A 2D Tile Map Editor with Manual Editing and Rule- Based Procedural Generation
Yuchen ZHANG
Software Development
A 2D Tile Map Editor with Manual Editing and Rule- Based Procedural Generation
For my Thesis, I designed and developed a 2D tile map editor in C ++ that unifies hand-authored level design with rulebased procedural generation in a single workflow. Built on Qt 6.6 with a custom QPainter-driven viewport, the editor provides a tile palette, multi-layer support with visibility and lock controls, brushbased painting and erasing, a full undo / redo command stack, and an XML import / export pipeline. It is intended to streamline level design for indie developers and technical designers who need to prototype 2D maps quickly and iterate on them without ever leaving the tool.
I chose this project because I love tilebased games and have always been curious about the tools behind them. I wanted to build my own editor from scratch in order to understand the tradeoffs each system makes between manual control and automation. I wanted both approaches to live in the same workflow so that a designer could generate a rough layout in seconds and then refine it tileby-tile.
The project took several months and deepened my skills in C ++, Qt application architecture, and procedural algorithm design. I also learned a lot about tools UI design while building the palette, layer panel, and brush interactions. Putting these pieces together taught me how much careful design goes into a tool that is supposed to feel simple to use, and it gave me a real appreciation for the people who build the editors that game developers rely on every day.
110 SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT