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I delete things with the Eraser because my levels aren't complicated enough for layer ♥♥♥♥

I used to use the Eraser Tool all the time.
But, of course, that messes up layering, which was a problem whenever I cared about layering.
So, I started moving the items to out-of the way spots where they can't be seen.
That messes up layering too.
So, I started removing items in the code.

Guess what that does to layering.

Maybe it's just certain items that act stupid.

I use the erasor tool every damn time. JUST LIKE REAL MEN DO. And also because my levels don't use advanced layering stuff. They are actually pretty simple.

I only use the code for disabling, glitches that use the code, invisible tiles and copying a lot of items with specific settings (rotating blocks).

I'm very sorry for this hyper bump, but it's necessary due to some bad stuff happening on my 27th LDC entry. On the shipwreck deck in the prologue, the metal platforms that show the railing are randomly in front of or behind the water while playing, but when returning to the designer, the entire layering is shown correctly. I have some important questions:

• If the eraser tool glitches up the layering, can this also be seen in the level designing mode?
• Is it also harmful to delete just any item, even if it's not overlapping?
• Why isn't it a safe solution to reorder the items in the code? That's what I tried and yet the metal platforms are still acting stupidly.
• Do judges mind about this? If they're not usually, we need to change judging standards of this since it's an impudence to deduct points just because you don't want to waste time on saving, searching and reloading constantly.

And btw it's also an impudence to take off points due to lag and loading times that just happen since you want to make your level big and with a good standard of effort, and not since of unnecessary stuff like too many enemies or blocks with 30 coins etc. If the framerate is at least 15 constantly, everything is tolerable and you can expect judges and any other players to be patient.

Edit: What an unexperienced jackass I've been when I wrote this. This needs to be concretized. You can make levels rather big without causing a huge loading time (meaning: at least 20 seconds or 15 seconds + crash warning).

Judging doesn't work like that. By that, I mean, we don't have one guideline every judge follows when they judge a level, or, as you put it "judging standards". Imagine how messy it would be: people following the exact guideline to make sure their level gets the maximum score. Instead, every judge has its own Judging Style. This is why we have 4 judges per contest! So that judging is more interesting and less biased. So you can't ask to change judging standards like that.

Anyway, the layering problem. It's a recurring problem, one I also had a few times, and there was a way I sometimes managed to fix it: Take the code of all your items that are underwater, and, in the code, cut/paste everything BEFORE the Mario sprite (which should at the beginning of the item part of the code). Leave the water AFTER Mario. That is if you want your items to be behind the water. If you want the opposite, well, switch the codes (water before, items after). That sometimes fixed it for me. Now, if that didn't work, don't worry, judges shouldn't pay too much attention to that, unless it's EVERYWHERE in your level, or unless the judge is very nit-picky (like me, but don't worry, I won't be judging ). Best you can do is leave a note in your entry post in the Vault, pointing out the fact that you tried your darnest to fix it but you still didn't manage to get rid of the layering problems. That way, a judge might be more forgiving (don't count too much on it though).

As for lag, haha. No seriously, I laughed. Lag and loading times are like one of the biggest reasons lose points in contests, and trust me, it IS justified. Remember that we are judging a level from a game, not art, so it has to be fun, entertaining. We don't want to be patient, we want to play the goddamn level. Loading time and lags are annoying. There are some ways you can fix them: For loading time, you could divide your level in two separate parts (and use this to get rid of the items that are not visible), or try to remove as much useless items as you can. And tiles, sometimes. One other way to fix loading time (well, not really, it's more like, making it less annoying), is to make your level easier: People won't have to die too often and therefore will not have to load your level several times. Profit! As for the lag, it's easy: just PUT TRANSITIONS REGULARLY. Oh and remove useless items too.
Loading Time is NEVER welcome and it's easy to understand why: if you die over and over, and have to wait every time that the level loads, after a while, it gets very annoying and kills the fun of the level. You could always put a note, again, in your entry post, but trust me, it would be better to try and fix it. But again, it could depend of the judge. If he is a good player, he will die less, and loading time shouldn't be an issue. Same thing if the judge has a good computer (level will load faster).
As for lag, you have absolutely NO EXCUSE, as it is VERY easy to fix. Transitions. They don't kill the mood of the level and are easy to place, add them regularly and you should be safe. A framerate below 20 is VERY ANNOYING to play with (how is it fun to see Mario move a few seconds later after you pressed a key?) (also, you want 15 CONSTANTLY? haha, no thanks), have that in your level and you've got free tickets to lose-some-points-town.

That was a long post, but yeah, I'm pretty sure I didn't forget anything.

First of all, thanks, this will help. I know every judge has his/her own style and with "judging standards" I only mean some basic guidelines like "be sure to take off points for this and that", without detailing how many, that also includes lag and loading time. And 15 fps was a bit of an exaggerated lower bound, it's not that bad in my level so far (rather something between 20 and 25, sometimes above). Also it's quite strange that loading up the level designer and exiting the level takes only a few seconds, but testing the level causes much more time and sometimes even an AFP crash.

Star king wrote:As for lag, you have absolutely NO EXCUSE

I do since I'm very unexperienced, and I use transitions regularly, but I've still seen levels with many items between transitions and they still have few lag (or was that a delusion? ). I feel like I need some secret tricks to know.

And furthermore, I still want to make my level a bit challenging, since challenge is needed for fun, making the level not a cakewalk but also not insane. But still players should know they could die a few times.

Supershroom wrote:

Star king wrote:As for lag, you have absolutely NO EXCUSE

I do since I'm very unexperienced, and I use transitions regularly, but I've still seen levels with many items between transitions and they still have few lag (or was that a delusion? ). I feel like I need some secret tricks to know.

Yeah, I might have exagerated here, but it's pretty much it: if you know a bit about the Level Designer, your level shouldn't even have lag.

Also the fact that there was no lag was maybe because the space between the transitions wasn't that big, therefore, even if there was an important concentration of items, it didn't lag. I forgot that one can also disable various items to reduce lag. Apparently disabled items lag less (but then you won't be able to rotate them).

Some enemies make a lot of noises constantly,it causes some notable lag.For example:Bob-Ombs,they make a "Sssssss" noise when they notice you,and makes a small explosion after a few seconds.One or two of these noises would be fine,but 3 and on and you will notice frame rate drops.
A good idea would be putting multiple Bob-Ombs on separated platforms if you need a lot of them,so they won't be exploding together.

But constantly animated objects are fine,they don't effect the frame rate as much as the noises do.

Just wanted to throw it out there, but you may want to accommodate your level for those with lower-end hardware. Some of them can't get more than 20 FPS on the lowest graphical settings, even though SM63 doesn't use much power. I'm not sure if it's a really big problem with most people, but it really annoyed me for a while when I used my laptop.

Wait, the eraser button did that?

Huh. Never noticed. It worked fine for me.