Welcome to Tei’s Intro to RMXP!

In this series of tutorials, I’ll walk you through some of the basics of using RPG Maker XP
(RMXP).

1. Intro to Mapping (You Are Here!)

This tutorial will cover the layer system, exterior maps, interior maps, and going
from one map to another. This tutorial uses only RTP (built-in) assets.

2. Intro to Eventing
This tutorial will cover the building blocks of events, including Switches, Variables,
Self-Switches, and major event commands like Show Text, Show Picture, Conditional
Branch, and Common Events. This tutorial uses only RTP (built-in) assets.

3. Intro to Custom Assets

This tutorial will cover the guidelines for graphics, including tilesets, character sets,
icons, autotiles, windowskins, and panoramas. This is not about how to make graphics, but
rather how to format and import them. This tutorial uses RTP assets to make custom
assets.

4. Intro to the Database

This tutorial will cover the basics of the Database, including actors and equipment,
enemies and troops, items and states, and the System tab. It will not deeply cover
Animations, nor will it be about balancing your game! This tutorial uses a mix of RTP and
custom assets.

By the end of the tutorials, you’ll have an understanding of the basics of working in RMXP
and will be armed to go forth and create. Scripting will not be covered in these tutorials!
These are also not technique tutorials—the examples presented here are the basics that
form the foundation of mapping, and do not make use of the full breadth of options
available in the program. Experiment! In the famous words of Ms. Frizzle, “Take chances!
Make mistakes! Get messy!”

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 Introduction to Mapping

Table of Contents

Part 1: A Road Map to the Editor

Part 2: Using Layers (A Forest Clearing)

Part 3: Adding Maps (A Forest Village)

Part 4: Putting It All Together (A Village House)

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 Part 1: A Road Map to the Editor
The first thing you’re confronted with when you begin a new project is this screen: the map
editor.

This is where you build your game’s world. Exciting!

The buttons across the top, from left to right, are:

Familiar Tools: New, Open, Save; Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete; Undo
These are the same tools that you see in almost every program. The only oddity
here is that there isn’t a Redo button to go with the Undo button.

Layers: 1, 2, 3, and Event

Layers are one of the things that differentiates mapping in RMXP from mapping in
other RPG Makers.

Drawing Tools: Pencil, Rectangle, Ellipse, Fill, and Select

These tools are fairly intuitive--click and drag to draw freely with the pencil, or to
draw rectangles or ellipses with the shape tools. The paint bucket floods an area with the
selected tile or tiles. Select works on all map layers, so if you need to move an entire
section of your map, you can!

Scale Tools, or Zoom: 1:1, 1:2, 1:4

This doesn’t change the size of your map in-game, but it does let you zoom out to

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see more of it while you edit it. Not so useful on small maps, but extremely useful on large
ones! 1:1 shows your map at actual size, 1:2 shows half-size, and 1:4 shows quarter-size.

Design Tools: Database, Materials, Script Editor, and Sound Test

These are all the tools that make the game go behind the scenes, and all of them are
very important--but we won’t be touching on them in this tutorial.

Playtest
This is the button that lets you play your game! If you press it before we start, you’ll
just see Aluxes walking around a field of grass. The best is definitely yet to come.

Tilesets and Autotiles

On the left side of the screen is a long, narrow panel with trees, grass, tents, and so
forth in it. This is the tileset, and those are the pieces you will use to build your map with.
You can select one tile at a time, or you can click and drag to select multiple tiles (such as
an entire tree).

The top row in the tileset is filled with autotiles, which are a specially-formatted
type of tile that will automatically do things like create corners, fill in spaces, and can even
be animated. The little icons shown in this panel don’t give a very clear idea of what those
tiles do, so try them out!

The top-left corner of the tileset panel is always blank. This is your “eraser” tile!

The Map List

In the bottom-left corner is the list of maps in your project. This is also where you
change the properties of your maps, such as the size of the map and the tileset it uses
(more on that later!)

As you get more maps in your project, you can organize them by dragging them
above or below other maps in this list.

The Map Itself

The main part of the screen is taken up by the map you’re working on. Maps are
built by selecting pieces from the tileset and placing them using any of the Draw tools.

Pro Tip: you can right-click on a tile on the map to quickly begin drawing with that
tile (including the empty space, to use like an eraser). You can right-click-and-drag to
select multiple tiles on the map and draw with those as well!

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 Part 2: Using Layers
Layer 1 is typically used as the ground layer. Using the pencil drawing tool, you can add
features such as rivers and paths to the ground layer by selecting the autotiles you want to
draw with from the tileset panel.

On this tileset (Grassland) the water autotile is the first one on the left, next to the empty
space. Autotile markers in the tileset panel do not always clearly indicate what the autotile
is, so try them out to see what they are!

Rivers are best drawn using the pencil tool, as they are not typically rectangles or ellipses.

If you don’t like how your river is looking, simply select the base ground (in this case, grass)
tile and tweak as desired. You can right-click a tile on your map to start drawing with that
tile. You can confirm which tile you have selected by looking at the tileset panel--the
selected tile(s) will be highlighted by a white box.

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Next, let’s add a path! For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll make a path that goes off one
side of the screen. The “dirt path with grassy edges” is the third autotile in the row on this
tileset.

Paths will be different depending on where they’re located. A city street might be very straight and solid, but a
forest path might be winding and have gaps between clear segments.

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So this is looking pretty good, but it needs some trees, so let’s add a—oh no, where did the
grass go?

THE VOID! This is not the part of the game where our hero was going to encounter The Void!!

Anything on Layer 1 that doesn’t fill the entire space—such as a tree—will have an empty,
transparent background. This will show in your game as a hole in your map! Not to worry,
because we have Layer 2. Fill the grass back in, and move on to the next layer.

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 That’s better!

Layer 2 is where you can start adding detail to your maps. Trees, rocks, tall grass,
buildings, bridges*—anything you need to help the player get where they need to go and
keep the map interesting.

You can select any number of tiles in the tileset section, so you can place entire trees,
clusters of flowers, and buildings without selecting each segment individually. You can also
select any number of tiles already on the map by right-click-and-dragging.

To remove something on one Layer 2 or Layer 3, select the top-left tile in the tileset, or
right-click on any blank space on the map. These blank tiles will act like an eraser.

Don’t forget that you can let trees stick off the edges of the map to create that “clearing in
a dense forest” look. You may need to select only part of your tree (only the top half, only
the right side, etc.) to get the look you want.

* It’s worth noting that the bridges on this particular tileset can be a little bit tricky. The two
narrow sections, just to the right of the tent and the railings, are the easiest to use! Stick to
straight bridges across your rivers for now, rather than complicated boardwalks.

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 Don’t step on the flowers!

There, that looks a lot more like something that you can explore! But there’s still some
funny gaps in the trees…

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On to Layer 3! Layer 3 is where you can add details that overlap your things on Layer 2—
windows on buildings, trees in front of trees, barrels of supplies stacked in front of a tent,
etc. In this example, Layer 3 is mostly used for putting trees in front of other trees.

Adjust your other layers as necessary—this path ends up under this building? Go back to
Layer 1 and adjust the path. This tree should be underneath that tree? Swap them around.
Continue tweaking your map until you have something you like.

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Now, on to the Event Layer. The Event Layer looks a bit different from the other layers: it
shows all of your layers as they will appear in-game, adds a grid overlay (which will not be
visible in-game) and does not allow you to modify the tiles on the map.

Events are used for anything that the player can interact with, anything that moves, and
certain invisible functions, like moving from one map to another.

Any square that has a smaller, semi-transparent white square on top of it has an Event on it. The only event on
this map is the Player Starting Position.

We’ll get into more detail on Events in a future tutorial. For now, we’ll look at one event
specifically: Player Starting Position. This is denoted by an S in a square on the map.

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If your starting position is in a tree, on a building, in the water—you’ll need to move it, or
the player will be trapped. Click and drag it to wherever you want it, or right-click on a
square and select “Player’s Starting Position” from the menu.

I’ll start my player just outside the tent, instead of in the middle of the path.

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Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Save your project and click Playtest! You
should be able to walk around your little forest clearing.

Huzzah!

...But no game consists of walking endlessly around a forest clearing with no one to talk to
and nowhere else to go. Let’s make another map using the same techniques discussed here
—this time, for a town.

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 Part 3: Adding Maps
In the list of maps in the bottom left-hand corner, right-click on the empty space. You’ll get
the option to add a New Map. Select a tileset from the drop-down menu—I like Post Town,
but for this exercise, any of the Towns will do. Let’s make this map a little bit bigger than
the forest clearing map, maybe 25 x 25.

ANOTHER!.gif

Using the same guidelines for the layers as the Forest Clearing, build a little village. For the
purposes of this exercise, make sure you have at least one small building and one large
building. Experiment with the different tiles to create buildings of different shapes and
sizes. Try out things like fences and windows.

Consider how a village might differ from a forest--are the village paths paved roads? Do
they run straighter than forest paths? Is there a natural river in town, or a man-made
waterway? All of these things have storytelling potential.

For this exercise, make sure your path extends to the edge of the map in a place that it
could feasibly line up with the end of your forest path. (If your path went off the right-hand
side of your forest map, it should come in somewhere on the left side of your village, etc.)

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You’ll notice there are places that I have parts of the buildings on Layer 1, so I can put the
windows on Layer 2 and the tops of shrubs on Layer 3. As long as the pieces on Layer 1
don’t have any spaces around the edges (the center of the building vs. the peak of the roof,
for example) there won’t be any voids in the map.

Layer 1

Layer 2

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 Layer 3

There, there’s a nice little village—hey wait a minute, why don’t any of these buildings have
doors?

Something seems to be missing...

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Doors are added on the Event Layer. Door events should be placed where you want the
bottom center of the door to go--the height is determined by the graphic used for the
door. We’ll get to the how and why of graphics in a later lesson. For now, we’ll use what’s
provided and not think too hard about it.

Double-click a tile to add an event there.

This is the Event Processing window. You’ll spend a lot of time here as you develop your game!

Click the “Graphic” box, and scroll until you find a graphic called “170-Door01.” Select a
closed door graphic from the top row of the sheet--I used the first one on the left. Hit OK
to select the graphic, then hit OK again to save the event and close the event processing
window.

Repeat for the door on the second building, or copy-and-paste the event.

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 That’s better!

These doors do not currently do anything—but they will show up correctly in-game.

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What if we want to go from the forest clearing into the forest village, and back again? We’ll
need an event for that as well, this time an invisible one.

Double-click on the end of the path in the village to add an event. This time, leave the
graphic blank, but change the Trigger from “Action Button” to “Player Touch.”

The triggers are located in the bottom corner of the event processing window, immediately to the left of the event
commands section. At the moment, the only two we’re concerned with are “Action Button” and “Player Touch.”

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Double-click in the empty space in the Event Commands to bring up the list of commands
to choose from.

There are three tabs in the Event Commands menu.

Click Tab 2, and select the first option “Transfer Player.”

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Click the arrow next to the map name, select the forest clearing map from the list of
available maps, and click on the end of the forest path.

The 1/1, 1/2, and 1/4 buttons in this screen work exactly the same way as the Scale tools in the map editor.

Hit OK until you’re back to the map editor. Now, go to the forest clearing map and repeat
the process, starting at the end of the forest path and selecting the beginning of the village
path as your destination.

Playtest again, and you should be able to take the path between the forest and the village.

Huzzah!

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Now, what if you want to go inside one of the buildings? The same premise applies.

Create a new map—hmm, we’re getting quite a few maps stacked up here, aren’t we? To
help keep them straight, add a name after the map number. Keep the map number intact
for now, in case you need to reference it later.

You can change the map name (among other things) at any time by right-clicking on the
map in the list and choosing “Map Properties.”

Interior tilesets are named the same way as the exteriors they’re meant to match, and are
located next to each other in the dropdown menu--so if you used Post Town for your
village, try the Post Town In tileset for the interiors of the houses.

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 Part 4: Putting It All Together

Indoor mapping uses the same guidelines for the layers, but with one trick: the first step is
usually to flood the map with a wall autotile, using the Fill tool. It will be a solid black...

The Wall autotile is the first autotile on the left, next to the blank tile.

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...until you add walls and floors. The Wall autotile adds a border to the edges automatically.

The dark spaces isolate the individual rooms on a map.

A common way to show a doorway on the bottom edge of the room is to add an extra
square of floor, like a tiny hallway.

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The space can be furnished all as one room...

Layer 1

Layer 2

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 Layer 3

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...But why stop at one large room? Add interior walls to create smaller rooms.

There are ways to add interior doors to create fully-enclosed rooms, but we’ll cover those in a later tutorial.

Add a second floor! Add plants! Add windows! Think about the person who lives there, what
they do and don’t like, what they would and would not have in their house. Even with a
limited tileset, houses can be made distinct from each other.

Regardless of how the house is laid out, be sure to add an event in the doorway to transfer
the player back to the outside of the village. This type of door is usually set to Player Touch,
just like the ends of the pathways on the Village and Clearing maps.

Huzzah!

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Remember the doors that went to nowhere, on the Village map? Time to make one of them
go somewhere!

Double-click to open the event on the door you’d like to link to the house you just made.
You could just add a Transfer Player command, but why not make the door open when you
enter?

In Tab 2 of the Event Commands, select “Set Move Route.” Select “This Event” as the target
in the drop-down menu, then use the commands on the right to set the move route to
Turn Down, Turn Left, Turn Right, Turn Up*. Hit OK.

Add a command “Wait for Move’s Completion.”

If you want to be extra-fancy, use the “Play SE” command to add a sound effect (like
Door01) at the end of the move route. Then, add your Transfer Player command to bring
the player inside the house.

This is the string of commands that will power every door in your game--but fear not, we’ll cover a faster way to
do it in the Eventing tutorial.

*There is a reason for this exact sequence of movement commands, and I’ll explain it in the
Eventing tutorial--but the short version is that this is what makes the animation play
correctly.

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 Congratulations!
You now have three maps, all connected, and should have a solid understanding of how the
basic tools for mapping work.

There are lots of ways to expand your toolkit, which we’ll get into in later lessons, but these
tools will form a solid foundation.

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 A Little Q&A

Can I use different tilesets on an individual map? I like the table on the Castle In tileset
more than the table on the Post Town In tileset.
Alas, no! Only one tileset can be used for each map. But don’t despair--you can still
use your favorite pieces by importing a custom tileset. There will be a tutorial on custom
assets coming in the future!

How do I add music?

Background music (BGM) is added on a per-map basis in the Map Properties. You
can also add Background sound (BGS) such as crickets chirping, indistinct crowd babble,
and the like in Map Properties. You can preview BGM and other sounds in the Sound Test
menu.

I can walk off the end of something that I shouldn’t be able to walk off of--what’s up with
that?
We’ll get more into passability (the ability to walk on/over/behind something) in
the Database tutorial--but the short answer is that you may have something that is
passable overlapping something that is not. For example, a flower might be overlapping the
end of your bridge. The easiest way around this is to tweak your map design a bit, and
move the passable piece away from the impassable one.

I double-clicked on an autotile in the Tileset panel--what is that spaghetti bowl of stuff

that popped up!?
That is every possible shape that a particular autotile can make! Hit Cancel, and
nothing about the behavior of the autotile will change. If you select a tile in that window
and hit OK, you’ll be able to draw with that specific part of the autotile. It has some niche
uses, but for the most part, the “auto” part of the autotile will do the job for you.

I’m going to have lots of small houses in my game. Will I run out of maps if I put each
interior on a new map?
RMXP can support up to 999 maps--that is a lot of maps! But if you want to keep the
number of maps to a minimum, interiors can be combined on one large map. If you have
roughly 5 squares of the Wall autotile (black fill) around each room, they should still appear
isolated when the game is played.
If you want a particular house or room to have a different BGM from other houses
or rooms in the area, the easiest way is to put that one on a different map and set the BGM
in Map Properties.

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 For this tutorial series, all locations will be on separate maps so that you can easily
confirm which map I’m showing by checking the map list.

What if I want to put an item on a table in front of a window? I don’t have enough layers
to do it.
If you need just one more layer!! you can use the event layer! When you create an
event and assign it a graphic, the first thing on the list of graphics to choose from is
“(Tileset).” This will let you select one tile from the tileset and use it as the event graphic.
So you can have your wall on Layer 1, window on Layer 2, tabletop on Layer 3, and
whatever it was you wanted to put on the table on the Event Layer.

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