BlameThePixel!

Hi to you and welcome to my Map Making tutorial.

In these days i was worming around when suddenly a guy told me: "why don't you make a Map Making Tutorial?". So here i am, hoping that this guide will be useful to many users that wish to create nice maps, sharing my knowledge with you.
In this tutorial, i'll explain you how to draw a BIT map with wich you will earn success on BTP, fulfill your artistic spirit, become rich, conquer goregeous girls and scare annoying neighbour's kids! WOW!


:: First of all, What you need ::

There are some things that you need to make a nice and enjoyable map:

1.The drawing program that you prefer ( i suggest FLASH for first draw)
2.A little bit of drawing skills with paint (yes, MSpaint, the one wich comes out with windows)
3.BITMonkey. It's essential to develop BIT maps. You can download it in the PROGRAMS section.
4.Fantasy! Who would ever like all identical maps??
5.A little bit of patience, to test the maps and correct eventual mistakes
6.You have to be a player, to known deeply what players like to play.

Ok, so if you've got all the requirements, it will be easy for you to develop nice maps.


:: What to use? ::

Well, personally my suggestion is this, first use flash to draw your map, then export it in BMP and re-edit what's necessary with Paint (for more accurate details, like single pixel or texture matching etc...). Some people prefer to do all the job in paint, but i think it takes a lot of extra time to be made. U can draw principal lines (and sometimes textures) in flash, and then complete the rest with paint. Is faster and equally accurate.


:: Project ::

Whenever you've got an idea, put it down on paper, wherever you are (i always do this ). After, at home, you'll draw it seriously: it's not a good idea to stand in front of your monitor tapping the mouse buttons while thinking " ok, ok, now i need a nice idea for this map". The map comes in your mind itself, don't force her out of your head!


:: Sheet setup ::

So you've got your idea and your program, what you need to do now is creating a new sheet, black background, 1920 x 696, and Draw

probably you: "Draw?? And how? Whatabout grey map? What about colors? Whatabaout ed.."

Oh of course, you have to understand how color works in BIT File. Take a look at this picture:




Basically white = full block, black= empty space, and all the grey gradients are different solidity of the block. Some colors generate particular patterns as you can notice in the image up there.

Now, take measures cause you have to leave some space at the borders of the map:15 Left, 3 Top and Right, no borders bottom, as shown in the image:



*NOTE: the border on the left must be wider cause of a bug of wwp wich sometimes swaps the first 15 pixel on the left to the otherside of the map.


:: Draw your map ::

Now we start with drawing. Well, i think i don't have to explain ya wich tools to use to draw your idea! But i can give you some tips on general drawing, and specific maps measures.

First of all, draw the main lines (like floors, ceiling and walls borders) with white or a very bright colour, so that the rope will not pass in the little pixel holes, and the worm will touch directly the top of the shape.



I suggest the ceiling not to be wider than 7px so that you can collect crates over the ceiling.



About textures and patterns, well there's the bad new, is all handmade and copy-pasted. If you use flash anyway, you can draw your texture and use the texture fill to place the pattern, but you have to be very precise. Other times, if you like, you can experiment with colors to get a simple (semi)plan texture.

There are some measures that you can find useful:
The max heigh tunnel is 22 pixel, the max heigh that a worm can backjump is 51 pixel and the max width of an hole to make a worm fall is 14.




:: Objects ::

There are some objects that can't miss in a Shoppa/Fly/WxW map. The Hides and the Plops.

An hide is generally a place where the worm fits perfectly to hide (as the name suggests). Here are some examples:



Plops are some holes in the floor where the worms fall and plop. Theese are structured with 1 or 2 columns (generally) with 2 covered pixels on the bottom (to leave a weak chanche of surviving to the worm). Here are some examples:



Here are some useful tricks for drawing a nice map:

-To draw a wxw map with accuracy, draw a grid 3x10-3X11 over the sheet before drawing the map.

-place the hides in the upper corners of the map to not obstacolate roping.

-place max 4 plops in the map and put 2 little ramps near the holes.

:: Ultimating your map ::

Once that your map is finished, save it in bmp format and use BITmonkey to decode it in BIT and place it in WWP/User/Saved Levels

*IMPORTANT NOTE: only use Hospital or Manhattan (my favourite ) theme, or the map will fuck up when you import it in game.



Well i hope this tutorial was useful for you.
Anyway, if you have some question, post them, and i'll update the tread.

Enjoy

Map Making Tutorial v1.0 (4/7/2007) By pOpZ

quite a nice tutorial.




and all that stuff is true.

But it might need moving to a different forum.

Also... Many people still playing WWP?

Nice tutorial. You should put yours on more websites.

P.S: I know this is REALLY OFF TOPIC and REALLY DUMB but...what's a sig?