1 tileset atlas preview surfaces
forgejo-actions edited this page 2026-07-11 12:38:13 +00:00

Tileset Atlas Preview Surfaces

Purpose

Tileset atlas previews explain what an author is really editing when they select tiles, animation frames, navigation masks, surface audio tags, or paint brushes in the tiles tab.

How It Works

The atlas maps screen-space cells back to source tiles. For animated tiles, selection may resolve to the original tile, the animated root, or an ambiguous frame depending on the animation projection. Visible overlay indices are culled to the current atlas viewport so large tilesets do not draw every diagnostic layer every frame.

Navigation masks, surface materials, and paint previews are editor projections over the tileset source data. They should preview the mutation before the author commits it.

Steps

Use animation overlays to confirm that frames belong to the intended root tile. Use nav-mask preview before painting walkability, blocked, or no-spawn information. Use surface audio preview to verify the material tag that footstep requests will route through.

When a tile is ambiguous, resolve the animation root or edit the source animation definition before painting runtime-facing data.

Expected Outputs

A successful pass leaves selected tiles with clear animation ownership, visible nav-mask intent, resolvable surface material tags, and preview output that matches the authored tileset data.

Invariants

Atlas overlays must only draw visible cells. Nav-mask edits should mutate authored tile data, not runtime collision caches. Surface audio tags must stay compatible with the material catalog. Footstep preview requests are diagnostics; they should not become the source of truth.

Common Mistakes

Common mistakes include painting nav data on an ambiguous animation frame, trusting a hidden overlay, treating footstep preview as saved data, or editing surface tags without checking material mappings.

Recovery Paths

Ambiguous animated frames usually mean multiple animation entries reference the selected tile. Stale preview state points to the animation projection cache. Missing audio preview means the surface tag or material mapping is absent.