Amiga MA Magazine 1998 #7/amigamamagazinepolishissue1998.iso/www/gloom/files/gloomed.txt

Text File | 1997-08-01 | 10KB | 264 lines

                 Some embarassingly brief instructions for Gloom map editor use

* Files:

You'll need your original Gloom disks (either original or deluxe), and the files gloomed.lha and
gloomgfx1.lha.

gloomed.lha contains the map editor (maped) and it's support files, while gloomdat1.lha contains
the source textures for the commercial gloom data disk in Dpaint readable format, and the map
files in decompressed format.


* Installation:

You'll need about 3 megs of ram and a hard drive to use this baby. Now, to install...

makedir gloomed
cd gloomed
copy gloomprog: "" all
copy gloomdata: "" all
lha e gloomed.lha
lha e gloomdat1.lha
copy fonts fonts: all

Also, if you've only got original Gloom you'll have to:

copy gloom gloom2

as well. You may also have to do this with Gloom Deluxe, I'm not sure. Basically, if you're
trying to test out maps but just end up playing the game instead, then try the above rename.


                                        Using maped

* About Gloom textures...

There are 2 types of textures in Gloom. Wall textures, which appear on the walls, and 'flats' which
appear on the floor/roof. Flats are fixed throughout an entire level, and can only change between
different levels.

Gloom expects to find it's texture in the 'txts' directory. Files in this directory are in a
special game-readable format, so don't expect to be able to view them in Dpaint.

Maped, however, looks for textures in the 'ggfx' directory. Files here ARE in dpaint readable
format, and are generally 320 X 256 screens containing up to 20 64 x 64 textures in <=256 colours.
This directory also contains the dpaint readable flat textures, but these are not used by maped
(although see IMPORTANT below). flat textures are 128 X 128 brushes.

IMPORTANT:

To use the map/test feature of maped, Gloom expects to find the files 'floor0' and 'roof0' in the
'txts' directory. Gloom uses these as flats in test mode. Therefore, you should make sure they
exist before doing any maped-ing, like this:

copy txts/floor1 txts/floor0
copy txts/roof1 txts/roof0

Pretty kludgy, I know.

* Running maped...

CD to the gloomed directory and go: maped


* Loading/saving maps...

Select map/load or map/save. You should probably save several versions of the map as you add things
 - just in case.

Also, if, for some bizare reason, Gloom crashes while you're testing a map, the map it crashed on
can be found in temp_map.


* Positioning the players...

Select events/1, ADD OBJ and objects/player1 then use the mouse to place player1 somewhere on the
map. First left click places the object, second click locks it's rotation. Do the same with
player 2.


* Loading wall textures...

Click on textures/load. This will bring up a file requester listing available texture sets in the
ggfx directory. A texture set is a screen full of textures, each 64x64 pixels large. Do not load
a texture set more than once, and if you want a map to work in under 2 megs, stick to 5 texture
sets maximum. DO NOT load a floor or roof texture (floor1,roof1 etc) for obvious reasons. The
gloomdat1 archive uses the 'txt' prefix to denote a texture set.


* Picking wall textures...

Click on textures/pick. This shows you the currently loaded textures and allows you to pick which
ones should appear on the walls. Clicking on a texture will hilight it with a dirty great X,
showing it is to be used. You can select up to 8 textures to use at once, which will be randomly
placed along wall lengths.


* Placing walls...

To place walls, select 'add wall' then keep left-clicking to place ends of wall. Hit space when
done, or use right mouse button to finish by joining up with nearest wall vertice. The little grey
'bump' in a wall shows which way it's texture is facing.


* Testing the map...

Click on map/test to try out the map. If this crashes, it's probably because you forgot to put the
players somewhere, or floor0/roof0 aren't in the txts directory...


* Adding some baddies...

Select event '2', and 'add event zone'. Then draw a line on the map (space to exit like walls).
Then select 'add object' and 'baldy'. Stick baldy somewhere using the mouse, as you did with the
players. Now, when player walks over event zone 2, baldy appears where you put him!

Some hints when placing baddies:

You could potentially setup up a map so that all the baddies appear at the same time, but this
would slow Gloom down a lot. Instead, it's best to space baddies out so they appear in sets (see
events below).

To prevent baddies from 'popping' into view, it's best to place them behind doors, or around
corners.


* Using event zones...

Event zone 1 is ALWAYS executed at the start of a map (so the players appear), while event zone 24
will always cause an end-of-level when walked over. Event zones 1...18 can only be triggered once.
19...24 are retriggerable, so are best for teleports (unless you want to disable a teleport once
it's used!). Note that events can trigger...

ADD OBJ (add object),
OPEN WALL (door),
TELE (teleport),
CHANGE TXT (to show a switch thrown etc),
ROTATE,
MORPH,
and the mysterious 'LOCK' feature.

So, whenever you use one of the above, they wont actually happen until their event zone is walked
over.

Rotate is used for wheel of death effects, and causes the last group of walls drawn to, well,
rotate. Make sure that if these walls are deleted, you also do an 'undo rot'. Speeds are a bit
unpredictable, so if you're not happy with the speed, select a new speed and click on 'evnt'
near the speed buttons.

Morph is similar to rotate, but after selecting morph you have to lay down another set of walls
with the same number of points. Then, when the event is triggered, the walls morph into the second
set (eg sliding blocks in hell). This could actually be used for some pretty groovy effects like
pulsating freakazoids etc.

Note that events can trigger any number of actions - eg: open wall/add obj to cause baddys to come
charging out of a door.


* Creating your own textures

Fire up Dpaint in 320 X 256 mode. Draw your textures as 64 x 64 blocks and save 'em out
to the 'ggfx' directory. Next, get maped going and select textures/make. From here, select the
texture set you just created, and then the name of the game-readable file you want to make. These
names are usually the same, as the texture set comes from the ggfx directory and ends up in the
txts dir. Once you've done this, your textures are now available for Gloom to use.

You can create your texture sets using any number of colours, but it's probably best to stick to
<=32 to keep Gloom Deluxe from getting too confused with it's 256 colour palette. That said, feel
free to use 256 colour textures - just try to keep the number of colours actually used down. Sorry
if that sounds confusing...

To create your own floor/roof textures, use the makeflat utility like this:

makeflat inputfile outputfile

where inputfile is the flat texture brush (128 X 128) and outputfile is the name of
a floor or roof. eg:

makeflat ggfx/floor1 txts/floor1.

Note that flats in the txts directory should always prefixed by 'floor' or 'roof' and followed with
a one digit number.


* transparency effects...

You can create transparancy effects in wall textures by using palette colours 250...251. These
colours map to:

250 : cyan
251 : purple
252 : yellow
253 : blue
254 : green
255 : red

Any pixels drawn in these colours will appear about 50% transparent - although this effect does
slow the game engine down a bit, so use tastefully please.


                Creating your own data disk

To create a stand-alond Gloom data disk, you'll need to setup the following directories:

maps/
    Contains the maps you created.
misc/
    Contains the file 'script'.
objs/
    Contains the files found on the commercial Gloom data disk.
pics/
    ditto.
txts/
    Contains the textures you created using textures/make in maped, or the ones on the Gloom
    data disk if you're using those.

The disk must be labeled 'gloomdata:'

Also note that you don't need the 'ggfx' directory on the data disk, unless you want people to be
able to use your textures in maped.

You will also need the file 'gloomgame' on the data disk. This contains saved restart locations (up
to 8 max!) and can be created like this:

copy * gloomdata:gloomgame [return]
gamegamegamegamegamegamegamegame [ctrl \]

or simply by using a text editor to create a file containg ONLY the text:
'gamegamegamegamegamegamegamegame' (that's 8 'game's).

Note that if this file isn't found on the data disk, Gloom will not be happy. Also, if you change
the script file (see below), you should also recreate the gloomgame file.


* About the script file...

The script file in the misc/ directory controls the flow of the game - ie: the order the levels
appear in and any pictures/text messages to display before a level. It's probably best to pinch
the one on the commercial data disk and muck around with it to display your own messages/play
your own maps. Note that the 'REST_' command in the script file specifies a restart location.

Also note that the script file specifies the flat textures to be used throughout a level, via the
FLAT_ command. FLAT_1 means use floor1/roof1, FLAT_2 means floor2/roof2 etc.


                Modifying the in-game grafix

The in-game sprites can be modified using the makeanim utility, but I can't remember how it works!
Ditto with the between-level pictures. Sorry. I'll look into this.


                        In conclusion

Good luck with maped. I haven't covered everything, but hopefully enough to get you started. If you
do some maps with maped and want to spread 'em for free, please go ahead. If you do some really
cool maps and want to make some money out of them, please contact black magic first.

Bye!

Mark Sibly,
Black Magic
[e-mail]