BuildingEd: Making multiple buildings in the same building file?

[Jatta Pake]

Are there any drawbacks or problems with making multiple buildings in a single building file?  I understand from Thuztor's guide that anything made with BuildingEd overrides anything in TileZed when buildings are placed.

 

For example, I want to make a complex that has many individual buildings connected via sidewalks.  Rather than make each building individually, can I open up a large 100 x 200 tile building and create them individually at the same time and lay down the sidewalk manually with floor tiles?  Or as another example, I am creating a neighborhood, can I open up one large building file and create six individual houses in it?   Am I missing any drawbacks than what I list below?

 

Suspected Drawbacks:

• I lose the ability to place individual buildings.  It's the whole complex or whole row of houses that can be placed only.
• I lose the ability to rotate individual buildings (for duplication purposes).

Am I missing anything?  Would performance be hurt (or helped) making buildings this way?

[mendonca]

Not sure if there is anything stopping you doing it this way, but I personally wouldn't.

What do you hope to gain?

Marginal levels of convenience? I think this would be blown out of the water by the added utility of being able to duplicate / tweak positions of buildings etc, plus you can reuse significantly generic stuff for your next map.

[Jela331]

You can, but I wouldn't really recommend doing that.

[BeastlyBean]

The performance would not be gained, i think.

[Jatta Pake]

Not sure if there is anything stopping you doing it this way, but I personally wouldn't.

What do you hope to gain?

Marginal levels of convenience? I think this would be blown out of the water by the added utility of being able to duplicate / tweak positions of buildings etc, plus you can reuse significantly generic stuff for your next map.

 

The only thing I see being gained would be a better organization for clusters of unique buildings.  I would lose the ability to individually tweak positions but my buildings size and location in reference to one another would be set.  For example, if I created each building individually, I could find that some are too big or too small in relation to one another.  Then I would be going back and forth having to change multiple buildings and adding/removing to TileZed until I found the right "size".

 

Keep the responses coming though.  You are making me question my design process.  A row of houses probably would be better off as individual house files.

[mendonca]

I see what you mean, but I would still say you are much better off doing them individually and modifying anything iteratively as you go.

 

The small gains in productivity you make will be offset hugely by the added benefit of having individual building files available at a later date.

 

Get some graph paper (or just use excel or something), and plan and sketch your general buildings prior to starting. Whichever way you go, you'll find it a huge benefit to getting it done correctly and to your own vision.