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Main - ROM Hacking - Public Service Announcement: Use of the term "TSA" New thread | New reply

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Kawa
Posted on 12-07-09 05:31 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121745


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When they're not just squares, I call 'em objects. Which are nine outta ten made up, in turn, of Map16 tiles. Mario, Kid Icarus, Metroid... As far as I know, Mega Man does not use objects by this definition. Ofcourse, you shouldn't let a simple concept such as the Map16 level containing the solidity/kill/water settings confuse you.

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Posted on 12-07-09 10:35 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121767


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Posted by MathOnNapkins
MapX is only descriptive when the metatile objects themselves are squares, though. From what I understand, the "TSA" in Mega Man games features any number of different shapes. The game I hack even uses non square TSA in the dungeons (LTTP).

MapX is a subtype of whatever we want to call this phenomenon.


Close; the only non-square shapes that can be built by this method in the Mega Man series are the maps (stages) themselves. However, the point stands that it can be used to create non-square shapes; I attempted to cover this in the original post, referencing multidimensional arrays. The indexing/hash table method can be used to create lines, rectangles, cubes, cuboids (yes; this one really is a word), or hypercubes, to list just a few. Naming it after shapes is hopeless...

Just one simple name, that's all it needs. Not a context-sensitive, situation-dependent series of names, evoked when the term fits the bill. That's why I've been trying to use terms like "hash table" and "array indexing"; but these are not quite descriptive enough. Short of that, "TSA" and "Map *" hurt my grammatical-oriented mind.

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Posted on 12-08-09 04:58 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121834


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Okay, here goes...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperrectangle

How about HOA=Hierarchical Orthotope Assembler?
(I think hyperrectangle sounds a bit silly, even if it is a word, & most people think box=3D.)

MathOnNapkins
Posted on 12-08-09 06:57 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121840


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Resuable Tilemap Component.

Reusable because most such objects are designed to be used more than once, in some cases hundred or thousands of times like with Map16 (Metroid games come to mind.)

Tilemap because ultimately these arrangements are applied to a larger tilemap, and are usually stored as hardware level tilemap entries (vflip, hflip, palette, chr, or other hardware specific properties). In the case where the "tile" data indexes into another layer of metatiles, the functionality is the same - it functions as a tilemap. Whether it's a tilemap consisting of tiles or metatiles is irrelevant, really.

Component because the arrangements themselves are not tilemaps. They are components that can be used to build up the finalized tilemap.

That's the best I can come up with on 5 hours of sleep :3.

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Kawa
Posted on 12-08-09 07:00 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121843


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No and no.

HOA, aside from having even stranger words than "squaroid", is new and unlikely to be embraced by the public.

RTC is already used for Real Time Clocks and can cause considerable confusion.

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MathOnNapkins
Posted on 12-08-09 07:05 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121844


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Well, for that reason alone I consulted a thesaurus and couldn't think of an alternative for component other than something like "piece" or "object". Object would work but I think it is a term that might overstate the generalized functionality of most so-called TSA.

On the other hand, abbreviations are often context sensitive. If I ask someone for an ATM at a gas station they probably aren't thinking of this.






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Kawa
Posted on 12-08-09 07:12 PM Link | Quote | ID: 121845


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Posted by MathOnNapkins
On the other hand, abbreviations are often context sensitive. If I ask someone for an ATM at a gas station they probably aren't thinking of this.
Yeah, unless it's that kind of neighborhood

But context sensitivity is still a problem: RTC and RTC are both romhacking-related concepts.

My main point is that any new name will need to be accepted by the general public to solve the problem. That's why I'd rather just give reasons why TSA or MapXX is better.
Leaving out the object- or stripe-based formats, which in turn end up using or becoming [TSA | MapXX].

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Parasyte
Posted on 12-08-09 07:13 PM (rev. 3 of 12-08-09 07:23 PM) Link | Quote | ID: 121846


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Speaking of confusion, the "HOA" acronym is typically used to refer to Home Owners Associations, which are evil by association (excuse the pun).

Posted by MathOnNapkins
On the other hand, abbreviations are often context sensitive. If I ask someone for an ATM at a gas station they probably aren't thinking of this.

Nor this. (You can tell I work in IT. )

Also, I argue that column-based game engines (Super Mario Land, Legend of Zelda, ...) are just using 1-dimensional variations of the same concept. Considering it to be something different for that attribute alone is kind of silly.

That would be like calling all of the different LZ variants by names that don't include those two letters; Wikipedia's list includes: LZ77/78 · LZSS · LZW · LZWL · LZO · LZMA · LZX · LZRW · LZJB · LZT · ROLZ. Imagine if another variant was called something ridiculous like "Reduced Sliding Window Mapping algorithm; RSWM" ... Sure, the name might fit what the algorithm *does* but it does not describe the algorithm *family*.

Kawa
Posted on 12-08-09 07:24 PM (rev. 2 of 12-08-09 07:26 PM) Link | Quote | ID: 121847


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Families. That's what I like about MapXX. It describes an entire set of variants, Map16 and Map8 being the most common.

BTW, what you call "column-based", I have earlier referred to as "striped". "Column-based", though correct, has a generic tone, while I implied "striped" to be a specific storage method (or specific phase of storage).

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MathOnNapkins
Posted on 12-08-09 07:34 PM (rev. 2 of 12-08-09 07:42 PM) Link | Quote | ID: 121852


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Well I think the chief problem is that TSA is an abbreviation for something 66% nonsensical.

Tile - good...
Squaroid - wtf?
Assembler - wtf?

Btw, I believe someone was asking earlier in the thread where TSA came from. As far as I know it was invented by Vagla in an old document he did called "The Art of Romhacking"

boop

Moving on, I'll revise my previous term:

RTA - Reusable Tile Arrangement
or perhaps just TA as Grey Mario put it.

Argument against "metatile":

I see some people using the word metatile, and I think the "meta" part is quite right, but the "tile" part only explains a subset of the concept. To me, the "tile" in "metatile" implies that the tile arrangement is either square or at least rectangular, which is not always the case.

Other thoughts:

The usage of the term TSA almost invariably refers to the inherent arrangement of 8x8 tiles for the purpose of building a level in a game. The nature of the TSA varies from game to game, but its purpose remains invariant - to design levels, maps, worlds, whatever you want to call them. Perhaps we should focus on its purpose rather than describe what it is?

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Parasyte
Posted on 12-13-09 08:25 PM Link | Quote | ID: 122514


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Something to the tune of "Layout Sets", "Layout Groups", or "Layout Classes" ...

I think the term "layout" accurately describes the method of arrangement, without being overly verbose. Avoiding the term "tile" is a good thing, because it could be applied to sets of vectors in 3-dimensional space, just as easily as it is applied to sets of tiles in 2-dimensional space. Avoiding the term "map" is also a good thing, since "maps" are also typically thought of as using a 2-dimensional coordinate system.
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Main - ROM Hacking - Public Service Announcement: Use of the term "TSA" New thread | New reply

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