After that blog yesterday, I've implemented a chunk loading and unloading system that works like a charm so far. Still have yet to implement the way AI handles it, but that'll be an adventure I'll have to save for later. Right now I have the foundation laid out.

Here's another big issue I've been facing.

World Art

Up until now I've been using a tile system. As you'll see, I've been called out on it looking like shit. Now, while I could easily add to the tile collection (what I currently have are just placeholders to show where the dirt, rock, and tunnels are), I've been considering dropping it altogether in favor of something prettier.

(That ugly brown shit color is just placeholder since I haven't laid out any tiles yet.)

So I'm at a wall here. Tiles, believe it or not, actually slow down GM considerably more than they should. This is amplified further in GM8.1, which runs this game like a pussy. I'm not sure why else 8.1 would have terrible framerate in comparison in a large world with few objects (so far). Sizing down the room didn't do much. But deleting all the 32x32 tiles did.

So aside from being ugly, the tile system is also stupidly inefficient. I'm currently in the process of moving tiles to different layers per chunk so when the chunk is deactivated, the tiles are too. Even though GM shouldn't draw them off-screen. Fucking GM. Why not move on? Because I'm busy prototyping.

For what it's worth, the room size is 32768 x 4096.

Here are my options. What do you think would make world art look pretty and unique?

- Tile system (obviously revamping the tiles)

- Hand-drawn background art (I can't do this by myself)

- 3D modeled background art (a la Creatures, but I can't do this myself)

Or, if you have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear. GM also doesn't support image files that are greater than 2048x2048. So other forms of background art are iffy as well.

This game has given me so much trouble but it's also my most rewarding so far.

TL;DR

I need a system of doing world art. Please take these into account and recommend something. I'll take any and all suggestions, I just need a foothold of some kind.

- The world is 32768 x 4096 pixels

- Tiles slow down in GM

- Tiles are ugly

- Backgrounds cannot be bigger than 2048x2048

- I have no scene drawing talent whatsoever

- Multiple rooms are not an option because of the need to process AI in different rooms

- I have Googled the fuck out of these subjects