User:Colinvella/TIDE Editor

tIDE Tile Map Editor is a generic tile-based map editor with direct support for Microsoft XNA game development via the xTile tile rendering engine for XNA. tIDE (Tile Integrated Development Environment) is developed in C and Windows Forms technology and features parallax layer editing, tile animation and auto tiling amongst others. This software is an open source project hosted on CodePlex under the Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL).

Parallax level editing
tIDE features WYSIWYG editing of multi-layer maps, allowing the user to build parallax-scrolling levels with multi-layer content that aligns appropriately. This is accomplished by setting a view-port of a specific size, typically corresponding to a prescribed screen resolution. Once the desired view-port is set, the editor is able to align the levels exactly as they would appear when used within a game running at the desired resolution.

Auto-tiling
To facilitate usage of transitioning tiles, tIDE allows the user to set up auto-tiling definitions that enable the editor to automatically determine the correct tiles to place to ensure smooth blending of tiles, such as dirt-to-grass boundaries. This functionality requires 16 transitioning tiles, corresponding to all the possible permutations of the transitioning terrain around the four corners (2^4 = 16 possible tiles).

Tile brushes
To further simplify level design, the user can replicate arbitrary sections of a map as named tile-brushes that can be reused in other areas of a map. Typically exampls are trees, rock formations and buildings that span multiple tiles.

Tile animation
It is also possible to define tiles that animate using simple frame animation. Typical uses are water effects, rustling vegetation and so on.

File formats
Presently, tIDE implements its own XML-based ".tide" format and the Tiled TMX file format. Through the editor's plugin mechanism, it is however possible to extend the software to support new formats.

Editing capabilities
tIDE features a full undo-redo history mechanism, zooming, tile guides and a comprehensive set of tile placement tools.