems to be about the size of the screen, 1-3 pixels is about the right size for a fish passage.  If you open a map in the editor and delete the tiles along the border, you can see how large a pixel ends up.
3) Save the image as [mapname].png in your mod's maptemplates folder, where [mapname] is the name of one of your mod's maps (those are saved in the maps folder, as xml files).
4) Launch Aquaria, load your mod, and load the map you created a template for (if you're working with a copy of the aquariatemplate mod, the level "template" is loaded by default).
5) Go to the menu, and select the option "Regen rock from maptemplate".  This will change the outline of the map to match your template image, but will not affect anything else you've placed in the level.

- Edwards

Thank you!
I understand now.
Sorry that I haven't responded. Got busy.

Um, like this? map

Edit:
Hmmm... for some reason it wont let me use the map. I keep getting  red X's.
This is so embarrassing. I guess I don't understand it then. D:

I am confused.

[Chibi]

That happened to me a lot when I fiddled around with the Aquaria mod files - it's probably a mistake in how you installed the mod.

[Edwards]

A few points:
1) Make sure that the maptemplate image has exactly the same name as the map you want to use it for.  So, if the map name is "template", using the map file "template.xml", then the maptemplate image should be named "template.png".  My guess, based on testing your image myself, is that this is your problem.
2) Supposedly, the game is quite picky about the size of the image- the image you posted is 510x510, not 512x512.  That said, my version of the game (1.1.0 for MacOS) used it just fine.
3) When I tested the maptemplate, the game gave a warning about "png color depth ( < 3 bit) not supported", although this does not appear to have prevented it from working.  What program did you use to make the image, and did you tell it to use any specific settings when saving?
4) The image should be pure black-and-white- yours has bits of grey along the endges of most of your lines.  Once again, this didn't prevent the game from using the image, but I don't know just how it handles greys.  If your image editor has a "convert to monotone" feature, using it might be a good idea, at least if you care about the pixel-level details of your map.

- Edwards

[Maria]

A few points:
1) Make sure that the maptemplate image has exactly the same name as the map you want to use it for.  So, if the map name is "template", using the map file "template.xml", then the maptemplate image should be named "template.png".  My guess, based on testing your image myself, is that this is your problem.
2) Supposedly, the game is quite picky about the size of the image- the image you posted is 510x510, not 512x512.  That said, my version of the game (1.1.0 for MacOS) used it just fine.
3) When I tested the maptemplate, the game gave a warning about "png color depth ( < 3 bit) not supported", although this does not appear to have prevented it from working.  What program did you use to make the image, and did you tell it to use any specific settings when saving?
4) The image should be pure black-and-white- yours has bits of grey along the endges of most of your lines.  Once again, this didn't prevent the game from using the image, but I don't know just how it handles greys.  If your image editor has a "convert to monotone" feature, using it might be a good idea, at least if you care about the pixel-level details of your map.

- Edwards

I know what is the problem. 

I don't know what is XML? I should of asked that long time ago. 
Sorry.
And thank you so much for taking the time on helping me!

[Edwards]

I don't know what is XML? I should of asked that long time ago. 

XML is just a text-based format for organizing data.  In Aquaria mods, it's used to store all the information about maps, animations, and a few other minor things.  You can edit an XML file in any text editor.  You don't need to actually know much of anything about it to do basic map-editing, as the editor will automatically make the XML files when you save your map.  All you really need to do is make sure that an XML file exists in the maps folder of your mod for each map you have.

You can get a basic map XML file in one of two ways:
1) Duplicate the existing template.xml file from the aquariatemplate mod, and rename it to whatever you want your map name to be.  This is the easiest method,
2) Create one from scratch, following the instructions on this page (also contains useful information if you want to change things in a map like the music, background color, etc.).

My personal recommendation for figuring out how things work for modding is to just make a backup copy of an existing mod, then start opening up files, changing them, and reloading the mod to see what changed.  Occasionally this will cause the mod to not load, or crash the game- when that happens, just copy over whatever file you changed from your backup, and try something different.

- Edwards