This FAQ is dedicated to all of us who are wasting our youth playing and hacking the game Marathon, especially the people at Bungie!
This FAQ is intended to provide a general guideline for editing Marathon Map Files. It is intended to be used with any marathon map editing program. The only one currently available for creating maps from scratch is Pfhorte 1.0b5.
Notes for Pfhorte V1.0b5
Pfhorte is a wonderful program that can be found on America Online, as well as ftp.amug.org, and various and sundry ftp sites. The hard working author is Steve Israelson, Steve_Israelson@mindlink.bc.ca.
-No way to realisticly Set Teleport Destination. this will be fixed in 1.0b6 :-)
-Will mess up menu fonts after a while. (only a cosmetic problem)
-Can't make level names with spaces in them I.E. "This is My Level" won't work
-Object placement Information is a bit erratic still, best to use the Marathon Object Placement Editor V1.3. Available at the sames sites as Pfhorte.
Polygons and general map information
From what I understand you are limited to a maximum of around 260 polygons, they have to be made in a clockwise fashion, and not include angles of less than 15 degrees and not greater than 180 degrees.
Texture Sets
There are 6 marathon resources for textures, 1 is the Pfhor ship, 3 are the marathon, and 2 are the interfaces for the marathon and the alien ship(rechargers etc). You must choose one of the first 4 sets as your pallet of textures to choose from. The interface textures are handled in the side dialog boxes as a special case.
Polygon Editing
All polygons Must have height (if you want them to work). there are field for floor elevation as well as Ceiling elevation. Actual polygon height can be found by subtracting the floor height from the ceiling height. EX: a floor at 1024 units of elevation and a ceiling of 1900 units would give you a polygon height of 876, which would be a very low ceillinged room.
Scale and Units of Measure:
Your character is around 819 units tall, makeing rooms shorter than this will keep your character from entering those rooms normally. 345 is around the highest you can step normally (for stairs, etc.). Below is an index of some of the known sizes. I say normally in all my size quotes because by playing with the physics editor you can change a number of these constants.
SOME statistics(default physics file*):
Highest step you can make: 345 (340-345)
Lowest ceiling height you can enter: 819
Texture Block WidthxHeight: 1024x1024
Unfortunately I have noticed some variance with the marathon game play. This may indicate that things within marathon are not as constant as we would have liked to believe.
* Note: in the current Physics Model Editor version 1.1 if you look at the walking/Running/etc. statistics for ANYTHING you will change them (remember heisenberg?) and these statistics will be off. I.E. if you look at the MISC screen for any alien and then flip between them you will change their "step" constants. If you EVEN LOOK at your own physics for walking etc. they will change. This is an inherent defeciency in the physics edior. If we all e-mail him perhaps he will be persuaded to write a more precicse version of his editor. The Author is Michael Hanson, hanson@cs.stanford.edu. No flame intended.
Types of Polygons
-Normal-this is your average hunk of floor/ceiling etc.
-Item Impassable- no one is supposed to be able to pass through these, I think.
-Monster impassable- Monsters generally stay out of these squares. they will follow you through them, however.
-Major Damage- will cause you Major damage while your here, and will make it difficult to see.
-Minor Damage- will cause you Minor damage while your here, and will make it difficult to see.
-Platform- a door, elevator, trash compactor, etc... See Below for details.
-Light on/off - will turn a light on or off probably using the Permutation field.
-Platform on/off - Will turn a platform on/off probably using the Permutation field.
-Teleporter- Will send you some where else IF you stop here. If you keep moving you don't transport. Permutation field is the destination polygon, which can be set using various methods depending on your editor. If all else fails you can type in a polygon number into the permutation field (see Permutation below).
-Glue Trigger and (Super) Glue- Useful for setting traps. Stepping on the Glue trigger polygon will activate aliens on the (super) Glue polygons.
-Must be explored- In conjunction with a Goal object, will allow you to complete a level, like on the Pfhor ship.
-Exit-remember staring out the window on the Pfhor ship and getting transported? I assume that's what this is. However Transporting between levels needs to be figured out, as well as Goal objects.
Permutation and Polygon Numbers
Every polygon has a number, starting with Zero. If you delete Polygons your numbering will change, throwing off teleportation destinations. At the very least Permutation is how Marathon keeps track of Teleport destinations. It may have a number of other uses, such as glue etc. but I haven't explored this thouroghly.
Platforms
When you change a polygons type to a Platform you will be able to access all the flags and values associated with that platform:
-Initially Active - platform starts out moving.
-Initially Extended - platform starts out extended. If ceiling flag is checked platform will be against floor(at min height). If Floor flag is checked platform will be against ceiling(at max height). If floor and ceiling are checked platform(s) will meet at center, like Pfhor Doors.
-stops at each level - Platform will raise or lower, etc. and then stop. Otherwise it would simply continue moving.
-stops at initial level - Platform will raise, lower, etc. and then return to it's original position before stopping.
-floods - no idea.
-floor to ceiling - Platform extends from adjacent floor to adjacent ceiling. See door example for a clearer explanation.
-floor - platform extends up from the floor.
-ceiling - platform extends down from the ceiling.
-causes damage - the platform can crush you.
-no activate parent - not sure.
-one shot - you only get to trigger the platform once
-activates light - activating the platform activates a light somewhere somehow.
-deactivates light - reverse of above.
-player controllable - you can activate the platform(using your action key)
-monster controlable - the monsters can activate the platform (Bob's are NOT monsters, regardless of what you may think)
-safety - you can reverse the door mid-action. This is great for keeping doors closed when monsters are trying to open it.
-no external activate - not sure, perhaps there are no connected switches?
-uses native heights - not sure.
-delays before activate- you tell it to go, and then it waits some before it does
-contracts slow - like it says contracts slow, not tested though.
-activate adjacent flags- Basically, if you have a bunch of adjacent platforms, you can have a "ripple" effect" like the Wave in Cold Fusion. Another example is the set of stairs in Bigger Guns Nearby that you trigger with the switch. (Jeff - AFA Eaton)
-Speed field- how fast you want the platform to move. 45: good door speed
-Delay field: how long you want it to pause between movements: 120 a good door
-Max Height field: maximum Height the platform goes up to, except -1 when floor to ceiling flag checked
-Min Height field: minimum Height the platform decends to, except -1 when floor to ceiling flag checked
-Flags- as usual with flags: no clue.
Platform example (PDragonInn- Chuck Seggelin)
Make the polygon type platform. Set the floor height to the lowest height you want the thing to go. Set the ceiling height to whatever as long as it is higher than the polygon you are going up to plus about 1000.
Check off the boxes for 1)Initially active 2)Initially Extended 3)Floor
Set speed to 100
Set Delay to 200
Set max height to -1
Set min height to -1
Set flags to 1
That is all you need for a working elevator that goes from a lower level to a higher level. I would try to describe how to set the sides, but I would need a diagram to show you.
Door example 1 (mine)
make 2 rooms 2048 units tall, with 1 or 3 thin polygons 1024 units tall between them.
Make the middle polygon a platform and check: Initially Extended, Stops at Initial level, floor or ceiling, player controllable, monster controllable and safety. Set the speed to 45 and the Delay to 120.
-1 thin polygon
Set the Max and min heights to 1024 and 0. Make the texture of the wall connecting the room and the door polygon something door like. This door like texture needs to be in the polygon ADJACENT to the door, not in the door itself. Do this for both rooms. Make the walls, ceiling and floor of the door polygon underside-of-door looking (like caution stripes, etc.). You're done at this point.
-3 thin polygons
same as one thin polygon except: Make sure you're using the middle of these 3 polygons, the side two serve as the rooms in the section above. Check the Floor to ceiling box, and set the Max and Min hights to -1. This will make the door use the adjacent polygon heights as the max and min. This kind of door set up tends to look better for tall rooms.
Door Example #2 (PDragonInn- Chuck Seggelin)
1. Create 3 adjacent polygons with the same floor and ceiling heights, a narrow one sandwiched between two larger ones. The narrow polygon will be the door.
2. Doubleclick the narrow poly to open it. Change its type to "platform" and click the platform settings button. A dialog with many checkboxes pops up.
3. Check off "Initially Extended", "Stops at Initial Level", "Floor to Ceiling", "Ceiling", "Player Controllable", and "Monster Controllable". "Initially Extended" means the door is SHUT when you first see it. If you don't set this, the door will be wide open and WON'T close when you hit the action key (at least mine wouldn't... maybe because it was a tall door.) I do not know what "Stops at Initial Level" means. "Floor to Ceiling" indicates that the door goes all the way from the floor up to the ceiling. "Ceiling" refers to the direction the door opens in, in this case upward. "Player / Monster Controllable" refers to who can open the door. As Johnathan says, you can also click "Safety" to allow the player to reverse a moving door's direction. If you click "Damage" the door will hurt you if it closes on you.
4. Set the door speed to 45, and the delay to 120. You can probably play around with these. I think the delay either refers to how long after you hit the action key the door opens OR how long after fully opening the door waits before closing. The speed must refer to how fast the door slides open.
5. The meaning of the min height and max fields is NOT obvious. But, as long as "floor to ceiling" is checked off (meaning door extends from the floor all the way to the ceiling) you can set these fields to negative one (-1). I suspect that min height refers to how far open the door is when it is in the "closed" position, I guess you could have a partially opened door. (For example, floor height is 100, min height of door is 200, so when door is closed there's still an opening 100 high beneath it?) OR this might be used if the floor of the door-polygon is higher than an adjacent polygon. Not sure. Also, the meaning of min height is further confusing if you consider doors that open from the ceiling down to the floor or doors which split open in both directions (like the doors in Waldo World). Max height is presumably the opposite of min height. The question is do max and min refer to the dimensions of the OPEN DOOR or something else? Such as, max height = ceiling of opening when door is open if door opens upward, but =floor of opening when door is CLOSED if door opens downward.
6. Now, make sure that the door poly's walls adjacent to the other two polys are DELETED. The only walls the door poly should have are those which are adjacent to nothing.
7. Now visit the larger polys. First make sure that the wall adjacent to the door poly exists. If it doesn't, create it by clicking NEW. Verify that the wall type is set to "High" instead of "Full". In "Mars Needs Women" the doors into the large room have both a primary and secondary texture. I do not know why, but it may be necessary. So, set a secondary texture for these walls as well.
Now you have a functional door. Yay.
To make a door go down into the floor instead of up into the ceiling you have to do more than just check off "Floor" on the platform settings. You also have to change the walls I made "High" in the above example to "Low". This isn't enough, though, and I don't know why. I suspect you may have to put some mystery numbers into the "Flags" field. Anyone know what this field is for?
To make a door that splits & opens both up & down. You have to check off both "Floor" & "Ceiling", & set the walls that I made "High" as "Split". Again this isn't enough. More flags?
Drawing Modes
I saw a post on these, I'm going to look for it and credit the author before I retype and research all of this.
-normal
-fade to black
-invisible
-sub invisible
-pulsate
-wobble
-fast wobble
-static
-sub static
-landscape
-smear
-fade out static
-fold in
-fold out
-horizontal slide
-fast horizontal slide
-veritcle slide
-fast verticle slide
-wander
-fast wander
Lighting
I have not explored lighting yet. Next Faq version I guess.
Misc Fields
ezi, lin cnt, pt cnt, etc... no Idea
Side Editing
Wall types
Full: wall fills the whole side of the polygon.
Low: Wall fills the lower portion of the side of the polygon
High: Will fills upper portion of the Side.
Split: Wall fills upper and lower portion, leaving out middle section(window), if no appropriate adjacent polygon then same as Full.
Composite: Crashes so far. If you get it to work e-mail me!
Shifting the Texture Reference Point, the x0 and y0 fields
The reference point you're shifting is the upper right hand corner. This is where the texture's x and y 0,0 point is, you remember geometery, etc. from your high school years don't you? Unfortunately, for those of us who remember, Bungie has rotated the graph 90' counterclockwise. So now the x axis is left and right, positive being left, negative to the right. The y axis is up and down, positive being up and negative being down. To summarize:
x0: shift the texture + left, - right
y0: shift the texture + up, - down
Primary texture is what your wall texture is usually,
Secondary texture is for when you split your wall, for having a window in the middle, Secondary would be the texture Below the window, while the Primary texture would be above the window. The second set of yx's is for your Secondary texture.
The unit of measure for these offsets is the same hight information for floors, ceilings etc. So if you raise part of your ceiling by 300, and offset your wall texture by y0:-300 your whole wall will have textures that line up (vertically that is). A texture block is 1024 units tall/wide, so if you put a texture on a wall 1024 units high you will get one texture up and down with no overlap.
Control Panels
Your average switch and recharge panel is 512 units wide and 512 tall. The Comm and Save panels are 512 units tall and 1024 wide. To get the textures for the various panels you need to offset the primary texture. The Alien Save Panel is a full size texture 1024x1024, and the Alien rechargers are 1024x512.
1x charger: no offset
2x charger: x:512
3x charger: y:512
Oxygen: x and y: 512
Comm Panel: Offset of y:512
Save Panel: No Offset
Alien 2x: No offset
Alien 3x: y:512
Alien Save Panel: No offset
Recharge panel example.
Object Placement
Refer to OPE for now
Faceing or orientation of Character and Objects
Degrees in a marathon circle:0-512
as you look down on the map:
zero is east
128 is south
256 is West
384 is north
About the FAQ
As you can see the FAQ is still incomplete. I am very open to correcions and further information. You may feel free to upload this faq to your favorite BBS or Ftp site, and put in any software collection containing a Marathon Editing program. Yeah right, like I'd take the time to prosecute. Feel free to package it with your Marathon editing program, provided your the author of the editing program. Don't change the Faq and then distribute it! Send me your comments and I'll be happy to update it.
E-mail your responses, information, suggestions, flames, to Jonathan Allen at JonathanLA@aol.com.
Have fun Playing (with) Marathon!
Legal Junk:
Marathon is a trademark of Bungie Inc. Bungie is not responsible for the accuracy or content of this FAQ. Use the information in this FAQ at your own Risk. I make no claims as to the accuracy or validity of the content herin.
