This tutorial is for those who just started with RPG Maker XP. For me, the mapping is extremly importent for a game, together with a good story and gameplay. To make good Maps, you need to make the as realistic is possibly.

Here, I will explain how to map a inner part of a Church.

Church Interior

Map Size: 23X19

Step A Nun Mansion.

First of all, begin with the walls. The church tileset is interesting, since it has a different type of wall.


With this wall, you can map the rooms like you can't do with other mapping types.

See how close I can put the rooms near eachother.


That's because I can have the wall on the first layer. It will now be easier to put out things. The windows can also be on the first layer, since there's not white layer bugging you.
Time to put out carpets and windows.

As you can see, I'm only able to have one window. If I put it somewhere else on the map, it will not look natural, because who's stupid to put a window in the middle of the room?

Use the lighter part of the floor, to make it look like the sun is shining inside.


Now, it's time to put out some furniture's. Put these out on the second layer.


And put paintings, shelfs and other kind of stuff on the third.


Obs! Pointing out!
If you have the edges of the tables on the third layer, you can put chairs under the edges.


Other from that, always have tables on the second layer. Then, you can put things on the tables with the third layer.

Time to put out some nuns!


Advice: If you don't want to get any critism for using to many of the same characters, I give you the advice to open the nun character in either Paint, GIMP or photoshop, and recolour it, and save at a new file. It's not realistic if 10 persons looks like eachother ;D

Step B: Chamber

Map Size: 21X15

OK, start with the walls. Remember, first layer.


Put out the windows and the light effects. Remember, first layer.


And the carpet


And since it's a chamber, put the benches after eachother. Then, it will look like a real church . After you have done that, put out the big thing in front of them, and after that, the piano( Okay, isn't a piano ) but...remember...make the map, so it fits in . As you can see, I have nowhere t put it out.


Time to put the rest out. Plants, paintings, nuns and one old priest in the middle, and some villagers praying to their god.


And it's done. Make sure to make things random. The villagers needs to be random! It just look wrong if two people are standing near eachother, and they look the same. <_<

I hope this will help you with the mapping.

That looks pretty decent - thanks for the tutorial!

Finally! o.o;

While I'm awesome at mapping outside stuff like forests, cliffs, etc., I suck at doing indoor maps, especially churches. This is gonna really help me out! Thanks a lot!

Tip: If you'd be some of the persons in charge of the chruch, would you place a carpet under a heavy altar in room that there visits a lot of people frequently, paying a prayer for whatever god.

Remember to pay attention how you place your carpets. Many times people tend to put the carpet under things that are too huge to move, or can't actually be moved at all. Like, place some wall in middle of the carpet, or something. Carpets are piece of the furniture and they require washing, changing, moving around and stuff like that, so they can't be placed just anywhere, or it doesn't make sense.

Another example of placing carpet wrong way is placing it under a fireplace like in one of the maps above. ...what? they built the fireplace on the carpet?

for the fireplace i agree it doesnt look right, BUT as for the alter;

(1) sometimes its good to have things that just look nice, eye pleasing.

(2) its possible plenty. all the ppl, who made the place, had to do is, just cut the carpet around such stone or heavy objects.

but in a game theres no need to redraw the pixel art, to have the carpet end on the alter, as it would look the same with having the alter on a layer on top of a carpet.