Tilemap conundrum...

(sorry if this is a duplicate - I had to make some edits, but that must have flagged it for deletion, somehow)

Hi all!

I have a few questions about tilemaps. And then a perplexing issue I can't seem to get around. Hoping anybody can help! This is kind of long-winded, sorry.

1. If you take a static image, whatever it may be, is there a difference if it were a single image as opposed to being constructed in X number of tiles? Let's just say there was no variation of the image in a level (side scrolling platformer), is there a performance benefit to having it "sliced" into however many number of tiles? I don't know if I'm asking this the right way. For example, say if it's a tree. Yes, I understand if I want to vary the height, to have it vertically tileable in such a way that it can be tall or short. But let's assume it's just the same height throughout.

2. If there are multiple layers of tilemaps, is that a drain on the performance of a game? For example, a brick building (layer 1), and a tree in front (layer 2). Should I just build the tree into the brick tiles? Or does the engine (or whatever), recognize both layers condensed into a single tile? Hopefully this makes sense. I don't know how else to describe it.

(EDIT - I figured this out. Basically I just had to shift the boundaries up - it was off center) Tile challenge - I'm making a sidewalk for a platformer. The seams in the concrete of the sidewalk are at an angle, from the upper-left corner of the tile, to the lower-right (this will take up two 32px tiles, horizontally - but the graphic is constrained to the top half, so 64x16 px). There is a subtle seam I can't get around. Since the line of the seam terminates into the corner, it results in a point. This seemingly simple thing has wracked my brain. Screenshot below. This is more of a general game-art question - not specific to Construct.

Thanks for any help!

1. a single image will be quicker than having it split up, because everytime a tile is changed, the renderer has to make another draw call..

here's a quote:

"It is not appropriate to use the Tilemap object to display large images. The tilemap object draws tile-by-tile, but can optimise if there are areas of the same tile. This is described in the blog post Tilemap tidbits. If you paste a large image in to the Tilemap object, and then stamp a grid of tiles to display the large image, every tile is different. Therefore no optimisation is possible, and a draw call must be issued for each tile. If the image needs a 10x10 grid of tiles to display, then it will need to issue 100 draw calls. A single sprite or Tiled Background, by comparison, takes a single draw call each. Therefore this type of use of the Tilemap object can be hundreds of times less efficient than using another object. The Tilemap object should only be used for tile based games, where a single tile is a useful level design block by itself, rather than part of a larger image."

2. same issue- if you have multiple tilemaps layered over each other, that hadds to the number of draw calls- so it will slow the game down.

pretty unfortunate, I know.

Prominent - Thank you! That helps.