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MAPEDIT.ZIP
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1993-05-13
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168 lines
Map editor version .7a April 1993 by Dan Kelly
This program is available free of charge, and may be freely distributed,
however, if you like the program, and use it alot, please send me $20, the
frequency of updates will probably be directly determined by the number of
donations. also, if you can offer me a job programmin in C or assembly, I'd be
interested as well.
Dan Kelly
1136 N. Mellon st, apt #1
Pittsburgh, PA. 15206
First off, this program is mostly complete, but does not represent state of the
art programming. I wrote this program a few years ago when I had CGA, and was
first learning to program in C. Since then I have modded it to work in VGA, and
have updated the program along the way, so you will probably see code ranging
from shoddy to neato, and you will probably find some redundant code...
with that out of the way, lemme tell you how to work the thing.
MAIN MAP SCREEN
*******************************************************************************
The menubar :
***********************
on the left side of the menubar, you will see up and down arrows, those arrows
are used to scroll the character set up and down. the character set is located
below the menubar.
the next buttons from the left, "T","B","L",and "ALL" are implemented, but not
fully. what they do is allow you to assign for the current character (shown at
the top of the screen) wether the player of the game will be able to move into
this square from the left,right,top,bottom, or all sides, respectively. this
data is stored in the file "chset.atr", and you must use dos to copy it when
you wish to work with a different character set.
the next button that looks like an up/down arrow in one, moves the menubar up
and down, so you can see more of the character set, or map file as you wish...
the copy button allows you to copy characters among the character set portion,
from either the map or the character set to the character set.
the save button saves all files.
the exit button is self explanatory, and allows you to save also...
the edit button brings up the edit screen, and allows you to edit a character
in the character set... note that you can select the character either from the
map or the character set.
the "IMPORT", and "LOAD" buttons do not work at this time... I forget what I
was gonna make them do hehe...
the last 4 arrows on the right allow you to move around in the map...
Mouse buttons :
*******************************
When using the arrows on the menubar, the left button actuates the arrow once,
while the right button is auto-repeating, for fast movement around the
map/character set.
In the Map portion of the screen, the left button will place the currently
selected character on the map, and the right button will make the current
character the same as the one under the cursor.
in the character set portion of the screen, either button will select the
current character for editing.
The top status line :
*************************************
X, and Y show you the position of the cursor on the map relative to the top
left corner of the map (not the screen!)
VALUE shows you the numerical number of the character that the cursor is over.
usefull for your game to detect certain events...
the number to the right of the status bar tells you the value of the character
you have currently selected, and will place on the map when you hit the left
button.
the character on the far right of the screen is the picture of the currently
selected character.
EDITING SCREEN
*******************************************************************************
Screen layout :
*************************
The top left corner of the screen shows the character that you are currently
editing blown up by a factor of 8.
To the right are various shots of the character, usefull for alignment.
among these is a view of the character as it sits in the character set, with
surrounding characters. you can use the mouse buttons to switch among these
characters for faster access.
at the bottom of the screen is the palette... by using the left, right, or
middle button (if present) you can select the colors to wich button you wish.
the colors are hard coded for now, but you can go into the source and change
it if you wish.
The Menubar :
************************
(from left to right)
DONE: saves changes and returns to main map screen.
ABORT: aborts changes to current character and returns to main map screen.
REVERSE: flips character from left to right.
CLEAR: clears the character to the color of the left button
<,>,^,v : shifts the character left,right,up,or down, wrapping in the process.
GET COLOR: allows you to select into a button a color from the current
character, depending on wich mouse button you use.
Editing the character:
*************************
The left,right,and middle buttons apply wichever colors you have selected to
them from the palette.
DATA FILES
*******************************************************************************
chset.pcx : The sample character set file, in pcx format. you may edit this
with your favorite graphics program (Deluxe paint ][e
recommended!).
charset.dat : internal character set used to display information on the status
line.
chset.atr : this file contains the information on wich sides of the sprite
are enterable, this file you must rename when you change
character sets if you wish to use it.
map.dat : this file contains the map information, it is hard coded as 320
wide by 100 high, each word holds one character.
sprites.dat : this file is used internally by the map editor, and holds the
various bitmaps of the buttons, and menubars... I will be
releasing a program that will allow you to edit this shortly.