Import your own RPG Maker U2U project: terraces, blocks, pictures, slopes, fences, water and cameras come across at their heights.
Bring Your RPG Maker U2U Maps
If you built maps in RPG Maker U2U, you can bring your own project into Studio. The importer reads every map, keeps its heights, terraces and blocks, and imports its tile sheets the same way it imports an RPG Maker MZ project. The maps then open in a Diorama project with their raised ground, cliffs, houses, fences, stairs and water where you built them, and you keep working on them in Build mode.
Import your own projects only. Sample maps and art that ship with RPG Maker U2U are not yours to republish: build on your own maps and on art you have the rights to. You are responsible for the licences of everything you import. RPG Maker and RPG Maker U2U are trademarks of their owners; Studio's importer is not made, endorsed or supported by them. The editor and this page call the project type U2U for short.
Where to Author It#
| What | Where |
|---|---|
| The importer | Tools → Import / Export → RPG Maker Import → Import from Folder |
| Turn on heights (needed to see them) | World → Rendering → View Mode → Top-Down, then Diorama (height and perspective). See Diorama View |
| Keep working on an imported map | Map Editor → open the map → Build in the top bar |
| What did not come across | The yellow Warnings list at the end of the import |
The U2U import reads the project folder straight off your disk, so it works in the desktop Studio and in an editor you run on your own computer. In the hosted online editor, Choose Project Folder… reads the folder as an ordinary RPG Maker project and brings in none of its U2U maps: import from the desktop Studio instead.
How To Import#
- Open Tools → Import / Export, the RPG Maker Import tab, and press Import from Folder.
- Press Browse… and pick your RPG Maker U2U project folder (the one that holds the project's
game.rmu2uprojectfile and itsdatafolder), or paste its path, then press Scan Folder. - Check that the window says RPG Maker U2U project detected with your project's name, and that Maps → Zones and Tileset Images show the counts you expect.
- Leave Maps → Zones and Tileset Images ticked. Import the tile sheets together with the maps: trees, barrels and other standing pictures are made when the sheets import.
- Pick an Import Mode: Append (recommended) adds the maps beside what you have; Replace first deletes what an earlier RPG Maker import made, after Review & Delete… shows you the list.
- Press Start Import. When it ends, read the Warnings list: it names, map by map, every part that did not come across, and why.
- If Diorama is off, turn it on (World → Rendering, top-down projects only). The window reminds you: "These U2U maps have heights and blocks: they show in 3D with Diorama view on (World → Rendering)." Without Diorama the maps play flat and every height change acts as a wall.
- Open each map in the map editor and compare it with your project in RPG Maker U2U.
What Comes Across#
| In RPG Maker U2U | In Studio |
|---|---|
| The map list (names, folders, order) and each map's size | One map per map, in the same tree, the same size |
| Ground layers 1 to 4, the sheets' passage settings | The map's floor, overlay and object layers, as for an RPG Maker MZ map, with each tile walkable or blocked as the sheet says |
| The exact autotile piece each cell shows (also pieces you drew by hand) | The same piece. Painting over a cell in Studio works its piece out again from its neighbours |
| Wall Block (a terrace, a cliff, a plateau) | A cliff part you can edit in Build mode: same outline, height, top tile and side tile, with the paths, crops and flowers painted on its top and the stairs, windows and cave mouths painted on its sides |
| The map's base terrace and the walls a river runs in | Raised ground at the same heights, so the water can lie in it |
| Water painted on a wall's side | That water's waterfall, falling down the side, with the left, middle and right pieces your map stores |
| Tile Block (houses, crates, walls) | Blocks you can stand on, each face painted with its own tile |
| A one-level Tile Block with a top and open sides (a plank bridge, a porch roof) | A thin deck you can walk on, with water or ground showing under it |
| Scale Block that is a plain picture (a tree, a sign) | One standing map object of the whole picture, at the exact spot it stands on |
| Any other Scale Block, a small or shrunk Tile Block, a crate with a lid | A box shape of its own size with a picture on each face |
| Cylinder (a pillar, a well, a barrel) | A round shape of its own width and height, its picture wrapped round it and its lid on top |
| Hexagonal prism (a fountain basin) | A six-sided shape with its pictures |
| Slope Block and the slopes of merged models: stairs and ramps | Stairs or a ramp you can walk up, with the stair picture painted on it, and the decoration painted on its steps |
| Slopes of merged models: roofs | Roof slopes with the roof tile on top and the gable ends U2U painted; they hide when a player walks under them |
| Fence Block | Fences drawn as posts and rails, a post every half tile, at the exact place you fine-tuned them to |
| Water Box | A water box: a flat water surface at its exact height over its exact box, with a see-through sheet of your map's waterfall over the falls in front of it. See Diorama Water |
| The map's Water effect preset | The map's water look; each preset your water boxes name becomes one of the map's water looks (up to three) |
| The map's camera preset | The map's own Diorama camera (Map Properties → Atmosphere → Camera): its angle, a wide lens and the lean that turns walls toward you |
| Heat haze and wind switched on | The map's heat haze and wind, drawn in the game. The map editor has no control for them yet |
| Water effect switched off | The map's water drawn as plain tile art: no tint, ripple or foam |
| Point light | A map light named "Point light (U2U)". Its colour comes across; its strength and range are close, not exact |
| The map's first parallax picture | The map's parallax, with its loop |
| Anything standing on a terrace or a block | Lifted to its height |
What Does Not Come Across Yet#
Nothing is dropped without a word: every part below is named in the Warnings list, and kept with the map in a hidden object called U2U import notes (it is not drawn and players never see it).
| Part | What happens, and why |
|---|---|
| See-through slopes (a slope that is only a leaning picture, such as a street lamp) | Left out. Diorama cannot draw a see-through slope yet |
| Two roofs crossing in one cell (two roof slopes rising different ways in the same cell) | The first one is kept, the other left out. A cell holds one slope at each level |
| A slope inside another block (the end of a roof running into a tower) | Left out: the block stands there and hides it, as it does in RPG Maker U2U |
| Map zoom (the zoom stored with a camera preset) | Not imported. A map has no zoom of its own: players use their own zoom |
| The Water effect's global water height (flooding the whole map) | Not imported. The water boxes are |
| Passage overrides | Not imported. Passage follows the tiles' own settings; block a cell again in Studio where you need to |
| Map events | Not imported. Rebuild doors, chests and NPCs with Studio's events |
| Spot lights, god rays and bonfires | Not imported; point lights are |
| Other screen effects (cloud shadows, fog, dust, colour grade, depth of field) | Not imported; the Warnings list names them |
| Mirrored tiles | Drawn unmirrored |
| Fence side and top tiles, free-form faces of merged models, a second and third parallax picture | Not imported |
| The preview start | Kept in the import notes; set your player start in Studio |
Things That Catch People Out#
- Turn Diorama on. The import works in any project, but heights, blocks and water only show, and only play, in a top-down project with Diorama on. Without it every height change is a wall.
- Re-import to get importer fixes. Pieces, heights and places are written when a map imports. A map you imported with an older Studio keeps its old look until you import it again: use Replace for a clean copy, and import Tileset Images with the maps.
- Some terraces come in as raised ground. A map keeps up to 112 different painted terrace tops as cliff parts you can select in Build mode; past that, and where a part of the map holds too much block data, the next terraces are raised as ground instead. They have the same heights and look, but Build mode cannot select them. The Warnings list says "raised as ground" for each.
- A terrace top hidden under a higher terrace keeps only its top tile, not its decoration. Repaint it if you take the higher terrace away.
- One sheet of each kind per map. A map's ground layers can use one A2 sheet, one B sheet and so on. Tiles from a second sheet of the same kind import blank, and the Warnings list says so.
- Crowded cells. A cell holds at most eight shapes. A shape that finds its cell full is stored on a cell beside it, at the same place and size; one that starts above the highest level starts at that level, with its top where you had it. The Warnings list names each one.
- A fine-tuned fence still blocks its whole tile, even where it is drawn a third of a tile toward the next one.
- A shape's top is not a place to stand, and a shape blocks walking only where your map blocked it.
- Shapes cannot be selected or resized in the editor yet. They draw in the Diorama view and the game.
- Watch the Warnings list. It shows up to 60 lines a map and then says how many more there are; the full list is in the map's import notes.