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tilemakr.doc
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Tile Maker Utility
For use with Mah Jongg or Tile Match
Nels Anderson
92 Bishop Drive
Framingham, MA 01701-6515
U.S.A.
USING TILEMAKER:
The Tile Maker utility allows you to make your own sets of
tiles or modify sets made by others.
The utility is similar to many paint programs with which
you might be familiar, though because of its specialized
nature it includes less functions. Tile Maker can be
controlled with your mouse or keyboard and requires EGA
or VGA graphics.
How tiles are stored on disk:
First, some basics about working with tile sets. A Mah
Jongg tile set includes 42 different tiles. Eight of them
are in the "wild card" suits (normally the flowers and
seasons suits) where any tile in the suit matches any
other. The other 34 tiles use the standard matching rule
where there are four of each tile on the board and the
tiles must be matched exactly to be removed. You'll want
to keep the game rules in mind when designing your tiles.
All 42 tiles are stored in a single disk file. You'll
need to know how the tiles are numbered so that you store
your new tiles in the proper place. For reference, the
standard tile set (mahjongg.til) is numbered as follows:
Tiles 1 - 9: suit of dots
Tile 10: white dragon
Tiles 11 - 19: suit of bamboo
Tile 20: green dragon
Tiles 21 - 29: suit of characters
Tile 30: red dragon
Tiles 31 - 34: suit of winds
Tiles 35 - 38: suit of seasons
Tiles 39 - 42: suit of flowers
Getting Started:
Start up tilemakr.exe by typing "tilemakr" on the command
line; there are no command line options. Note the drawing
area on the left and the command area on the right. If
you're using a mouse you can just point to a command and
click; if you're using the keyboard use the letter next to
the command.
Most of the commands are self-explanatory. Reading a tile
file will first show you all tiles in the file and then
allow you to select by number the tile you want. When
saving a file you'll need to remember the numbered
position in the file that you want to save it to. The
number of the last tile read in is displayed in the lower
right corner of the screen.
After you've loaded a file once you can use the "re-read"
command to get a new tile without waiting for disk access.
You can also review the complete set of current tiles
using the "view last images" command. The full tile set
is always kept in memory to let you access it. This screen
is updated by the save command so the current tile set as
stored on disk is always accurately displayed.
Drawing:
Normal drawing can be done with the keyboard or mouse.
Using the mouse, select the desired color by pointing at
the color chart and clicking. Then to draw just point at
the drawing area and click on each spot where you want to
draw.
Because it's common to switch back and forth between two
colors, Tile Maker remembers the last color you've selected
as well as the current one. Use the right mouse button at
any time to toggle back and forth between the current and
previous drawing color.
If you're drawing with a mouse there are a few basic drawing
shapes available in addition to the simple dot. Under the
drawing area is a set of push buttons where you can select
dots, line, circle, rectangle, filled circle or box. Click
on the desired button and you'll see it push in to confirm
proper selection.
When using the line or rectangles, move the mouse cursor to
one end (corner) and hold down the mouse button. Then move
to the other end (corner) and release the button. When using
the circles you start in the center and pull away until the
circle is the desired size. You can pull in any direction
since the circle is symmetrical.
The seventh (rightmost) drawing tool is a special one. It
allows you to outline an area and then change all pixels
within that area that are a specific color into a
different color. Select this tool and then outline a
rectangle just as you would with the rectangle drawing
tool. When the area you want is outlined, release the
mouse button. You'll be prompted to select the color you
want to change; point anywhere you want on the screen and
click when pointing to the desired color. Then you'll be
prompted for the color you want to change to; again you
can point anywhere on the screen and click. Now the
selected color will change.
When within the drawing area, the mouse cursor snaps to
the center of each pixel when moving around or drawing
dots, lines or rectangles. If you prefer that the cursor
move smoothly you can turn off the snap function by
clicking on the "snap Cursor on/off" command on the right
hand of the screen. For most drawing you'll probably find
the snap cursor useful as you'll be able to more clearly
tell what pixel is being pointed to.
Drawing with the keyboard requires typing the letter or
number of the desired color, then moving the cursor around
with the arrow keys and finally hitting space when you
want to draw a dot.
Enhanced Undo Function:
Because quite often you will do something that you wish
you hadn't, Tile Maker has an undo function. Tile Maker
actually saves up to three previous versions of the tile
you're working on, and these appear directly below the
current normal sized tile in the box on the left side of
the screen.
If you select the undo function by clicking on "Undo" or
hitting the U key you'll get the backup tile shown
immediately below the tile in the box. If you're working
with a mouse you can select any of the three backup tiles
directly simply by clicking on the one you want.
Additional Drawing Functions:
The "fill" command works a bit differently from paint
programs, because it only fills up from the starting
point. This is handy at times because you don't have to
close off the bottom of the area you're going to fill. If
you have a very irregularly shaped area you may have to
use fill more than once to fill it all. Note that fill
works from the position of the keyboard cursor, not from
where the mouse points.
The "flip", "rotate" and "shift" functions all work with
only the face of the tile. They also force a one pixel
border around the edge of the tile surface, so you'll want
to be careful not to shift things past this border (unless
that's what you want to do!).
When you're done with your tile set, use the "N" (add Name)
function. The name you enter will be displayed at the
bottom of the screen when playing Mah Jongg or in the Info
screen when playing Tile Match.
The best thing to do is get the Tile Maker running and
experiment. You'll find designing good tiles is quite a
challenge, but it will allow you to have your own
personalized version of the game when you're done.
You might want to look at other already completed tile
sets to see some of the techniques used. Because the
drawing area is so small you often have to trick the eye
to get the effect you want. One thing to avoid is
changing the sloping sides of the tiles. Generally this
will ruin the 3D effect and simply doesn't look good when
tiles are stacked up.
Importing From PCX Pictures:
Tile Maker has a limited ability to load tile faces from
PCX drawings, such as you might create with a full-
featured paint program or with a scanner. The PCX
pictures must be in 640x350 pixel size and use a 16
color EGA palette.
To import a PCX picture, click on "import PCX picture"
or hit the P key. The normal file selection box will
pop and and you should select the PCX file you want.
The picture will load and a square cursor will appear.
Use the cursor to surround the portion of the picture
you want (the square is exactly the size of a tile face)
and click. You'll be switched back to the editing
screen with the PCX image now on the tile face.
Saving Your Tiles:
Saving a tile seems to be a bit tricky for some people,
so let's go over it thoroughly. When the first tile in
your new tile set is complete, use the "Save tile"
function (hit the S key or click on "Save tile"). A
file selection box will pop up, but since you're
creating a new tile set you should type in a file name
rather than selecting an existing one. You can leave
off the ".til" portion of the name if you wish, so for
an example, FLAGS.TIL or FLAGS would both be valid and
refer to the same file. Hit the 'Enter' key or click
on the OK box when ready.
Now, you'll be prompted for a tile number within the set
(see the section above on how the tiles are numbered).
Since this is your first tile, you'll probably want to
enter 1 but any number between 1 and 42 is valid. Once
you've selected a tile number and hit the 'Enter' key,
your first tile is saved!
On subsequent tiles, the procedure is essentially the
same. When the tile is done, select the "Save tile"
function again and the file selection box will pop up
again. Since your tile set has already been started,
just click on it to select it this time. When prompted
for a tile number, enter a number you haven't already
used, otherwise you'll wipe out one of your other tiles.
Just keep going until you have all 42 tiles created.
Don't forget at some point during your tile set creation
to use the "add Name to file" function" (click on it, or
use the "N" key) to add your name or a description to
the tile set. The message you enter will be displayed
at the bottom of the screen when playing Mah Jongg or in
the Info screen when playing Tile Match.
Share Your Creations!
If you develop any tile sets you'd like to share please
upload them to the support BBS (Xevious: 508-875-3618) or
mail them to the author on a diskette. I'd suggest that
you include a text file describing your tile set and of
course you should include your name in it. I'm looking
forward to seeing what you come up with!
