ftp.lokigames.com/ftp.lokigames.com.zip/ftp.lokigames.com/extras/heroes3/README.txt

Text File | 2000-10-27 | 14KB | 310 lines

Thank you for trying out the Heroes of Might and Magic III map editor for
 Linux!


SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

- Linux 2.2.x is preferrable. May run on others.
- glibc 2.1 is preferrable. May run on others.
- XFree86 3.3.x is preferrable. May run on others.
- Your X-server MUST be at either 16-bit or 32-bit color depth. The program
  gives a polite error and aborts, otherwise. The 32-bit color support is
  currently a hack, so expect it to run MUCH slower than in 16-bit mode.
- The more RAM, the better, but this should run in a system with 64 megs, and
   probably even less.

Reports of success and failure with unexpected systems (8 megs of RAM, FreeBSD,
 etc.) are welcome at [e-mail].


TO INSTALL:

- Install Heroes3 on your system.  You NEED to have the game installed to use
  the editor, since the editor makes extensive use of the game's data files.
  If you need a copy of the game, it can be purchased from
  http://www.lokigames.com/ and anywhere else where fine Linux games are sold.
  If worse comes to worse, the Heroes3 demo can be used as well, but you will
  not be able to PLAY the maps you make in the demo, and that's just no fun,
  now is it?

- Untar the editor's archive (if you're reading this, you probably already
  have.)... i.e. tar -xzvvf /my/download/directory/h3maped-1.0-i686.tar.gz

- Now just run the editor from within its directory:

    cd /home/icculus/h3maped
    ./h3maped

- If you don't have Heroes3 (or the demo) installed in
    /usr/local/games/Heroes3, you will be prompted to enter the correct
    directory the first time you run the editor. Unless you (re)move the
    contents of the directory you specify, the program won't prompt you to
    enter this information again.

KNOWN BUGS:
  Lots.  :)   Most notably, the Map Specifications and Hero Properties dialogs
  are somewhat unstable.

  - The rulers on the main map area don't scale correctly when not using the
    default zoom setting. The editor is still functional, it's just a little
    less helpful.

  - Check marks for specialized objects don't draw. To remind the programmer
    of this fact, stderr is flooded with the text:

      ** WARNING **: NO CHECK MARK.

  Please save early, and save often.


FAQs:

  Q: How do I report bugs?
  A: If the program crashed, get a backtrace.

       gdb ./h3maped
       (after gdb loads, type:) run
       (make the editor crash. then, in gdb window, type:) bt

     Send all that gobbeldegook off to us (read below). It helps immensely.

     If the program didn't crash, but just behaved incorrectly, then skip the
     backtrace step. Gather all the pertinent details (what you were doing,
     etc), and send it off to us. If you can tell us PRECISELY how to reproduce
     it, that's even better. It also helps to tell us whatever you can think
     of that's pertinent: what Linux distribution/version, GTK+ theme you're
     using for graphical problems, X server/version, etc... There is NO such
     thing as too much information.

     Once you've got all the details that seem important, here's how to
     send it to us: Point your web browser at http://fenris.lokigames.com/,
     where you can input all the information pertinent to your special bug.
     Fenris also allows other people to see what bugs have been reported, and
     gives us a centralized way to report them fixed. Do NOT email me directly
     about bugs, as Fenris will automail me any bug reports for the editor!

     It's also a good to see if your bug has already been reported in Fenris.
     We fix all the bugs, not just the popular ones, so unless you're problem
     is new or different than an existing bug, don't bother reporting it.

     That said, non-bug related questions can go to [e-mail], or
     for community-related talk,

        news://news.lokigames.com/loki.games.heroes3

  Q: Can I use my maps from the win32 mapeditor with the Linux editor?
  A:  Yes. And vice-versa.

  Q: Can I run maps I make under Linux on the Windows version of the game?
  A:  Yes. And vice versa.

  Q: Can I edit the standard game maps?
  A:  Yes. They are in /yourheroes3directory/maps. Doing so can alter gameplay
      rather drastically, so you might want to make a backup of this directory
      before you start to explore. Also, there are probably copyright issues
      with distributing a modified version of the standard maps, so it is
      probably best to start from scratch when you get a creative urge. Oh,
      and if you want to look around the game maps to aid in gameplay, you're
      a dirty cheater. :)

  Q: I can't find the standard campaign maps to edit!
  A:  I think these are buried in a data file. Perhaps in the future there'll
      be a means to extract them for editing, but not right now. The ones in
      the Heroes3 maps directory are all single-play maps.

  Q: How about some map editing tips?
  A: Draw land. Put some items on it.  :)  Be sure to put some heroes (look
     for the armor helmet on the toolbar) and some towns (look for the castle)
     on the map for each player. Current player you are laying towns and
     heroes for can be changed with the "Player" menu, or by hitting CTRL-1
     for player 1, CTRL-2 for player 2, etc. Once you've got some coherence
     to your map, use the Map Validation option on the Tools menu (SHIFT-V on
     the keyboard.) This will give you more pointers on what is needed for
     a "correct", playable map. By default, all maps have two layers: an above
     ground layer, and an underground. Certain objects in the palette let you
     teleport between these, but effectively you've got two maps for the price
     of one!  The map can be made single-layer (just an overworld), by
     changing the "Two level map" check mark on the Map Specifications
     general page. Certain objects (heroes, signs, some buildings) have special
     properties. Select the object, and then click the "properties" item on the
     Edit menu to modify these details.

  Q: Hey, I made a map and it doesn't show up in the game!  What gives?
  A: First, did you copy it into the "maps" directory under the Heroes3
      game directory? You will probably need to be root to copy it, but your
      permissions to play the map are the same as playing the regular game.
      Secondly, did you run Map Validation on your creation?  It will remind
      you to NAME YOUR MAP. If you don't do this, it comes up in the Heroes3
      map list as "UNNAMED". Not only is this bad, but Heroes3 also places
      unnamed maps at the top of the list, and positions the scroll bar so you
      have to slide UP to see them. Just name the map under the General
      notebook page in the Map Specifications dialog (menu: tools/Map
      Specifications, or keyboard: CTRL-RETURN).

  Q: Hey, the editor is complaining that it's expired! Huh?
  A: You have a beta release, and it is now too old. Come back to...
         http://www.lokigames.com/
      ...and get the latest release. It's free. As in beer.

  Q: What's up with the license?
  A: Typos and flames about the licensing of this program may be taken up with
      [e-mail]. The developers do not write the licenses. We don't
      even READ them. We don't care about them. We certainly don't like flame
      mail about them.


SPECIAL THANKS:
 - Andy Mecham, Pimptronic QA fiend.
 - Mike Phillips, Support Gladiator.
 - Rob Spidle, for being a l33t hax0r.
 - jeffk.

Enjoy the map editor!

--ryan. ([e-mail])



CHANGES:

1.0: Saturday, September 23rd.

- Took out the beta expiration. This means that everything works perfectly,
and if it doesn't, you probably have bad RAM in your machine. (uh, yeah.)



beta5: Monday, July 31th.
(Please note that the newly added dialogs have not been tested very
extensively, so expect them to not be completely stable, or necessarily
even usable. Also, the Seer's Hut properties dialog is not enabled
yet, so there's a lot of complaints about missing functions when you
start the program. This shouldn't prevent average use of the program,
and will be fixed in the next release. Hey, that's why they call this a
beta.)

- Customizing a hero's troops no longer causes the program to abort.
- Previously, due to incorrectly hooked up signals, the hero's secondary
skills and artifacts were not customizable. Fixed.
- Added Town Properties dialog.
- Added Artifact Properties dialog.
- Added Edit Town Event dialog.
- Edit Rumor dialog under Map Specifications Rumors tab was not popping
up in some circumstances. Fixed.
- All sorts of combo boxes were user-editable, which caused internal
confusion in the editor. Now they may only be modified through their
drop-down lists.
- A bunch of modal dialogs didn't handle delete_events, so closing them
from the window manager's titlebar would confuse the application. Fixed.
- Updated to the most recent libglade (statically linked), since the
previous version started segfaulting due to the size of the .glade file.
- Lots of retardedness from the earlier parts of the work (before I was a
big, bad, MFC-to-GTK porting machine) was cleaned up. There's still a lot
of this to do, but it shouldn't affect the external appearance of the
program.
- The program will no longer set symbolic links. Now, the editor will
search your PATH for the installed copy of HOMM3 to get the needed data
files. If it can't find the data files, it prompts the user for the
location of the HOMM3 installation, and attempts to recover.
- A thousand other tiny bug fixes, all important, but WAY too numerous to list.


beta4: Friday, June 16th.
(The "What? It expired TODAY?!" release.)

- Several people reported an assertion failure due to a check in the
object palette OnSize method. The object palette needed to be exactly 198
pixels wide and at least 302 pixel high or the game would segfault in the
paint code. This was a "feature" of the win32 code, which had more control
over widget size. And while GTK+ takes my request to "MAKE THIS WIDGET
EXACTLY THIS SIZE" seriously sometimes, some people had less luck than us
and had GTK+ bump the palette's size by a pixel or two depending on theme,
version, etc... The solution, of course, was to rewrite the paint code to
be less moronic. Now, the code expects that those dimensions will be more
or less satisfied, but won't segfault or assert in cases where they aren't.

- Hero's properties/Identity did not match the picture and name. Fixed.

- Our esteemed Mr. Phillips hacked in 32-bit color support.

- Updated the ever-ticking beta expiration.




beta3: Wednesday, May 17th.
(The "It's been a long time...we shouldn't've left you
   without a dope beat to step to" release.)

- Program now automatically manages your symbolic links. More user-friendly.

- Cut, copy, paste, redo, and undo now have the expected keyboard
accelerators.

- ./h3maped --help now prints a simple message to stderr and exits.

- Message boxes' OK button now regrabs the keyboard focus, so you can
just smack the spacebar to continue when one comes up.

- There's now a nice text readout under the object palette that tells you
what your pointer is hovering over. This is MAJORLY helpful.

- Arrow keys can move map around, as can the mouse wheel.

- Updated the beta expiration date.  (*shrug*)  Sorry 'bout that.



beta2: Friday, April 7th, 2000.  (hhm...that's not right!)

 - Fixed the problem that some people were having with not being able to
   start the program. The dialog that complains about 16-bit color depths was
   causing a dialog from the .glade file to be shown before the .glade file
   was read. Whoops. You still need to be in 16-bit color mode to actually
   USE the program, but at least it politely informs you of this fact, now.

 - Clicking on something off the mapeditwnd when dragging an obj used to
   cause the object to drop on the edge of the view where it happened to be
   sitting. Now it discards it. This seems to be preferrable, especially for
   new objects. If that oak tree had a lot of meaning to you, though, you're
   just going to have to come to terms with the fact that its bits have been
   recycled into the cosmic consciousness.

 - Furthermore, when dragging an object, the right mouse button immediately
   discards it, so you don't have to drop it and then use the "delete"
   menuitem.

 - Beta notice dialog box comes up during splash screen, now. Before the
   entire editor would load before the notice, which would be really annoying
   once the beta expires!.

 - Animation menu option has been added, which, at the cost of more
   processing, makes the editing process much more lively. It may be
   (de)activated from the "View" menu, or with CTRL-A. Try it. It's fun.

 - Much like Civ:CTP, you can now scroll around the mapeditwnd with the
   middle mouse button.

 - Cut, Copy, and Paste are now functional, and have been added back to the
   Edit menu.

 - The "ok msgbox" now puts the default focus on the button, so you can
   just smack the spacebar instead of clicking around.

 - You are now prompted before overwriting an existing map file.

 - Object properties can now be edited. This code is still very unstable,
   so be sure to save before modifying properties.

 - Other assertion failures and segfaults fixed.



beta1: Friday, April 7th, 2000.

 - First public release.


// end of README.beta ...