Game Developers Magazine 4/GDM004.ZIP/3DUNGEON/README.DOC

Text File | 1994-04-21 | 10KB | 281 lines

        README FILE FOR DESIGN.EXE

Introduction

        Design.exe is a demonstration program with user
interaction that shows the construction of dungeons. The
user is able to place walls within a 16x16 room area and
inspect the view from any particular room. The user may
create his or her own wall art for incorporation and walk
through the dungeon.

File List

        For Design.exe to work properly you will need
the following files:

Design.exe...   The executable program

Menu.pcx...     The .pcx file that design uses to
intialise the 256 colour palette. If you inspect the .pcx
you will find a 320x200x256 colour drawing that might be
used for the game overlay, but it is a poor work of art
and not used in the game.

Wall.pcb...     This is a collection of wall art. Each
piece of wall art is stored in .pcx format sequentially
in this file. The individual pics are located using an
index that occurs as an array at the start of the file.
The pics are stored without the header and trailing
palette information since the pics are all the same size
(60x60 pixels) and use a common palette grabbed from
menu.pcx.

Gnd/Sky.pcb..   As with the wall.pcb files, these are
collections of ground and sky art, stored the same way,
except the pic sizes are 100x50 pixels.

Test.dsn...     The file that defines the layout of
dungeons within the module. It stores the 50 dungeon and
5 overland levels, the art used by each. If this file is
missing then a test file with the name that you specify
will be created by the program.

System Requirements

        VGA card and monitor, 640k of RAM. Mouse is not
supported.

Getting Started

*               Run design.exe and enter the name of the test
file that you wish to work with. Test.dsn has been
provided for you. If you specify a non-existant file
design will attempt to create the file for you.

THE MAIN MENU

        The main menu provides several options, not all
of which have been implemented:

E: Edit module or overland map. This option will let you
select one of the 50 dungeon modules. The overland maps
(Numbered 0-4) have not yet been implemented so selecting
a dungeon 0-4 has no effect. In test.dsn module 6 has
been worked on and given the name "swordcoast".

G: Edit game settings. Not implemented.

A: Art Gallery. Enables the user to import wall, sky and
ground art for use in the program. See the section on
importing art later on.

M: Monster editor. Not implemented.

Q: Quit to DOS

* NOTE*
from all positions in the program the ESCAPE key backs
you out to the previous level and can quit you from the
game.

EDITING A DUNGEON MODULE

Once a dungeon module has been loaded the following
appears:

    A 3-D window showing the current view from the room
in the dungeon occupied by the player.

    An overhead 10x10 map showing the walls and exit
types in the module. This map scrolls around the 16x16
dungeon as required.

    A panel which shows the currently selected wall, sky
 and ground art that will be placed in position.

    A small bar showing the currently selected exit type
that is available for placement.

Within this editor the following applies:

        Pressing a capital key changes the currently
selected art or exit. Pressing a lower case key places it
within the module in the position you are facing,
directly in front of you. An 'h' gets you a very basic
help screen to remind you of the following options:

F1:                     Import wall art from file
F2:                     Import sky art from file
F3:                     Import Ground art from file
h:                      Help screen
W,S,G:          Change wall, sky and ground art
w,s,g:          Place wall, sky and ground art
E:                      Change current exit type
e:                      Place exit
N:                      Name module
Arrow Keys:     Move around module
ENTER:          Places all of the current selection

    When you place art in each room the program takes
the selected art (shown half size in the box to the side)
 and records that that is now in the appropriate
position. You can change the selected art by pressing the
 capital W,S and G keys (which cycle through the art
available) and place it into position using the lower
case w,s and g keys.

    If you are not happy with the available selection of
 30 walls, 8 skies and 8 grounds then you may import
other art from the master files by using the F1, F2 and
F3 keys. These options change the art that fills the
available slots. You use the UP/DOWN arrow keys to view
the art that is on the master file (the full size
wall/sky or ground) and pressing "r" followed by the
number of the slot causes the wall/sky/ground to be
replaced. The best way to see how it works is to try it.
You cannot damage any of the art in this screen and if
you are unhappy, change it all back. Note that changing
an art slot causes all of the walls/skies/grounds that
were using that slot to adopt the new art in place of the
 old.

    The exit type determines whether you can move out of
 the room into the room adjacent. Note that the presence
of intervening walls is meaningless unless the correct
exit type is selected as well. Selecting free movement or
 open door permits movement while all of the other
options restrict it. You can change exit types using the
"E" key while the "e" key places them on the map. You can
 get yourself trapped within a room if you barricade
yourself in, but replacing an exit with a free movement
will get you back out again.

    When you place a wall, the wall on the otherside is
not automatically defined, so that when you go around to
the other side, nothing is there. This is confusing to
start with, but gives greater flexibility when building
the dungeon. Just remember to place the desired art on
both sides of a wall.

IMPORTING NEW ART

    The facility exists for importing your own art into
the master file. From the main menu select the (A)rt
gallery option. You then have a choice of importing wall,
 sky or ground art. The following conditions apply:

*       Walls must be 60x60 pixels in size and stored in
.PCX format. They may be created using any paint program
that supports 256 colour .pcx files. Skies and Grounds
are 100x50 pixels in size. Attempting to load anything
other than these sizes will not be permitted. Note that
the size check is the only condition that must be
satisfied.

*       When creating a new wall (or sky or ground) first
load up menu.pcx (disgusting as it is) and save the
palette from that picture. Use this pallete to draw your
art as it is the palette that "design" will use to draw
it with. DO NOT change the menu.pcx palette, or strange
effects will be noticed in the program.

    The master file stores each picture as the data part
 of the .pcx file stripped of the header and palette
information. The pictures are not stored as image
fragments. The pictures are located using an index at the
 start of the file to get the storage offset. This method
 saves a little bit of space but in retrospect, wasn't
worth the complexity of coding since the pcx to frg
conversion is still required.

WHAT DESIGN.EXE WILL NOT DO

    At the moment design.exe does not support any events
 or user interaction except the ability to walk around in
 the dungeon and place your walls skies and grounds where
you want them. There is no combat, no text, NOTHING. It
is not meant as a game creation utility, but as a
demonstration to help in the understanding of some of the
 processes described in Game Developers Magazine, from
where you should have got this program.


    It is not filled with user friendliness, even the
help screen in the dungeon editor was a reluctant extra.
It is easy to use, but not at all helpful if you are
stuck. ESCAPE will back you out of anything.

    It is not a virtual reality demonstrator with smooth
 scrolling and so on. It is NOT state of the art. It is
the result of a little dabbling on the PC at home.


SOME FEATURES WORTH MENTIONING

    The ground and skies are direction sensitive, so
that changing the direction in which you face can change
the floor or sky. A bit of realism so that the floor
boards run the correct way when you turn, or the sky
doen't look like it rotates around the points of the
compass every time you turn.

    The walls vanish properly on the horizon and don't
just end sawn off at the third room away from you. The
trade off is that sometimes the side walls look a little
bit large.

    I think that it is quick. It is doing a lot of
processing and I have not attempted any serious
optimisation of the code. A lot of time is taken up
drawing the overhead map, which would be reduced in size
and auto-mapped in any game released using the program.

FURTHER INFORMATION

    The following programs are worth a look if you want
to go further:

    ACKKIT  A 3D room creator similar to WOLFENSTEIN

    UNLIMITED ADVENTURES  An SSI project fully fledged
with events, monsters, combat and overland travel. Does
not have the ability to import your own wall, sky and
ground art, but everything else sings and dances.

    NEOPAINT V2.1   The best paint program that I have
seen on the market. I trialled it to produce all of the
art used in the program, and apart from running into
problems using a Trident 8900/8800 1Meg SVGA card, found
it to be easy to use.

    I used the following book to derive a lot of
information about picture file formats:

    "Super VGA Programming Secrets" Steve Rimmer. A
lucid work, well written and full of excellent
information.

    If you want more information or have any questions
about the program, then please address them to me through
 Phil Inch, C/- Game Developers Magazine, or leave me a
message on HOTLINE, A Sydney BBS (Australia) 02-488-9375.
Both GDM and HOTLINE are damn good services...give them
your support.

Stuart Williams
17 April 1994