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--- groups [2017/07/17 08:24] – created justin
+++ groups [2023/01/31 21:28] (current) – justin
@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
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-**Groups** provide a way of associating multiple tiles, objects, and/or characters together.
+**Groups** provide a way of associating multiple entities (tiles, objects, and/or characters) within a map together.
+To create a group, select one or more entities while in the Edit mode of the [[Map Editor]], then either press "G" or right-click on one of the selected entities and choose "Add to Group" from the Grouping submenu. Previously created groups can be managed from the [[Map Properties]] panel.
+{{:wiki:add_to_group.png?nolink|}}
+Currently  there are only a few uses for the grouping functionality, but more will be added as the engine grows. Continue reading below for descriptions of each use.
+=====Hiding Entities=====
+You can use groups as a way to hide a set of entities in the [[Map Editor]], for example to hide the roof of a house to allow easier access for editing the house's interior. Refer to the "Group" property on the [[Map Properties]] page for details around hiding/showing the groups defined for a map.
+=====Group Animations=====
+The [[Play Group Animation]] scripting function allows you to trigger a particular animation simultaneously for a group of entities, for example to raise spikes from a room full of trap tiles or to trigger a cheering animation on a crowd of NPCs.
+=====Auto-Hiding Entities at Game Time=====
+Groups can also be used as a way to have the game automatically hide tile layers based on the current location of the player character. This is useful in cases where there is a building with multiple floors and you'd like the tiles and objects of upper floors to be hidden when the player is on a lower floor.
+<WRAP center round info 100%>
+Please note that the auto-hiding feature will not work if your game has Fog of War enabled. When using Fog of War, you'll need to manually hide and show groups using the [[Hide Group]] and [[Show Group]] scripting functions.
+</WRAP>
+<WRAP group>
+<WRAP column 45%>
+To use this feature, you would add any walkable tiles on the lower floor to a group (as an example, say "floor1"), and then add any tiles that are part of any upper floors to another group, using the special "-hide" suffix. Following our example, this upper floor group should be named "floor1-hide". Whenever the player character walks onto a tile in the "floor1" group, any tile (and any object or character on that tile) in the corresponding "floor1-hide" group will be automatically hidden. Refer to the "Default Example Game" project template for a hands-on example of this. To see how it's set up, check which groups each house tile is assigned to (including the stairs).
+</WRAP>
+<WRAP column>
+{{:wiki:auto_hiding_groups.gif?nolink|}}
+</WRAP>
+</WRAP>
 ~~NOTOC~~

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