2D map editors

What good ones are available?

I've looked at two so far

Mappy - I've been told its difficult/complex to use. Quite sure I've looked at this before and drew the same conclusion.

FishEd - Tried the demo and it works OK. Written in Blitzplus and some features feel a little 'bodged'. Have to pay with Paypal and I read somewhere on this forum that the author isn't replying to emails so I'm not keen on paying this way.

I need map layers, and I need to be able to add in switches/doors and so on - apparently FishEd does this but I couldn't figure out the meta data stuff in the demo, can only conclude that its disabled for the demo version.

Any other suggestions? I'd write my own but I don't see the point of reinventing the wheel.

I bought this one about 3 years ago. Haven't used it too much though so can't tell you if it works well.

http://www.mapeditor.de.vu/

http://tilestudio.sf.net/
It's easy enough to use.

Well... Mappy is the only one that works perfectly for me tho, how about try it again?

Amon: Thanks for the suggestion - it seems pretty basic, and it won't let you load files that have 'proper' filenames, only 8.3 format ones.

I just tried Mappy again and its as bad as I remember it being. It crashed before I figured out how to do anything with it.

FishEd would seem the obvious choice, at this stage, but I went to the 'buy it' page, and it says "version 0.0, price 0.00". Given this revelation I didn't bother proceeding further.

Beginning to think I might as well take a few weeks to write my own.

Why not make your own map editor, customized to your game? It's hardly rocket science.

They're tedious to write though. And writing one that can be used for multiple style games you have planned is even more tedious.

You only have to look at the ones that are currently available to see that they may not fully suit your game.

Like you say though, it's not Rocket Science.

:)

You can spend a month on a map editor that suits *all* your games, I actually wonder whether that's possible at all. Or you spend 2..3 days on a map editor for each game and have an optimized tool that does *exactly* what the game requires. Those are 2..3 days of which you are sure they're not wasted. Those 30 days for the "ultimate map editor (tm)" are a risk, as no-one knows what the future demands.

Check out World Artist
Not going to be developed further as I understand it but is easy to use and you get the source.

Just discovered this.

Open source, so you can edit it to fit your needs.

Somehow, all those map editors never feel like superfast instruments to me, more like a quick hack made by someone who hasn't ever edited any maps for games whatsoever. If you edit enough maps you start to see functionality patterns and opportunities to use hotkeys/mouse-combinations for rapid editing.

Compare it with those trackers for music. They don't just contain cursor movements and the virtual piano to enter notes (=basic). The 'instrument' part of a pattern editor lies in the optimized block functions, cursor-step settings, volume/fx interpolate etc. All aimed at creating music (=advanced).

Many or all standard map editors on the net are a bit too basic to me. Not in terms of possibilities, but more in terms of operation.

I think map editors in general are very basic and I have never seen one that really makes me think that it is going to save me lots of time. It almost seems like it's just a visual form of having to click and place every tile manually by hand. There is no automation or intelligence or advanced features, and like was said, they they often missing basic features and are usually much too specialized and specific to be of use for a broad range of games. The feature lists are dull and nothing really stands out as advanced technology. Things could be way better. Which....... is why I'm working on one of these myself. Still lots to do, though.

Gfk:

Not interesting in TileStudio? (as suggested above by yoko)

AngelDaniel: I've made quite some map editors in the past few years, all were blazingly fast and handy. The reason must have been that I was actually *using* those map editors for games, and since I'm lazy, I wish to be bothered as little as possible, therefor I add all the intelligence I can think of. Often enough I see free and even payed products on the net of which I wonder whether the coder/designer ever uses them himself, other than testing.

I'm not writing my own unless I can't find a ready made one that suits my needs, and FishEd more or less seems to but I'm not entirely happy that it only supports BMP format. If I had any intention of doing my own map editor from the off, I wouldn't have started this thread.

I'll have a look at TileStudio, I missed the link when yoko posted it.

Mappy is good, as long as you dont start getting into animations.

I've found it stable - in the many years I've used it, its never crashed on me (and dont forget The Bitmap Brothers used it for their shoot-em-up years ago). Importing graphics is a pain, as the formats allowed are limited.

However, it can be expanded with LUA code, and the source is availiable (plus I've got a BliztMax class on my site. Well, will do when its uploaded).

Tile Studio is the closest to being a really complete map editor, but it is missing a few important things, most notably an undo feature.

Universal Map Editor is also quite decent, but the engine is lacking, plus there are several usability issues.

Both of the above programs are good, and close to being complete but neither quite gets there.

World Artist really had a lot of potential and, even in its current state, offers some nice features you won't find elsewhere, but, like someone else said, I think it's dead in the water.


SpaceAce

Sorry to dig up such an old thread...
But is Universal Map Editor PRO still available somehow?
Or can someone recommend me an other editor capable of handling isometric tiles? (not mentioned is this thread)

Now don't laugh, but what exactly is a 2d map editor?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=2d%20map%20editor

It's a full-featured instrument to fill a 2d array. (or more precise: a flat surface, doesn't necessarily have to be done with uniformly sized tiles)

Ok it's a level editor then, where you build a level using the tools provided.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_editor

I would define it as a tool to create a landscape or a scenary, defined by 2 dimensions, using tiles of some sort.(uniform or otherwise)
But most map editors allow you to place objects or have multiple layers, such as foreground, background or collisionmap.
With enough extra features I suppose you can call it a level editor.