Mappy

I switched to using Mappy (http://www.tilemap.co.uk/mappy.php) for tilemap processing. Mappy has the ability to generate an optimized timemap from an image. I use this for the title screen and background. I'm also adding in RasterSoft and OlderGames logo screens.

Mappy can save the map in either a DWORD (4 Byte) or WORD (2 Byte) data format. It can also export the tiles to a bmp. There is one gotcha with the export, it exports the transparent tile before the tile data. And, the map format starts with tile 0, which is actually tile 1. There is a checkbox to skip tile 0. This work fine, but took me an hour or so to figure it out.

A Mappy map also has to be created in 8 bit to export 8 bit tiles, regardless of the settings of the input graphics.