New Ideas

So I stumbled across an interesting little tidbit, while roaming through Java forums. I now about an interesting little thing call a Rectangle. No, I'm not a moron. It's a programming thing that can help me know when stuff comes into view of my "camera" into the little world I have created. The Rectangle would be updated constantly to follow my character, and the rectangles of other things, like NPCs for instance, would set off an alarm when they intersect with it.

Unfortunately, while this is a good way to detect other characters, I do not see how it can be effectively used to make my tile map faster. Oh well. I heard Quadtrees are good for large maps, but I cannot find good documentation on them. I'll look around again, though.