So, while designing levels in the level editor I was getting sick of scrolling through all the different tiles looking for the ones I wanted. So, I took matters into my own hands and created a class called Palette which extends Java’s JFrame. These little windows can be brought up allowing you to drag a collection of tiles/objects from the editor into them and use them from there.

The palettes can also be saved and there can be multiple on screen at any given time. It can be very useful to make different palettes for enemies, for different areas, or for anything and load them later.

Now, if I can find the time, I’m going to make a bunch of really useful palettes and save them all for when I want to do some serious level editing.

-James

I created a mechanism for drawing custom polygon shapes in the level editor. These shapes can be used to draw boundaries. Unfortunately because they’re created as Box2D polygons they must meet these requirements:

1. Must be convex. Concave shapes are not allowed. However concave shapes can be simulated by using multiple polygons.

2. Must be drawn clockwise. I don’t really get why this must be done, but hey, its not my rules.

3. Must not exceed 8 vertices.

I’m looking forward to creating some interesting maps!

-James

I just spent a couple of hours toying with the level editor trying to remove glitches. At this point all known bugs are dealt with and the level editor is extremely stable. This is good. very good. :D

That doesn’t mean there are no bugs, though. Building a game from the ground up is a long treacherous road and it’s inevitable that you’ll build bugs into your system you didn’t mean to.

-James