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2 MapEd 2.0 Release Edition
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3 -------------------------
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5 I) Intro to Maped 2.0
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6 II) Running Maped 2.0
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7 A) Moving within Maped
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13 III) Our friend the Program Menu
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14 A) Save/Load Functions
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25 I) Intro to Maped 2.0
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26 ---------------------
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27 MapEd 2.0 is essentially the same program as the one users had grown accustomed
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28 to with V1 but with significant enhancement and miscellaneous Fun Crap(tm).
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29 If you are unfamiliar with MapEd, it can be described as the "heart" of VERGE.
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30 Most of elements that will be seen by the player in terms of characters (entities)
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31 and backgrounds (tiles) will be setup within MapEd.
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33 Some of the most notable features of MapEd 2.0 are the windows-like enhancements;
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34 Dialog boxes can be dragged by their title bars and text boxes can be advanced
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37 Items added since the beta release are annoted with '***'
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41 MapEd can be run from the command line simply as 'maped' or with the
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42 specification of a map. (i.e. 'maped vospram1.map')
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44 MapEd 2.0 can be started without an additional map parameter, unlike its
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45 predecessor, to load a blank map and vsp. This has been stabalized from previous
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46 betas to load the default palette. Once inside the program, use the mouse to scroll
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47 around the map by moving it to the borders of the screen or use the cardinal
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50 A) Moving within MapEd
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52 You can scroll the map a screen at a time by using one of the quick scroll keys:
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59 You can summon the mini-map (just what the name implies) by pressing 'M'.
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60 Move the white screen outline to a portion of the map and click to move there
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62 Pressing 'Escape' while in the mini-map mode will return to MapEd without moving
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67 At the bottom of the main MapEd screen is are boxes indicating the current
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68 layers of the map. To the lower right is the information HUD for that layer.
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74 The numbers located in the lower left portion of the main MapEd screen are the
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75 tile layers available. (see the layers section of the menu chapter for instructions
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76 for adding new tile layers)
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78 Pressing the corresponding keyboard shortcut or clicking on a number shown in these
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79 boxes will toggle that tile layer's visibility and its background will become red to
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80 indicate that it is visible. (When switching to the special layers, all available
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81 tile layers will be shown.)
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82 While you can press a layer's number to make it immediately visable, you must click
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83 on it or press "shift+layer number" in order to hide it.
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85 When one or more of the tile layers is selected, two tile boxes will appear in the
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86 lower right portion of the screen to indicate the tile assigned to each mouse
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87 button. The left box is assigned to the left mouse button while the right is assigned
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88 to the right mouse button. (I hope your head isn't hurting, yet)
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90 Pressing 'Ctrl' while in the tile layer editing mode, will cause the
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91 'Maped 2.0 Tile Selector' to pop-up. Basically the same as ME1, simply press up or
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92 down or mouse scroll through the VSP and click on a tile to select with the mouse
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93 button you wish to assign it to.
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95 While in tile layer editing mode, A/Z will change the tile assigned to the left
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96 button and S/X will change the tile assigned tot the right.
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97 The former letter scrolls forward through the VSP while the latter scrolls back.
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98 Also while in tile layer editing mode, clicking on a tile while holding '/' will
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99 assign that tile to the chosen mouse button. (Also, pressing 'H' will toggle tile
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102 Back to the Tile Selector, the buttons seen on the panel at the bottom of the
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103 screen are somewhat self explanatory.
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105 -Add Tiles adds the specified number of blank tiles to the end of the vsp.
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107 -Animation (can be called with 'V') brings up a dialog box showing an animation
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108 specified in the vsp. The Up/Down keys change the shown animation, while the
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109 text boxes across from it alter the shown animation's traits. Start and End
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110 are the animation's starting and ending tiles (Animations must be tiles in
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111 sequential order in the vsp.), Delay is the amount of time in milliseconds
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112 between each frame (100ms = 1 second), and mode is the animation's display
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113 mode. (0 = Linear(normal); 1 = Reverse; 2 = Random; 3 = Loop Back and Forth)
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115 -Import PCX/Import VSP are used to pilfer tiles from an existing image or
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116 tileset respectively. Import PCX is more complicated in that you are prompted
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117 to choose whether or not the imported image is a tileset or an image. If the
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118 pcx is set up as a tileset (with 1 pixel padding) then import it as a tileset.
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119 If appears as a normal image, import it as such.
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120 ***When selecting tiles to import, those which have already been imported will
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121 appear with a grey mask. You can still import multiple copies of each tile, but
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122 the masks will keep track. Pressing 'B' will build a list of imported tiles,
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123 automatically greying duplicates which already exist in the VSP. 'N' will
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124 import all non-existing tiles within the image to the VSP, while 'A' imports
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125 them all, regardless.
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127 -H/P toggles tile selector highlighting and tile padding respectively. Tile
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128 padding adds or removes a 1 pixel border in between tiles to make them more
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131 -Select/Edit modes determine what happens when you click on a tile. In 'Select
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132 Mode' the selected tile is assigned to that button as previously mentioned,
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133 unlike 'Edit Mode' which causes TileEd to be launched and the selected tile to
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134 be loaded. You can also enter edit mode by pressing 'E' with the cursor over the
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137 While in the Tile Selector with the cursor positioned over a tile you wish to
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138 copy, press 'Ctrl+C' to copy that tile onto the clipboard. If you wish to carbon
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139 copy the tile onto another, position the cursor over the tile you wish to overlay
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140 and press 'Ctrl+S'. If you only want to paste the non-0 color portions of the
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141 tile, press 'Ctrl+T'.
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143 To delete a tile entirely from the VSP, postion the cursor over it and press
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144 'Ctrl+D'. If you accidently delete an important tile from your VSP by mistake,
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145 you can reload the map it to recover the lost tile. Also, be warned that the tiles
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146 are recognized by number and as such, deleting a single tile will cause the
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147 following tiles to move one number higher. This will seriously screw up your maps,
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148 so be careful. A work around is to delete the tile then insert a blank one in its
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149 place to be used later.
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150 ***The Super Delete function, 'ctrl+alt+d' will alter the map information so that
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151 all of the deleted tile's instances on the map will be replaced with the default,
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152 rather than creating a big mess.
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154 To insert a blank tile into the vsp, position the cursor over the tile
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155 you want to add the blank one before and press 'Ctrl+I'.
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156 ***Similar to Super Delete, Super Insert, 'ctrl+alt+i' will insert a blank
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157 tile while reassigning the current tiles to their original artwork.
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159 ***Note*** Do not super delete or insert too quickly, do it slow and
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160 rhythmically... i know it sounds stupid but for some reason, doing it too fast
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163 X/Y/Z- X and Y will mirror chosen tile upon the pressed key's related axis. 'X' for
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164 instance, will flip the tile left to right, 'Y' will flip it up and down.
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165 'Z' however, will turn the tile 90 degrees clockwise.
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169 TileEd primary method of drawing tiles, and has improved exponetially from ME1.
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170 Most of the manipulation functions are self-explanatory or ported similarly from
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171 ACE, but there are a few new features. Key shortcuts are courtesy of Ric:
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173 CTRL/S + mouse click - (over edit window) Pick up colour under mouse
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174 SPACEBAR - toggle between draw mode and select mode
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175 CTRL+Z or U - one level undo
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176 CTRL+A - select all
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177 CTRL+U - unselect all
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178 CTRL+C - copy selected area
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179 CTRL+X - cut selected area
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181 DEL - clears selected area
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182 CTRL+R - reverts the tile to the original (like undo in maped 1)
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183 G - toggles grid on/off
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184 H - toggles hilight on/off
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185 M - toggles mask on/off
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189 L/R - Rotates tile 90 degrees anti-clockwise/clockwise
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190 Q/W - Steps through animation (in tile edit mode) if any
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191 A/Z and S/X - changes the left or right drawing colours
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192 PGUP/PGDN - Colour shift up/down
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193 [ and ] - toggle screen resolutions
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194 ALT+X - quits to DOS (Note: This doesn't prompt you to save nor does
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195 it save automatically at the moment. It just dumps you
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199 The letters adjacent to the tile layers in the lower left portion indicate the
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200 map's special layers as follows:
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204 Areas the main character and designated entities cannot enter. When editing in
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205 layer mode, you simply left click the area upon which you wish to add an
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206 obstruction or right click to remove it.
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210 Zones are triggers that link to events in the map's vc code of which there may be
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211 a maximum of 256 per map.
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212 Pressing A/Z scrolls through the available zones (or shift-clicking a zone to
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213 adopt it), and pressing 'ctrl' will bring up the zone info box for the active zone.
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215 Name: A description of the zone for the creator's use alone. The player will
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218 Script: This is the number of the event in the map's vc code that will be called
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219 when the player successfully activated the zone.
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221 Chance: This value determines whether the zone will be activated by determining
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222 the randomness of success. A value of 0 will cause the event never to occur
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223 (unless over-ridden by Adjacent Activation) while 256 (the maximum) will
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224 cause it never to fail.
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226 Delay: A value of 0 is assigned to the chance of the zone before this number of
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227 steps have been taken within the zone. From then, the Chance it returned to
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228 the default you've set and calculated normally. For instance, on a map if the
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229 chance of incurring a random battle is 50%, and the delay s 10, a minimum
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230 of 10 steps must be taken after each battle before another may occur.
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232 Entity: This specifies a script number to be executed when an entity enters the zone.
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235 Allow Adjacent Activation: If this is checked, then the player may stand in an
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236 adjacent tile and while facing the zone, activate it with the 'Talk/Confirm'
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237 button. This over-rides the chance factor.
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241 Entities are generally the characters that roam your maps but can become more dynamic
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242 if you so choose. In entity editing mode, clicking on a blank space on the map creates
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243 an entity doppelganger there and assigns it the lowest untaken entity number. Pressing
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244 'Del' while the cursor is over an entity will prompt you to erase that entity. When
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245 done so, that entity and it's properties will be gone and the next numbered entity
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246 with become one number lower and so on. (i.e. Deleting Entity0 on a map will cause
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247 Entity1 to become Entity0 and Entity2 to become Entity1, etc)
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249 Clicking on an existing entity will call that character's information dialog box.
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250 (Pressing Up/Down while in this box will scroll through the available entities.)
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251 The entity properties include a description (for your benefit alone), the XY
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252 coordinated of the entity (which are useful when you want to move a single entity
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253 without disrupting the whole order of your entities by deleting one), the number of
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254 the chr (as referenced to the chr list (see below) which may be accessed by a button
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255 adjacent to the chr text box), the speed of the entity (see Appendix A), and the
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256 activation script called when the entity is activated.
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258 Pressing the 'CHR list' from the entity properties box will bring up a listing of
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259 chrs that may be used in the map. Clicking on an empty text box to enter the chrs
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260 name with the attached extention, or choose browse to search for the file locally.
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262 Once the chr for the entity has been chosen, the appropriate chr will be displayed in
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263 the upper right corner of the property box.
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265 The addtional boxes control:
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267 -Autoface- Causes entity to face the player when "activated."
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269 -Active/Adjacent Method- If active, the entity will be activated when faced and
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270 "talked to" by the player. In Adjacent mode, it is activated as soon as the player
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271 comes in contact with it by occupying the space adjacent to it.
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273 -Obstructable/Obstruction- If the entity is obstructable, it will be stopped as the
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274 player would by map obstruction. If obstruction is unchecked, the player will be
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275 able to walk through the entity. (useful for flying chrs or invisible trigger chrs)
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277 Below these are the Movement Code/Scripts for the entity which control its movement
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278 behaviour in the game.
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282 1 - Causes the entity to roam aimlessly the specified number of steps before
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283 pausing for the specified delay.
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284 2 - Causes the entity only to wander within a specified area.
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285 3 - Causes the entity to wander within a specified zone.
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286 4 - Causes the entity to enact a movement script specified in the 'scripts box'.
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289 If you select 4, fill in the last text box with the *number* of the movement script
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290 you wish the entity to use, not the actual movement code.
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292 Scripts: This button brings up a list of the predefined scripts for the entities to
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293 follow. Using Up/Down you can find the numbered slot to fill in the movement script
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294 using a letter followed by the value of the direction.
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301 X - Move to X axis value
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302 Y - Move to Y axis value
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304 F - Face (See Appendix B)
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307 If you wanted the entity to move up two spaces, left 1, then move to 21 on the X axis,
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308 face down, pause for one second, and display its 22nd frame then repeat, you would use:
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312 III) The Program Menu
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313 ---------------------
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314 The program menu is the most crucial and integral part of MapEd 2.0. How else would you
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315 get to Columns? It can be called by pressing 'Esc' or (if you have a three-button mouse)
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316 with the middle (or third bound) mouse button within the main editing window.
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318 A) New/Save/Load Functions
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320 Using 'New MAP' from the menu will abort the current map (after a prompt) and begin
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321 an blank map and VSP. In order to use an existing VSP with the new map, you must enter
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322 one in the MAP properties (see below) or use the 'Import VSP' function from the tile
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325 The Save/Load features are fairly obvious; Pressing 'F10' or accessing 'Save MAP' from
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326 the menu will save the map contents including the VSP, map contents and it will compile
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327 the map's VC code into the map itself.
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328 ***Saving a new VSP does so in a compressed format, although Maped2 and the engine can
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329 load older, uncompressed VSP formats. Maps must be resaved in order to be used, however.
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330 -If you save a New MAP generated from the menu or one generated if maped is run without
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331 a map parameter, it will automatically be saved as "untitled.map" with "untitled.vsp"
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332 Load will bring up a Load Map Dialog box. Either enter the map's name (with .map
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333 extention) or press the 'Browse' button to search for the map locally. You will be
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334 prompted to save the current map before it is aborted.
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336 Save VSP will save just the VSP independant of the map and entailing information.
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337 Useful if you were to create a few nice tiles, yet accidently delete a layer.
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341 This dialog box is used to enter the important map information and the map resize
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344 -Music: This is the initial music file that will be played upon map startup.
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345 -VSP: The VSP this map will use. Note that if you use the same VSP for multiple
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346 maps, all alterations made to it will affect ALL of its maps.
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347 -Rstring: This indicates the order and display values of the layers. (see below) The
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348 order of the the layer numbers determines in which order they will be
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349 displayed. Also, the letter 'E' should be added in order to determine upon
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350 which layer they will be shown. Additionally, you may add an 'R' to
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351 determine where to display a hookretrace script or you may define a specific
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352 script begun with an 'S' followed by the script number appended with an 'X'.
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353 Therefore, if you had four map layers, the obligatory entities drawn on the
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354 first layer and script 3 to drawn over all the other layers, your Rstring
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355 would look like: 1E234S3X
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358 This calls a box used to edit the X/Y sizes of the map. Just enter the new values and
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362 Layers are a somewhat complicated aspect of your map. Accessing 'Layers' on the
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363 program menu calls a submenu which is used to add or edit existing map layers.
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364 'Add Layer' will generate a new layer for the map. After adding it to the
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365 Rstring (IIIb), you can then add tiles to it as you would the other layers. 'Edit
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366 Layer' allows you to edit the layer properties including parallax and
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367 h-line/transparency. The parallax values alter the movement of the layers in
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368 accordance with the party's movement. The X/Y multipliers alter the direction of the
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369 layer opposite to the party while the divider does vice versa. Keep in mind that
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370 these are multipliers and dividers, hence, are fractions so an x multiplier and
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371 divider of 20 reduces to 1/1 and cancels movement.
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372 'Import Image' directly crops all tiles from an image and places them in proper order
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373 directly onto a selected layer. If the selected layer has tiles currently on it, that
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374 information will discarded. ***The checkbox 'Eliminate Duplicates' will not crop and
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375 tiles that are identical to ones already a part of the vsp, instead substituting the
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376 original when they are actually imported.
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378 Destroys specific elements entirely from the map. Destroying Zones will get rid of
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379 the physical placement of the zones while destroying zone data will eliminate the
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380 information about the zones from the zone's property box. You can also eliminate
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381 all entities and obstructions with destroyer.
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384 Most of these values are self explanatory; You can toggle smooth scrolling as opposed
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385 to tile based scrolling, mouse scrolling, whether you cursor will have a white tile
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386 outline and alternate between graphics modes.
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387 You can also set the color of the window title bar, box background, highlight color,
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388 and white offset color.
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389 The window color options are based on the numbers of the currently active palette.
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393 These are some assorted throw ins that are determined to throw all sorts of road
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394 blocks in front of you as you attempt to concentrate.
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397 This is a simple interface for loading MOD, XM, or S3M music file. In the future it
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398 may be used for playing ITs as well. Simply enter the name of the music file or
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399 browse for it locally and press play.
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402 This feature is capable of loading and playing CD music tracks. Unfortunately, it has
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403 some issues conflicting with Windows' Auto-Load and CD-Player.
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406 If you want to know the real reason V2 was delayed, look no further. The great spanning
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407 abyss of wasted time, this is Columns!
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408 In case you've never played the original SEGA classic, the object of Columns is to align
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409 three of the same colored crystals (orbs) and they will disappear.
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410 Pressing 'Up' will alternate the colors of the orbs, and Left/Right move the stack
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411 accordingly. Press 'Down' to accelerate the stack.
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413 To change the difficulty setting, alter the 'difficulty' variable in MAPED.CFG (found at
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414 the end of maped.cfg)
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416 (Courtesy of vecna:)
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417 The difficulty levels are as follows:
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420 6 - Your death is assured. ^_^
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422 The difficulty controls not how fast the blocks fall, but how many
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423 different colors of blocks are on the playing field. A value of greater
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424 than 6 will error the program, and a difficulty less than 4 is outright
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425 cheating. If you ever LOSE with a difficulty less than 4 you have
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428 You can now skin the background and sprite graphics for Columns. The
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429 default is still hardcoded into the EXE, however, if the external files
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430 COLBACK.PCX and/or COLSPR.PCX are found, they will be used. You can
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431 download the default skin from www.verge-rpg.com, and other graphic sets can
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432 be found at Extended Play.
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433 (http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rwkl97/ep/download.html#me2skins)
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436 Accessing 'Exit to DOS' from the main menu or 'Alt+X' will quit to DOS.
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440 ***'F11' will take a proper screen shot, making the 'prntscrn' method obsolete.
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441 Map movement has been retooled so that it will scroll independant of CPU speed.
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443 There are a few other features such as the trippy built-in screen saver that are
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444 left for you to uncover. ^_^
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448 (From whatsnew.txt in Maped Beta 3)
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449 - Out-of-Bounds rendering protections reintroduced to the map renderer.
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450 These were originally in ME2 a while ago, but somehow along the line
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451 they got lost while juggling around different copies of the source.
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452 This should prevent ME2 from crashing even if a mapfile or VSP is
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454 - Fixed a problem with an internal tileset helper array not being
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455 updated if you loaded a map from the commandline, resulting in the
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456 map being drawn erratically.
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457 - Problems with the sound system crashing the DOS box if sound
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458 couldn't be initialized fixed. Now you just won't hear sound if
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459 there are problems; The only reason ME2 should crash on startup
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460 now is 1) you're running Windows NT or 2) you need to use the
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461 nocdaudio option in MAPED.CFG
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462 - Increased the tilebay size from 2048 tiles to 10240 tiles.
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463 - Some improvements have been made with the CD audio situation; Exiting
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464 ME2 will no longer stop the CD playback unless you used the ME2 CD
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465 player. This was causing problems with people who were using Windows
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466 CD Player to listen to CDs while going in and out of MapEd, which could
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467 get very annoying. ^_^ It's still not perfect tho.
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469 ***The map movement clipping has been fixed so you can now access every tile
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472 ***Maped2 won't crash and burn hardcode if your map is less than the screen
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473 size. Not that you shouldn't have maps less than the screen size, but if you're
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474 stupid and try it, it'll handle it.
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475 This will become an issue with the multi-res versions of Maped.
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477 ========================================================================================
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479 Appendix A: Entity/Character Speeds
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480 -----------------------------------
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481 Speed Pixels/second
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489 The default speed of the main character is 4.
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491 Appendix B: Face direction values
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492 ---------------------------------
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projects / 16.git / blob