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============================================================================= MAPEDIT History File Copyright (c) 1994-95 Q Studios Corporation Contact: Peter Freese pfreese@qstudios.com or CIS:74170,543 ============================================================================= ================ 2D EDITING MODE: ================ HIGHLIGHTING: The mouse cursor will highlight the nearest object within a specific threshold (see MAPEDIT.INI). The selected object will flash, and any XObject information will be displayed in the lower panel. Key operations in 2D will apply to the selected object. SPRITES: -------- Sprites have various shapes in the overhead map, depending on their attributes: * Face sprites are cyan circles with a line extending from the center to indicate their angle. (ref. '<' and '>') * Thick sprites have the blocking attribute set. (ref. 'B') * Purple sprites have the hitscan attribute set. (ref. Ctrl-H) * Sprites with three or four lines extending from the circle are wall sprites. The shorter lines indicate which sides are visible. (ref. 'R' and '1' in 3D mode keys.) * Sprites with square centers are floor sprites, and can be manipulated with all the keys referred to above. WALLS: ------ This section not complete. MOUSE FUNCTIONS: ---------------- Mouse Move mouse cursor LeftButton Click and hold on an endpoint to drag. See RightShift and RightAlt for other options. To delete an endpoint, drag that point into the next point and it will be deleted. (NOTE: Grid-locking must be enabled. See 'L' key below.) RightButton Click to change the 3D view cursor position. RightShift Press and hold to highlight endpoints and sprites in a rectangular region. Release the key once the chosen region is highlighted. Drag objects in the highlighted area by clicking and holding the left mouse button down and then dragging the mouse. Release the left mouse button to drop the objects at the target position. Press RightShift without dragging the mouse to deselect the highlighted objects. RightAlt Highlight sectors for duplication or dragging. Similar in operation to the RightShift key, this key highlights entire sectors and the sprites within them. See the Insert key for information on duplication. KEYBOARD FUNCTIONS: ------------------- Arrows Moves the 3D view cursor position. The cursor will be clipped against blocking wall and sprite boundaries. Press the right mouse button to move the 3D view cursor to a different position on the map. ESC Brings up the menu. Press ESC again to cancel. PadEnter Toggle between 2D and 3D editing modes SpaceBar Press the space bar when drawing new sectors. There are several ways of drawing new sectors. The following three ways of drawing sectors can all be done by only using the space bar. The application is "smart" enough to decide which method you are using. 1. Drawing a FULL LOOP - that is, whenever the new sector meets the old sector, draw over that line again. In full loop mode the new sector must not already be in another sector. The loop is done when you press the space bar at the first point again. 2. SPLITTING a sector - press space bar to draw points at which you want to split a sector. The computer knows you are done splitting when you end at another point that's on the edge of the sector you are splitting. 3. Drawing a sector COMPLETELY INSIDE another sector. (for example, columns) To do this, just press space bar at every point in the loop. The loop is done when you press the space bar at the first point again. Backspace Deletes previously plotted point during sector creation. Press repeatedly to get rid of all previously plotted points. Insert Inserts a new endpoint at the midpoint of the highlighted line. Then you can drag the point to wherever you like. (If you insert on a red line, the point will be inserted on both sides of the sector line.) If a bunch of sectors are selected (see right ALT) then instead of inserted points, the selected sector bunch will be duplicated (stamped). Don't forget to drag the selected sectors after stamping. Delete Use this to delete sprites. Do NOT delete marker sprites created by the XSYSTEM. Instead, change the sector type. NOTE: To delete endpoints from a line, DON'T PRESS DELETE. Instead, drag the endpoint onto a neighboring endpoints, while the grid is on. If the endpoint is dragged exactly on top of the neighboring endpoint, it will automatically be deleted. Right Ctrl-Delete This deletes the whole sector that the mouse cursor is in. Use this option with caution as it has been know to cause problems in maps. ScrollLock Set editing starting position (reddish arrow) to your current position (white arrow). Also used to define the default player starting positions, but level designers are expected to place player starting marker sprites in all maps. NOTE: Eight co-op and eight deathmatch markers must be placed on all maps. (ref. Alt-S, 3D MODE EDITING) TAB View attributes of the sector under the cursor. AltTAB View attributes of the wall or sprite closest to the cursor. A/Z Zoom the 2D view in and out. Text tags may disappear when the view is zoomed out. Zoom in to view them again. (ref. Ctrl-T) B Toggles blocking attribute of walls and sprites. A blocked wall or sprite will with a thick line in 2D EDIT MODE. See the description for 'B' in the 3D EDIT MODE section for more details. C Turn a line into a circle defined by short line segments. Press 'C' on a highlighted wall, and move the mouse cursor to change the arc of the circle. Press '+' or '-' to change the number of line segments in the circle. Press 'C' again to cancel circle creation, or SpaceBar to accept the changes. (NOTE: Grid size affects the position of the arc. Refer to 'G' and 'L' below.) E Change a sprite's status list number. Level designers should not have to change a sprite's status directly, unless a bug is reported when running the game. G Change grid resolution. The grid resolution cycles through the following sequence: * Off : no grid * 1x : 64x64 pixel grid * 2x : 32x32 pixel grid * 4x : 16x16 pixel grid (* DEFAULT *) * 8x : 8x8 pixel grid * 16x : 4x4 pixel grid (Has wall texturing problems.) * 32x : 2x2 pixel grid (Has wall texturing problems.) Use the two finest grid resolutions only for positioning sprites. Wall vertices should not be closer to each other than the grid lines at 8x resolution. H Edit the high tag for the sector under the cursor. Alt-H Edit the high tag for the wall or sprite under the cursor. (See also: T and Alt-T. Level designers should not edit these fields directly, as they are used internally by XSYSTEM.) Ctrl-H Toggle the hitscan sensitivity of a sprite or masked wall. Objects which are hitscan sensitive can be hit be vector weapons. L Turns grid locking on or off. If the mouse cursor is pink then grid locking is on. If it is white then grid locking is off. There is no grid locking if the grid is turned off. Also, grid locking will lock to nearby points. J Join two neighboring sectors. Press J when mouse cursor is over the first sector. Then press J again when the mouse cursor is over the neighboring sector. The attributes of the combined sector will be taken from the first sector selected. K Mark a wall or sprite for motion (blue = forward motion, green = reverse motion) M Make a wall masked S Places a sprite at the location under the mouse cursor. Refer to the SPRITES section (above) for more information. Alt-S Convert internal white sector (single-sided linedef) to a red sector (double-sided linedef). Ctrl-Delete can be used to reverse this. (NOTE: Outer loop cannot be converted!) T Edit the low tag for the sector under the cursor. Alt-T Edit the low tag for the wall or sprite under the cursor. (See also: H and Alt-H. Level designers should not edit these fields directly, as they are used internally by XSYSTEM.) Ctrl-T Toggle the text captions for sectors, walls and sprites. < | > Rotate a Sprite: Rotation has a precision of 2048 degrees, and sprites can have an angle value range of 0 to 2047. Pressing the shift key allows a finer degree of rotation. Rotate a Sector: Sectors highlighted with RightAlt can also be rotated using these keys. [ | ] Rotate a sprite without wrapping. Generally used for marker sprite rotation, allowing marked sprites to rotate several times throughout a busy cycle. If you don't understand this, talk to Peter. F5 Display sector specific data F6 Display sprite/wall specific data Alt-F5 Edit sector specific data in the editing dialog. Alt-F6 Edit sprite/wall specific data in the editing dialog. While in the editing dialog, the following keys are active: Esc Exit dialog and abandon changes Enter Exit dialog and save changes Left Previous control Sh Tab Previous control Right Next control Tab Next control Up Increase value by 1 or move radio button up Pad + Increase value by 1 Down Decrease value by 1 or move radio button down Pad - Decrease value by 1 Pg Up Increase value to next multiple of 10 Pg Dn Decrease value to next multiple of 10 Space Toggle check boxes F10 Get next unused channel (rxID and txID only) ================ 3D EDITING MODE: ================ CapsLock change zmode Tab Copy to buffer Enter Paste buffer Sh Enter Paste shade and palette Ctrl Enter Paste tile to all walls in loop Sh Ctrl Enter Paste tile, shade, and palette to all walls in loop Alt Enter Copy attribute (extra) information < Rotate sprite CW Sh < Fine rotate sprite CW > Rotate sprite CCW or auto fix wall panning Sh > Fine rotate sprite CCW / Set x and y repeat to default values Sh / Set sprite x repeat to match y repeat 1 Toggle 1 sides sprites and 1 way walls 2 Toggle bottom wall swapping Pad +/- Brighten / darken texture Ctrl Pad +/- Set texture to max/min brightness Pad 0 Set texture to 0 brightness Pad arrow Adjust tile repeats Ctrl Pad arrow Adjust tile panning PageUp Raise z by 4 pixels Sh PageUp Raise z by 1 pixel Alt PageUp Enter new floor or ceiling height Alt PageDn Enter new floor or ceiling height Ctrl PageUp Put sprite on ceiling / Move floor or ceiling to next higher neighbor Z PageDn Lower z by 4 pixels Sh PageDn Lower z by 1 pixel Ctrl PageDn Put sprite on floor / Move floor or ceiling to next lower neighbor Z Delete Delete sprite B Toggle blocking Alt C Change all tiles matching buffer to target D -/+ Adjust depth cueing level E Toggle expansion of floor/ceiling texture F Flip texture Alt F Turn on relative alignment in the highlighted sector. If already on, change the first wall in the sector. Relative alignment affects textures or slopes. G -/+ Adjust gamma level Alt G Change Global palette H Hitscan sensitivity for masked walls AND sprites. L Light bomb M Toggle maskable wall Sh M Toggle single side maskable wall O Toggle orientation or post sprite on wall P Toggle parallaxing for floor or ceiling Ctrl P Change sky parallaxing type Alt P Change palookup R Toggle floor/ceiling relative alignment or change sprite rotation type S Insert sprite T Toggle translucency V Select tile Alt V Select heightmap W Change lighting effect waveform F2 Toggle state F3 Show sector OFF z position Alt F3 Capture sector OFF z position F4 Show sector ON z position Alt F4 Capture sector ON z position F9 Auto stair builder. Highlight a group of sectors, then point to an adjoining sector floor or ceiling and press F9. The floor or ceiling you point to will be the lowest step. F11 Enable/disable panning F12 Toggle beeps Ctrl Alt - | + Decrease/Increase sector visibility Ctrl - | + Decrease/Increase light effect amplitude Shift - | + Decrease/Increase light effect phase [ | ] Change floor or ceiling slope \ Remove floor slope ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 94/12/18 This document created. I have renamed BUILD.EXE to MAPEDIT.EXE. I hope this will prevent confusion between Ken's version and our version for Blood. Also, this allows changes specific to MAPEDIT to be documented independently. For maximum viewing pleasure, this document is formatted at 78 characters wide, tab stops of 8, and contains no upper ASCII characters. MAPEDIT supports loading custom palette remap and translucency tables. It looks for NORMAL.PLU and TRANS.TLU in the currect directory. If they are present, it will use them; if not, it will use the defaults in PALETTE.DAT. I am phasing out the CNT files and replacing them with MPX (MaP eXtension) files. This files store all the Blood specific information for sprites, walls, and sectors. The CNT files were a hack to test out adding custom edit controls to BUILD. I don't think anyone was using them for anything, but just in case you were, MAPEDIT will automatically convert the CNT files and remove them when you save changes. For a discussion of the various fields and their meanings, see the TRIGGERS.TXT document. At present, only the sprite editing fields are active. Wall and sector editing will be completed shortly. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 94/12/28 Completely replaced Ken's keyboard handler with my own. This will allow key repeat to work for all functions, so now you can just hold down the pad plus key to lighten a sprite, etc. This also gives me the ability to add new functionality at will, without waiting for Ken to add a new function. To this end, I've added stub code for Alt-P while in 3D mode. Currently, this just gives you the tile selection screen, but it will be used for editing tiled parallaxing skies. An assertion failure that would occur when an invalid reference was noted between a map and an mpx file has been changed. The invalid reference will now be simply deleted. This allows you to delete the mpx file if you want to trash all the additional map data. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 94/12/30 Due to some problems discovered in trying to handle keystrokes from within a secondary ISR (Ken's code doesn't handle it well, and I can't work around it because his functions are not reentrant), I've adopted a new strategy for adding to key functions. I'm still using my own keyboard handler, so you'll still get the benefit of key repeat. I'm now 'subclassing' Ken's editinput() function by renaming his function to kensinput() by directly modifying the object file. This is a true hack, but it should work cleanly. However, I'll need to make the same change to future versions of build.obj unless I can convince Ken to make a similar change. Just to prove that it works, I've added a few extra key functions for 3D mode: Alt-L while the cursor is on a sprite will set the sprite's shade to -42 (the maximum brightness without side effects). Alt-0 while the cursor is on a sprite will set the sprite's shade to 0. This should cause the sprite to have the same shade as the sector it is in (good for floor and ceiling sprites). I was going to add a function to build stairs automatically, but some of Ken's variables for handling highlighted sectors are static and I can't access them. I'll try to get him to change this and add this in a later version. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/01/02 Make sure you run CONVMAP6 on ALL your maps. The easiest (DOS) method to accomplish this is to type: for %1 in (*.map) do convmap6 %1 Peter implemented a raw auto stair builder. Create your stair sectors in 2D mode, without (unnecessarily) changing the heights in 3D mode. In 2D mode, use the R.Alt key to select all the stairs you want to auto-height adjust. In 3D mode, point to a sector outside the selected stairs that you want use as the base height for the stairs and press F9. Enter the stair height in pixels. Use 8 or 12 pixels or risk death by immolation; other stair heights will be too tall to walk over. Expect more cool additions in the future! Peter made changes to the width of the character, as well as height at which things can be walked over. If you notice any peculiarities let him know. Peter has also added sector lighting effects to BUILD, but they have not been documented. Also, they don't work in Blood yet, but will very soon. The next update you get will be probably executables only. Note from Nick: Try to make your bonus, one-up and weapon sprites non-blocking. Thanks! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/02/06 Key handling has changed (again), and is now much cleaner, thanks to the changes Ken made to his code during his visit with us. I'll no longer have to keep hacking build.obj. Along with Ken's changes, a bug crept in which would cause F5-F8 to crash if you pressed them in 3D mode. This has been fixed. Sector lighting effects are now functional and work in Blood as well. You can edit them in 2D mode or 3D mode. See the new keys documented above. I may be making another change in the implementation of sector lighting to allows walls to be modified, but this shouldn't affect sectors which you have already worked on, so bang away on this feature. The MPX format has been enhanced again. It now contains version information, so should be easier to update periodically. Older format files are automatically converted when loaded. With this new version, you'll be able to add author name and level name to the mpx files (editing not yet implemented, though.) Global visibility is now saved in the mpx file and properly loaded in Blood. You can now tile parallax skies. See the new keys documented above. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/02/08 Updated sector shading effects code. Instead of storing the base floor and ceiling shade, the MPX structure now has a single field which is the current relative shade. By adding and subtracting this offset, it is possible to do relative shading effects to floors, ceilings, and walls without extra storage. The only overhead is some additional processing time, since I now call DoSectorLighting() and UndoSectorLighting() once per frame. The sectorExt dialog now has checkboxs for shading floors, ceilings, and walls, so it is possible to apply lighting effects to any or all of these. Also, for lighting effects to take place, the sector status must be ON. I'm going to get the message system working Real Soon Now, and the first thing I'll test is turning on and off lighting effects. A major bug was fixed in the code that ensured referential integrity between the sprite, sector, wall and respective Ext structures. I believe that this was THE bug that was causing the occasional weird sector lighting values. Please let me know ASAP any other problems of this nature. When loading maps, all item and creature sprites are automatically sized to their proper x and y repeats. This is intentional, and will ensure uniformity between levels. There is no such thing as a miniature zombie! Sprite Ext structures are automatically added for creatures when maps are loaded. This adds the proper type and view flags based on picnum. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/02/14 Did a major restructuring of source code. This was a sorely needed cleanup to produce organization out of a loose collection of hacks. This should make future changes and additions much easier. Fixed a problem with the IncBy and DecBy inlines functions which caused weird step values when you used the PageUp and PageDn keys in dialogs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/02/18 Parallax sky tiling should be working again. I had an incorrect assumption about the way pskybits works. I thought it represented the width of the sky tiles, but it actually indicates the number of tiles. Go figure. I've assigned the ext editing functions to the Alt combinations of F5 and F6 instead of F7 and F8. I'm limited to F5-F8 in 2d mode for adding features, so I'm going to overload these keys for all their worth. Prepare for the worst. Rewrote initialization code so that it uses the same module as Blood. You'll now see the same initialization diagnostic messages in both. This means that MAPEDIT also uses the same gamma correct and sin tables as Blood, and loads information from the BLOOD.INI file. MAPEDIT loads the gamma correction from and writes changes to the BLOOD.INI file. Do not use F11 to change the gamma level. Instead use the G +/- combination, the same as in Blood. The gamma level is displayed momentarily when changed. Changed key combination to change the depth cueing (visibility) to D +/- for compatibility with BLOOD. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/02/18 Fixed a bug in the key handler which caused the (G)oto command to stop working in the tile selection screen. The solution was to change the key combination for this to Alt-G. Essentially, anything you used G for previously, use Alt-G for now (except setting gamma correction). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/02/27 This version includes a substantial rewrite of ALL 3D editing keys. Please report anything that's not working as it should. PageUp and PageDn in 3D mode now support fine movement (1 pixel) and coarse movement (4 pixels). Use shift for fine movement. It did this before, but not correctly all the time due to the way I was intercepting the keys. Sprite fine z adjustment now works for highlighted sprites. Coarse z adjustment now moves to the next multiple of 4 pixels, rather than in steps of 4. You can no longer move a floor above a ceiling or vice versa. Fixed coarse sprite rotation so it moves to the next multiple of 256. Fine rotation now moves to the next multiple of 16 instead of 1. Changed screen capture key to PrintScreen. Now I can use F12 for something more useful. You can no longer wrap shades by going too dark or too light. Shades are now correctly clipped at their max values. Changed keys for setting shade to 0, min, or max. The key combinations for setting texture brightness are now Ctrl Pad + for max brightness, Ctrl Pad - for min brightness, and Pad 0 for 0 brightness. I would have done this originally, but I couldn't without rewriting a fair amount of the 3d editor code (which I now have done). These key combinations now present a consistent metaphor: Pad +/- is exclusively used for brightness; and Control in combination with a step key sets a min or max. Fixed a bug in which any sprite inserted that had a tile height of 32 pixels or more would automatically be set to blocking. It will now automatically set sprites to blocking only if there is something other than a sprite in the tab buffer. Added some clicks and beeps for feedback. Let me know if they are too annoying. Ctrl Enter on a parallax floor or ceiling will now paste to ALL parallaxed floors or ceilings, not just neighboring sectors. The key to auto adjust panning will no longer change orientation of any walls. This means that some walls will not automatically be aligned, but you would have had to fix these walls anyway. This version of MapEdit includes a new 2D animation editor. You start this editor by using F7. See the new animator editor keys documented at the top of this file. Call me if you need help. Level designers do not need to use this tool. The animation editor will probably not work in unchained mode or screen buffer mode. Try it in these modes at your own risk. You have been warned, Nick! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/03/05 Fixed a bug which would cause extended keys (e.g. Page Up and Delete) to be dropped if NumLock was on. This bug was introduced when I added code to prevent filling up the keyboard buffer. These keys are actually transmitted as multiple make codes when Num Lock is on, hence the bug. Fixed a bug in the debug version of the heap. Sheesh! It would dassert out occasionally when it was unable to allocate a block when it thought it had enough memory. I wasn't subtracting out the space used for the fenceposts. MapEdit now uses our heap and resource caching system, so it should lurch less. I replaced the gettile() function, so now tile histories for walls, ceilings, floors, masked walls, face sprites, and flat sprite can all be maintained independently. Tile selection should now be significantly faster. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/03/06 Added an assertion to check for overflow of the ext arrays. I found out that some maps had sectorExt structures for nearly every sector, and were overflowing the array! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/03/24 BUG FIXES Fixed problem with allocatepermanenttile not marking the block of memory as locked. It could get added to the purge list during precaching.... Added some missing modify [...] registers to an inline function in the dynamic fire system. This would inevitably cause problems when optimizations were enabled. Fixed the hang on exit problem. Ken's unintengine function was closing STDIN. Replaced his function to fix. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/03/26 Fixed a bug with adjust x and y repeats of wall textures (you couldn't). You can now also match x and y repeats by pressing shift / on a wall. Added preliminary light bomb. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/04/02 When switching between 2D and 3D mode, I now do a reference check for all ext structures. This will ensure that any editing done in 2D mode is reflected immediately in 3D mode. Ctrl-Enter will no longer copy shade or palette values. If you want to copy shade and palette values to every wall in a loop, use Shift-Ctrl Enter. Note that the previous function of Shift-Ctrl Enter has been removed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/04/07 MAJOR FORMAT CHANGE. This version requires you to run CONVDB3 on all your maps. This new format eliminates the need for separate MAP and MPX files, and adds many new fields, support for which will be added *soon*. You can now adjust the floor or ceiling z of a red sector from outside the sector. Just point to one of the walls and press page up or down. This new feature makes it easy to open closed vertical doors. Increased angle resolution of light bomb. Expect it to be about twice as slow. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/04/07 BUG FIX. There was a problem which resulted in an incorrect file CRC if you deleted sprites and then saved. I wasn't checking the statnum of sprites which had an attached xsprite. BUG FIX. If you started MAPEDIT and created a new map, all sectors would have an extra field of 0 instead of -1. This caused an assertion failure when you tried to enter 3d mode. This is a kenbug which I worked around by initializing all extra fields to -1. There is still a problem if you create a new map after editing another map. When you add sectors, they will get extra references to old xsectors, xwalls, and xsprites, respectively. BEHAVIOR CHANGE. The program now automatically adds xsprites for all sprites and sizes them correctly before saving. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/04/07 BUG FIX. All extra fields of 0 are now set to -1 on loading. I'll fix this nasty bug yet! BUG FIX. Hooked my unitialization routine into exit so that keyboard interrupt and timer rate gets restored, even on crashes. This should cure the occasional and bothersome runaway clock. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/04/18 Separated code for tile selection into it's own module. Made the sequence editor use the new tile picking code. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/04/31 - NCN BUG FIX. Fixed a bug that screwed up masked walls. MAPPERS: You may not have seen this bug since it occurred in an interim version. The H key now toggles the hitscan value in 3D mode for sprites as well as masked walls. Use Ctrl-H in 2D mode. The Alt F key combo was added in 3D mode to change the relative alignment of a sector. Press it once to make a sector relative aligned. The key may be pressed again (and again) to change the first wall in a sector. To check which is the first wall, press TAB in a sector and note the first wall number, then press Alt-TAB on each wall to figure out which one it is. IMPORTANT NOTE: Only use Alt-F in sectors NOT containing other sectors! Added crude menus to sector dialog. To edit an extended dialog box, highlight one of the menu selections and press Enter. When you are done editing in the extended dialog box, press Enter to save the dialog changes and return you to 2D editing mode. If you wish to go back to the menu, press Escape. Any changes you have made will be held until you either press Enter again, or press Escape to abort any changes you have made. Added a txID verification key to the sector and sprite trigger dialog boxes. When the txID field is highlighted, enter a number and press the '?' key. This will tell you whether the txID you entered is used and by what. I intend to expand on this for the rxID field and add the same features to the wall dialog. Added wind currents to sectors. There are now 8 hard-coded wind levels, which are selectable by changing the wind field in the sector dialog. If the field is 0, then no wind is generated in that sector. Added water current data to sectors, which can be edited in the sector dialog. First select a water depth from 0 to 3: 0=no current, 1=tread, 2=wade, 3=swim. Next select the speed and angle. If a sector has relative alignment set, the initial current angle will be determined by the angle of first wall in the sector, and the 'angle' field will is added to the wall angle. Added key support for certain sector effects. Change the key field in a sector to indicate that the sector requires a key to operate. MAPPERS: We will be moving from the tag system to the new extended system, a few effects at a time. Please watch for changes in my maps and this text file to show you which effects have changed. Some things, like one-shot triggers, don't work yet, but set the fields anyway for compatibility and so you won't have to go back and edit them later. For now, you should be able to go back through all your maps and make switches and keys function, and that should eat up a few days. Good luck! Check out the following sector types: Lift, Swingdoor, Topdoor, Bottomdoor, and Floor Pad. Use my example TRIGGERS.MAP to figure some of it out, or call me if you need to. Eventually we'll have docs explaining how this stuff works. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/05/02 - NCN Fixed trigger bug with floor pads. Check out the expanded physical trigger flags for sprites and sectors. MAPPERS: Make sure the following things are applied to your maps: 1) All switches should be non-blocking with the Push and/or Impact triggers set. 2) Door sectors currently need the Push flag set. This will change as soon as wall triggers are done. 3) Lifts will need the Push flag set to function while the player is in the sector, unless a switch is installed at the top and bottom of the lift, either inside or outside the shaft, up to you. The switch sprite will not move with the lift. You can use the physical triggers with ANY sector type, including NORMAL. Physical triggers for sectors of type NORMAL will not change state when the trigger is activated. The "only once" trigger now works with the NORMAL type of sector. Expect the same additions to all sector types soon. BUGS/PROBLEMS: * Lifts no longer work when the action key is pressed while inside, though they will activate if you are next to them. This will be fixed in the next version. * Wall flags are still not implemented. Expect them also in the next version. These will be used to signal door sectors to open. NOTES: * Shrink all switches to 40x40. I'll try and add this in next MAPEDIT. * Shrink all gargoyle statues to 40x40. Same deal. * Shrink all chairs to 40x40. Okay, this one too. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/05/07 When relative sector alignment is set with Alt-F, flipping and xy swapping is cleared. This should fix water current problems. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/05/08 Added new fields to sector effects dialog. Redid all dialogs in character coordinates and tightened up display. Non-tab control now are highlighted. Add F2 to toggle state in 3D mode. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/05/10 Added display of wave form when 'W' pressed in 3D mode. Modified xsector and xsprite dialogs to access new waitTime and busyTime fields. These fields control the speed of door movement (time in .1 secs), and the delay before reset (time in .1 secs). If your doors or momentary switches don't seem to be working, check the values in these fields. Added xwall dialog. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/05/12 Provided a workaround for a memory allocation bug which would cause the editor and blood to hang in any mode which required screen buffering. This workaround will NOT work in stereo display modes -- I need an engine update from Ken to fix this. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/05/19 Added trouble-shooting section at top. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/05/24 Added lots of great new stuff that will be documented shortly. Take a look at the sample maps to see how most of the effects are accomplished. You will notice that MAPEDIT has changed significantly. BLUE "SPRITES" are controls for SLIDE type sectors, and come in pairs. GREEN "SPRITES" are controls for ROTATE type sectors. Use the controls to make rotating and sliding doors or other gimmicks. If you delete a control accidently it will be reinserted, though the angles and position are not retained. Sorry. Don't delete controls by accident. :) Here is a mini-tutorial on how things work, please run the maps then look at them before you post a bunch of questions. Everything should be the same for raising and lowering sector doors. For a swinging door: * Create a red-line sector for a door and raise it to the height you want it. * NOTE: Doors should be created in the OPEN position. * Use AltF5 to select a sector type of "Rotate" in the sector dialog. * WARNING: Do NOT select the "Swing door" type. It won't work. * Set the triggers, keys, and busyTime/waitTime EFFECTS in the same dialog. * NOTE: A green control is automatically inserted (visible in 2D mode only!) * Place the control on the pivot point of the sector. * Change the angle of the green control to point right. O----> * Now, adjust the angle of the green control to be the angle it needs rotate to OPEN from the CLOSED position. This is a bit confusing but you'll get the hang of it. Look at the swinging doors in MAP01-MAP04. For a sliding door: * Okay, I'll send this to you guys in e-mail. There is a simple example in MAP01.MAP. Look for the BLUE ARROW. Yes! The blue arrow points in the direction of movement. (Let the other teams try and beat that!) More on sliding doors later, as well as morphing walls. For now just experiment with triggers and slide/rotate walls. Good luck. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/05/28 Changed code that automatically inserts marker sprites so they start out at angle 0. O----> This only effect markers in rotate sectors. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/05/29 Added combination switches. These are multi-way switches which change to the ON state when their data field equals the value set in lotag. The sprite's hitag contain the number of values that the switch will cycle through. These switches can be used for combination locks, or even counters. See my map FXTEST for examples of both. Changed the way that slide sectors work so you only need to tag the walls that you want to move, and the code figures out which vertices need to be updated. No more stretching wall bullshit. Added support for sprite link messages so a master combination switch can control slave switches. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/05/30 Created MAPEDIT.INI for storing various edition options. Fixed an overflow problem which could cause long lines to be unselectable. Overhauled line selection so it is zoom dependent, and controlled by a configurable distance threshold, HighlightThreshold in [Options] of MAPEDIT.INI. Fixed a lot a subtle problems in the light bomb, which would cause certain reflections to be calculated incorrectly. I also (hopefully) eliminated problems with overflow in the ray tracing algorithm. Sometimes fixed point math sucks. You can control various aspects of the light bomb through configuration options in MAPEDIT.INI. Changed Ctrl-Shift-Enter so it only pastes shade and palette to all walls in a loop. Previously, it would copy over textures as well. This is the way that I really intended it to work. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/05/31 YES! I think I found a solution for maintaining marker sprites that will ensure references don't get hosed. In level designer terms, this means you won't occasionally lose slide or rotate markers. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/06/01 This time I _really_ think I've fixed the marker sprite problem. There shouldn't be any changes required to your maps, and the marker sprites should stay put. Let me know any problems ASAP. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/06/02 Moved troubleshooting section to the new XSYSTEM.TXT file, which will document the trigger system, sector, wall, and sprite effects, and other crucial information for level designers. This file will continue to document editor changes, but won't discuss specific aspects of effects. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/06/04 Fixed a mouse selection problem which would cause the wrong texture to be copied instead if the mouse was at an extreme edge of the screen. The bug is in Ken's code, so the only thing I can do is limit the mouse in by a pixel from all the edges. You can now use PageUp and PageDn on the lower wall of a bi-textured wall to move a red sector up and down. Player height is now identical in MapEdit and Blood. Just remember to put your switches lower in areas where the player will be in the water. Added sector visibility keys: Press CtrlAlt+ and CtrlAlt- to change the sector visibility values. Don't abuse this feature or Nick will kill you. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/06/04 ======================================================================== !! READ THIS FIRST !! (please) ======================================================================== Save ALL of your maps before running the new conversion utility. Once you've saved your maps in another directory or ZIP file, run the CONVDB4.EXE conversion utility. You can use wildcards, so typing "CONVDB4 *.MAP" is acceptable. Next, run "MAKEPLU 64 96" before viewing, editing or playing any maps. ======================================================================== * From now on all Door, Lift and moving stair types should be created using the "Z Motion" sector type. (These are automatically converted when CONVDB4 is run on version 3.x maps.) The Z values cannot yet be viewed in the 2D dialogs, but are displayed when created or changed in 3D mode. NOTE: Lift types will be converted, but you must manually go in and set on and off Z for each of them. Sorry. It was this, or linking the entire engine into the converter, or wasting time rewriting code. To create and set the default on and off Z values for a "Z Motion" sector: First, make the sector a "Z Motion" sector using the Alt-F5 dialog. Position the sector ceiling and floor heights where you want them to be when the sector is in the OFF position. For doors, it is easiest to make OFF the CLOSED position. Point at the Z Motion sector (ceiling, floor, adjacent non-white wall, or interior white wall) and press Alt F3 to set the OFF Z values. Pressing Alt F3 will set the Z values for both the ceiling and floor, so you don't have to press it twice. Now position the ceiling and floor heights where you want them to be when the sector is in the ON position. (Best in the OPEN position.) Point at the "Z Motion" sector and press Alt F4 to set the ON Z values. Again, this only has to be done once, as it will autmoatically set the ceiling and floor ON Z values with one keypress. To view the positions, point at the sector with the mouse cursor, hold the left mouse button down and press F3 and/or F4 to view the OFF and ON Z values, respectively. * New graphics for the pod creature and rat have been added, but they don't have MAPEDIT values in place. That means their captions won't yet show up in 2D mode, nor will they be sized correctly. * Dialogs have changed a bit, and will change more in the future. At least this time they all look more alike. Live with it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/06/13 Changed 3D movement so you are no longer blocked by the ceiling in sectors with parallaxed skies. Moving way 'up there' can give you an interesting perspective on (and hopefully new ideas for) your map. Rewrote the GUI. You probably won't see any significant visible changes, but please report any problems. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/06/30 Added menu to insert game objects. From now onw, press Alt-S instead of S to insert game object sprites. You can still use S for ornaments like torches, weeds, etc. NOTE: Hazard insertion is not done yet. If you have not already done do, run CONVDB4 on all your maps. You should then load and save *every* map to reset the object types. The only sprites that are converted in MAPEDIT (during loading and saving) are listed below. If you have a creature sprite not using one of these tiles, fix it immediately or risk certain death. # Name Creature 896 kAnmPhantasmM1 Phantasm 1170 kAnmZomb1M1 AxeZombie 1270 kAnmHellM2 HellHound 1280 kAnmHellM1 HellHound (also) 1370 kAnmZomb2M1 FatZombie 1470 kAnmGargoyleM1 FleshGargoyle 1530 kAnmGargStatue FleshGargoyle Statue 1570 kAnmGillM1 GillBeast 1595 kAnmGillM2 GillBeast (also) 1745 kAnmRatM1 Rat 1792 kAnmPodM1 GreenPod 1797 kAnmTentacleM1 GreenTentacle 1835 kAnmEelM2 Eel 1870 kAnmEelM1 Eel (also) 1920 kAnmSpiderM1 RedSpider 1948 kAnmBatM2 Bat (sleeping) 1950 kAnmBatM1 Bat (flying) 1980 kAnmHandM1 Hand 2680 kAnmCerberusM1 Cerberus 2820 kAnmCultistA1 TommyCultist * 2860 kAnmCultistM1 ShotgunCultist * ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/07/03 Maps of version 4.00 are auto converted to version 4.01. The conversion involves adjusting the z position of wall and face sprites to handle the new origin alignent mode. Added new lighting type, Flicker3. This is a mostly on, flakey flourescent light sort of flicker effect. Added our tile preloading code from Blood to MapEdit, so you should have less lurching due to tiles not being in memory. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/07/08 Rewrote "O" code to paste sprite onto a wall. Let me know if you still have occasional problems ornamenting sprites (where it won't go onto the wall). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/07/09 Fixed a problem where marker sprites would occasionally get converted to other sprite types if they had a picnum which got recognized by Nick's conversion code. Improved performance of 2D display code by eliminating unnecessary math for non-displayed red walls. Now that sprite FIFO code is working, the insertsprite cover function now sets all new sprites to the following defaults: sprite[].cstat = kSpriteOriginAlign; sprite[].shade = 0; sprite[].pal = 0; sprite[].clipdist = 32; sprite[].xrepeat = 64; sprite[].yrepeat = 64; sprite[].xoffset = 0; sprite[].yoffset = 0; sprite[].picnum = 0; sprite[].ang = 0; sprite[].xvel = 0; sprite[].yvel = 0; sprite[].zvel = 0; sprite[].owner = -1; sprite[].lotag = 0; sprite[].hitag = 0; sprite[].extra = -1; This should help cure some of the problems caused by sprites being inserted with bogus values in the fields. Renabled CRC checking for loaded maps. Let me know if you have any problems in loading some of your converted maps. ALERT! Ken made some clipping fixes to the engine which may cause sprites that are exactly on the wall to be non-visible. This is especially true with red walls. Changed the ornament function ("O" or "S" while pointing at a wall) so that sprites are offset from walls by 1/4th a pixel distance. You should go through your maps and re-ornament all walls. Unfortunately, there's not an easy way to do this automatically. Ornamented sprites are set by default to non-blocking and 1 sided. All dudes (creatures) are set to non-blocking and non-hitscan in the editor. This makes it a lot easier to move around in 3D mode. Don't worry, the status bits are automatically set to the appropriate values in the game. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/07/17 Fixed a bug with ammo names. Load and save all your maps. We apologize for this inconvenience. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/07/20 !!! MAP VERSION CHANGE !!! Once you've backed up all your maps in another directory or ZIP file, run the CONVDB5.EXE conversion utility. You can use wildcards, so typing "CONVDB5 *.MAP" is acceptable. The old maps will be saved with an extension of ".MA4". This update adds fields necessary for implementing creature AI. You'll see fields added to the XSprite dialog shortly. Fixed a bug in the code to auto align wall textures -- it would occasionally get caught in a loop and bail out after a certain number of iterations. Now it should correctly detect when it is looping around walls. You can now press F10 while editing the rxID and txID fields, and it will automatically fill in the next unused channel. Object type is now stored in the former lotag field, and object mass is stored in the former hitag field. Do NOT edit lotag or hitag manually. Fixed a crash bug that would occur if you pressed Enter in 2D mode while a wall was not highlighted. Optimized the sectorofwall() function, which probably won't make much of a difference to anybody. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/07/27 * Added Ctrl-PgUp / Ctrl-PgDn support (3D mode) for sectors / walls ============================================================================= When pointing at single-sided walls, the ceiling of the sector is modified. When pointing double-sided walls, the sector ceiling or floor on the other side of the highlighted wall is modified. Ctrl-PgUp will set the highlighted sector ceiling to the next higher neighbor ceiling z, or floor to the next higher neighbor floor z. Ctrl-PgDn will set the highlighted sector ceiling to the next lower neighbor ceiling z, or floor to the next lower neighbor floor z. * Added Alt-PgUp / Alt-PgDn support (3D mode) for sectors / walls ============================================================================= When pointing at single-sided walls, the ceiling of the sector is modified. When pointing double-sided walls, the sector ceiling or floor on the other side of the highlighted wall is modified. Alt-PgUp will bring up a dialog box where you can manually type in the pixel height of the ceiling or floor from its counterpart. In other words, if you Alt-PgUp on a floor, you can type in the floor's height from the ceiling. If you Alt-PgUp on a ceiling, you can type in the ceiling's height from the floor. Alt-PgUp and Alt-PgDn work the same way. If you can think of a cooler way to do this, let me know. Since not all of the monsters are selectable in 3D mode using the Alt-S object menu, use Alt-S to first insert the closest monster (e.g. flesh gargoyle instead of a stone gargoyle) then go into 2D mode and use AltF6 on the sprite then select a new type. This should be fixed soon, when all the monster types will be selectable through a list box. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/01 Fixed bug with sector joining. This bug was caused by us while trying to fix a bug in the build.obj editor code that wasn't checking for invalid sectors and walls when joining sectors. We still have the error checking code in, but we the check is less strict than it was, since the strict check was causing the code to bail out before joining sectors. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/02 Added what is hopefully the final fix for the resource/map caching problems we were experiencing on machines with > 8MB. All map changes should be now be flushed correctly, and the maps should reload without a problem. Ctrl-Alt-Plus & Ctrl-Alt-Minus: Made sector visibility keys work with sector highlighting, so you can now highlight sectors with the RightAlt key in 2D mode, then go to 3D mode and change the visibility of all highlighted sectors. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/03 Fixed hitscan blocking Added 3D mode messages to wall and sprite x/y repeat keys. Added 3D mode messages to wall x/y panning keys. Added some new sample maps and a sample map definition file. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/04 Reverted to the previous keyboard method of handling sub-dialogs. To exit from the sector effects sub-dialog and save changes, press ENTER. To return to the xsector dialog, just press ESC. Sorry for the inconvenience. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/06 Added respawning for items. Check out the sprite dialog using AltF6. Monsters and barrels do not respawn yet, but they will soon. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/07 MapEdit is now MUCH faster in 2D mode, at the expense of a little memory overhead. The speedups should be particularly noticeable in maps where there were a lot of captions being displayed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/08 Tile #457 has been removed. Use tile #356 with palette 5 to emulate #457. We apologize for this inconvenience ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/09 Added support for moving only marked walls and sprites within motion sectors. To mark a wall or sprite for motion, press the "K" key while highlighting the object in 2D mode. When the object is blue, it will move forward (in the direction of the movement arrow, or the angle direction of the axis marker). When it is green, it will move in the opposite direction. You can also mark sprites for motion in Z Motion sectors. If the sprite is blue, it will move with the floor. If it is green, it will move with the ceiling. Change the key for marking walls for motion from "M" to "K". This was done to allow setting walls to masked in 2D mode with the "M" key. This change actually occured a few revs back, but I forget to document either key -- sorry. Changed the color of marker sprites to green/yellow to yellow/white to distinguish them from sprites marked with "K". Marker sprites normally appear yellow. If the cursor is in the sector they apply to, they are shown in white. There are now three different types of slide and rotate sectors. The first type, Slide Marked and Rotate Marked, will move only marked walls and sprites. The second type, Slide and Rotate, will move ALL walls and marked sprites. This is useful for sectors where you don't want to mark all the walls individually. The third type, Slide Crush and Rotate Crush, isn't yet implemented, and acts like the move ALL types. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/16 You can now rotate sectors more than 180 degrees! Use the [/] keys to rotate a sprite in 2D mode without wrapping at 0 and 2048. All axis markers for doors which rotate CCW are automatically set to negative angles. You'll understand how this works when you take a look at the markers. Slide sectors can rotate! Just set the start and end angles in the on and off marker sprites. Rotation will occur around the center, as determined by the relative position of the ON marker. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/16 Added and refined descriptions at the top of this document, mainly duplicating material from the older BUILD.TXT file. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/20 Updated Alt-S game object insertion to use new keys, weapon and dude tiles. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/22 Added mirrors to our game. Supports up to 64 mirrors per level. Mirrors cannot reflect other mirrors, so keep them far apart. Mirrors are created using a 1-way masked walls on red lines (double-sided linedefs.) The area behind the mirror must be the same size and shape as the area in front of the mirror. Apply the "mirror" texture (I think #504) to 1-way walls to make them a mirror. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/08/29 *** CONFIDENTIAL! DO NOT DISCUSS THE FOLLOWING UPDATE! *** We've added slopes to our game. Slopes will be in Blood, Duke, Ruins & Shadow Warrior. The 3D mode keys used to add or modify slopes are listed above. See [, ], \, and Alt-F ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/09/05 Added hazards and miscellaneous sprites to the Alt-S menu. Check out inserting coop mode starting positions in the Misc menu. NOTE: Inserting switches using this menu isn't working yet. Added simple one-way teleporters to the editor. Create a teleport sector and a teleport marker will be inserted. Move that teleporter to the destination. For two-way teleporters, create the same at the destination and drag the marked to the first teleporter. Switched teleporters may work, but I haven't tested them yet. This could make for some interesting deathmatch play where you need a temporary ally. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/09/10 Modified the way that Alt-F key works. You can now select the first wall of a sector by pointing at it in 3D mode and pressing Alt-F. Pointing at the floor or ceiling and pressing Alt-F will make the first wall the next wall in clocking order. You can disable all panning with the F11 key. This is useful for aligning the textures of panAlways sectors and walls. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/09/15 When you insert a new sprite, if a sprite is not already in the tab buffer, you are given the opportunity to pick the tile for the sprite. Pressing Escape will allow you to abort the sprite insertion. The ability to abort also applies to inserting game objects with Alt-S. The Light bomb has been fixed. Because some of the math has been changed, you will need to update some of the constants in your MAPEDIT.INI file. Here are my default constants: [LightBomb] Intensity=4 ; controls how bright the light is Reflections=3 ; maximum number of reflections Attenuation=0x0000 ; how much light gets diminished MaxBright=-4 Intensity controls how bright the light source is. You can increase this value if you don't like pressing L a lot to brighten up a room, but you won't get as much fine control with it then. Reflections is the number of times each light ray is allowed to bounce. If this value is 0, no reflections are calculated (and the process is much faster). More reflections can help by creating more diffuse lighting effects. Attenuation controls how much the light is diminished when it reflects off a wall or floor. A value of 0 is a perfect reflection, and a value of 0x10000 would result in non-reflective walls. MaxBright sets the limit on how bright the light bomb is allowed to make a wall. By prevent the wall shade from getting too bright, you retain the ability to see some of the dynamic sector lighting effects, which won't be visible is the shade is too much < 0. Texture alignment code overhauled! I think this new version should do everything you could want it to do (with reason). It now follows multiple paths, aligning everything connected with the same texture perfectly. It aligns red walls correctly, regardless of where the texture is pegged, and even knows about slopes. You will be amazed. :-) For the sake of speed and congruity, I changed the key strokes for adjusting wall x/y repeat and x/y panning. The arrows on the numeric keypad now adjust the panning of wall textures by a factor of 8. If you want fine alignment, use the Shift key (sound familiar?) To adjust the wall scale, press the 5 key on the numeric keypad while pressing the arrows. This change should make it a little easier to manually adjust texture panning, since you won't have to hold so many darn keys down. For those of you with ingrained editor habits (or who have to use BUILD for other projects), you can retain the old keypad behavior by adding the following to the [Options] section of your MAPEDIT.INI file: [Options] OldKeyMapping=1 This works the same way except for sprites, in which the function of the pad 5 is reversed. I did it this way because you seldom (if ever) need to adjust the x/y offset of sprites. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/09/16 Added a timer event generator to the sprite type list. See the appropriate section in XSYSTEM.TXT. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/11/26 Fixed a rather subtle but NASTY map screw up bug which would occur if you tried to use Alt-F on a ceiling or floor of sector 0. I intruced this bug when we went to the new map version. Sorry about that. :-( If you are curious what caused this, I made wall->point2 an unsigned value, not realizing that it can go negative during wall order rotation. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 95/12/27 Modified dialog boxes, adding new fields like interruptable, lock, etc. Added dude-specific flags to the sprite dialog box. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 96/01/07 Fixed sprite insertion and z movement functions so that sprites will go on floors and ceilings correctly. Changed '/' key so that is resets flip bits for floors and ceilings. Changed Alt-C so that it will change palookups if the picnum is the same in the tab buffer. Fixed an assertion bug that would occur when dragging highlighted points. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 96/01/16 Added WaterDrip generator code.