For RMXP there's a screenshot script that generates images of the map.
http://gameface101.playogame.com/t920-map-screen-shot-rmxp

How come there isn't one for VX or VXA?
It seems like something people would quickly make. Especially since map previews can be used for many things.

My attempt so far has only gotten layer 2 tiles.
The rest of the map is auto-tiles, but I am not sure what the formula is to determine the x,y coord of the appropriate tile, and also which tilemap it uses.



Anyone looked into the formulas?

In the map rvdata file the data table first stores the layer 0 tiles, followed by the layer 1 tiles, followed by the layer 2 tiles as a sequence of 2-byte integers. Layer 2 tiles are easy to figure out since sprite_character uses them and the formulas are right there, but layer 0 and layer 1?

There is.

Omegas7's Map Saver Script for VX is in the opening post of this thread, and the VXA version is in this post.

Oh, there is.
Lol thanks.

EDIT: hmm...something seems different about it though. Like, I have to go through a bunch of extra steps just to take a picture, and I can't seem to figure out how to take a picture of another map by ID reference. It also captures everything on the screen and I don't seem to have too many options...

I am trying to extend the system to support map-previews for arbitrary maps, so it would be convenient if I didn't have to manually go through each map and remove all of the events just to take a picture of it. Or if I had on-screen HUD's, hide them while I'm taking a picture...

I would also like to do things like specify the map scale (where all of the tiles would be stretched or shrunk by a factor of x), and I would like to be able to call the method to return a bitmap object which I could then pass on to something else.

Another application of it is to just pass in an array of map ID's and have pictures taken for all of them.
Or just take a picture of every possible map by iterating through all of the map files.

Comparing the XP and VX ones, one accesses the tiles directly while the other just a bunch of screenshots and combines them together. I prefer the XP approach and am surprised no one's released one that does that for VX.