i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Request patches for Keens 4-6.
darkdave1985
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by darkdave1985 »

now, i have got it. i thought that this blank delete item in the infoplane, works for all background, foreground and infplane because i thought that this is the only such one which exists. but i only can delete items i took from the infoplane with that, right? but i took my items always from the foreground, because you said that they don't take so much memory as the other ones. and now i clicked on these white squares from the foreground tileset and with these now i can delete everything. i hope that i unterstood this right now once for all. every tileset has it's own blank delete item, for it's own placed items.
darkdave1985
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by darkdave1985 »

no, i was still wrong again. the white ones are invisible platforms, for example making windows and doors inside a house, right? so, i still have this problem. that's one weird thing to be honest!
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Nisaba
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how to delete placed tiles...

Post by Nisaba »

well, I've got a dirty workaround for you. this might not be an intended feature but it's the way I manage to delete things quickly. here's what I do:
  1. choose the plane where you want to delete tiles
  2. activate the Essential Manipulater (under tools, or press the [Home] key)
  3. press [C] followed by [V] on your keyboard.
  4. with your mouse right(!) click the tile you want to delete
  5. exit this mode by pressing [ESC]
in short: [home] + [c] + [v] + right-click
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Fleexy
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by Fleexy »

Indeed, the Paster (hotkey V) deletes a clipboard-sized chunk when you right-click. Note that the Essential Manipulator will only create a 1x1 clipboard on startup if you don't have anything copied already. Speaking of the clipboard, Abiathar's clipboard is indeed independent of the current level, so you can copy/paste chunks across levels.

Every plane has its own zero tile. To delete foreground tiles, first make sure only the foreground is active and that the Tile Placer is the current tool. Right-click a spot with no foreground tile to select the zero tile. The foreground's tile number in the lower left (where you see the plane state information) should change to 0000h. Then you can click to place the zero tile in the foreground, removing any foreground tile there.

Another way to get the foreground zero tile is to press Alt+Down while only the foreground is active, then any non-zero number on the numeric keypad. NumLock must be on for this to work. This uses Abiathar's "mini-palette" feature and the fact that the default tile in mini-palette slots 1 through 9 is the zero tile. (Slot 0 always contains the previous tile you selected, so you can get it back if you accidentally selected something else.)
darkdave1985
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by darkdave1985 »

ok, with clicking on a background tile first, i can delete now all foreground items easily. also the infoplane items i can delete with the blank zero tile easily but how can i delete a specific background tile completely recently? or is this not even possible, because the background is always just a graphic plane that you need and so you can't delete it completely or it would make just no sense?. again, thanks to all and one last question. i made once a screenshot from my own changed map into my folder by accident. as i opened my folder, there was a screenshot in there. what must i click correctly, just paint/screen or how does that work?
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Nisaba
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by Nisaba »

  1. you can't delete the background entirely. there will be no blank background tiles. you can only replace it with another background tile.
  2. screenshot:
    View -> Export image
darkdave1985
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by darkdave1985 »

i would have two questions. first, how can i make doors or houses work? that i can go into doors or into houses and back? i saw that there are always numbers from the infoplane in front of such things. how can i connect for example 2 doors or how can i go into a house and back? i don't know how complicated this is, but it would be nice if someone could help me. second, how can i make secret areas? often i saw, that the hidden secret area which is behind the wall had shifted graphics where you could easily see that it was a secret. but sometimes by other secrets, the wall pattern was not shifted and everything looked normal but you could still go in. on what does it depend how it looks and how can i make it the most easiest way? if somebody could explain me that too, how can i make a small or big secret, also maybe with stairs and so on would be very nice.

thanks!
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Nisaba
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by Nisaba »

  • Doors:
    open an existing level and press [K] & [L] on your keyboard. you should see some rendered yellow lines. the bigger yellow squares represent the entrance while the other end of the conjugation line represents the exit/new spawning point.

    Image

    To place doors that Keen can enter, first place two sets of door tiles on the map. Then press [L] and [K] on your keyboard. This activates the linker tool. Make also sure that only the Infoplane is active. Next click on the bottom tile of the first door and after that click on one tile below the second door. Repeat this step vice versa. Abiathar will render the links as lines from the controller to the target. I suggest examining some of the original levels to get an idea how this is done.
  • Secret Passages:
    Some foreground tiles have properties that allow Keen to walk behind them; these are secret passages. To make these you will need to identify which tiles have the correct foreground but not blocking properties. I suggest examining some of the original levels and noting down which tiles are used for the secret passages. You can also identify them with the Tile Property Modifier tool in the Tool menu. Else you can press button {B} on your keyboard in order to detect "secret tiles" visually. When putting point items in a secret passage, you must use points from the sprite list rather than the foreground tile points.
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Fleexy
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by Fleexy »

As you've discovered, doors are defined by infoplane links. You can see the links graphically by enabling View | Links. Pressing L on the keyboard toggles this view. As Nisaba set, the large empty squares are where the link starts and the solid smaller squares are where the link points. To make a door work, there needs to be a link to the destination on top of the door. For doors, the link needs to point to where Keen's feet will come out. Since doors are two tiles wide, make sure to have the same link on both tiles. (You can copy links using the Tile Placer just like any other tile.) To actually make a link, use the Linker tool, which you can activate by pressing K. When the Linker is active, click the source, then click the target to create a link. Once you're done creating links, you can press Escape to return to the Tile Placer. I suggest looking at the existing levels for examples of working links.

To make a secret area, use foreground tiles that look like solid platforms but can actually be walked through. Press B on your keyboard to toggle whether tile properties are shown. When the Tile Properties overlay is enabled, solid surfaces will have pink or purple lines on them. This applies to the tile palette too, so you can pick the tiles that will be secret areas. For some examples, look around the default levels with this view on. You might find it easiest to pick the secret area tiles from the existing levels. To make sure you're maintaining the graphics pattern, you might try toggling the Tile Properties overlay as you work to see if things look right. Admittedly, this is tricky and takes practice. If you want stairs inside the secret area, simply make a stairstep pattern of solid tiles, leaving enough space (in the form of non-solid tiles) for Keen to jump:

Image
darkdave1985
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by darkdave1985 »

ok, one last thing for now. how can i look at other maps in the program, also custom maps? like from buried in oblivion for example. when i click on level and import, there is always nothing shown in the folder where the files are in. i saw that the program needs "abiathar single-level files" to open something but there are none in the folders and i want to open a whole project to look at. so that i can open every single map of it, like in the original map set. thanks!
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Fleexy
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by Fleexy »

Indeed, the Import feature takes only single-level files that were created with the Export command. To start a new project, use File | New Project. Here are the settings for Buried in Oblivion:
  • Template: "Start from a template", Keen 4
  • Containing Folder: select the folder where you extracted the mod
  • Level Source: "Start from existing level files"
  • Level Files: the defaults are correct
  • Graphics Source: "EGA resources" (the default)
  • Graphics Files: check "Use the game's default EGA dictionary", the other defaults are correct
  • Tileinfo Source: "Create or load a separate tileinfo file" (the default)
  • Tileinfo File: the defaults are correct
Once you click Finish, Abiathar will open the mod's resources. If you want, you can save the project (using File | Save) for easier opening (using File | Open Project) later.

Unrelatedly, I suggest you keep backups of your project, since you've been doing a lot of work on it. I store all my important stuff in a Dropbox folder so it's automatically saved in the cloud. If you accidentally delete or mangle an important file, you can use the Dropbox web interface to restore an older version.
darkdave1985
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by darkdave1985 »

thanks, it worked and now i can look at the b.i.o. levels but i saw that there is no tile picker with the 3 tilesets at disposal. have i made something wrong or was it just deleted by someone? and then when i switch back to my keen 4 original mapset, the tile picker and the 3 tilesets are still not there. so, i have to restart the program to have them back again.

and i have noticed that in the custom maps from you all, are always 4 sqares in front of each door. also 4 starting points to the one spot where keen should come out after. but in the original maps, there are most times just 2 sqares in front of each door but it works also. is there a difference between these methods or not? are 2 starting points enough?

and one last thing. when i right click on a specific background, foreground or infoplane tile, i activate it and can place the copy with left clicking then where i want to. i think this is faster, instead of searching and clicking always into the tilesets for a specific tile which is already in the map, because before i always did it that way because i didn't knew it better. it's like an easy and fast copy method and the best one i think, right?

and can i postpone single tiles from one spot to another in a map with my mouse? also a specific foreground tile or an item or an enemy for example? no or? i always have to delete or copy the tile that i need, right? i just want to make sure, that i learn everything the smartest and the most effective way. some things you can do by more than one way and so i am asking such things.

thanks once again!
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by Nisaba »

  • press [T] on your keyboard to activate/deactivate a simultaneous level + tileset view. alternatively you can also press [Space] to jump to the tilesets. (I prefer working this way, but that might be a matter of taste)
  • you don't need 4 "squares". the bottom two should be enough!
    if you have downloaded the most recent version of Buried in Oblivion you should notice that as well. BTW in Abiathar you can have a look at level 19 -38 as well (the orig. non playable level maps)
  • ... I'm pretty certain Fleex knows about the rest...
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Fleexy
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by Fleexy »

Sorry about that - the simultaneous tileset vanishing after a new project is opened is an Abiathar v2.10 bug. It's fixed in the yet-to-be-released v2.11. In the meantime, pressing T as Nisaba said will bring it back.

Having links on the bottom two tiles of a door is sufficient, but having them on all four doesn't hurt. The Level Inspector might warn about unlinked door tiles if you only link the top two aren't linked, but you can safely ignore that warning if you linked the bottom two.

I would suggest picking tiles out of the level when possible, but that might be a personal preference. You can do whatever works best for you.

The method you currently use to move single tiles is what I usually do. The Copier has a "cut" mode that was intended to make this operation faster, but I just realized that it's not very convenient, so I'll fix that for the next version.
darkdave1985
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Re: i want to begin to learn mapping for the galaxy engine and i need someone to support me!

Post by darkdave1985 »

so, i found out a lot of new things by myself in the past few days and meanwhile i'm making my process because i understand all the basics meanwhile very reliable and also some more complicated things too. even when i'm ultra slow with everything for some different reasons, i keep on going. i would also have a lot of new questions but i ask them next time. i just have 2 this time.

first, i'm still working on border village to make my own version of it and to find out so much as possible, from everything in the program and in the game while doing this. i have not put in that much items but i still reached my limit because when i play the map, the same error line appeared like at the beginning a few weeks ago. is the limit for items generally (no matter if from foreground or infoplane solely or combined) really so low? also is the memory of the game really so low? i take everything always from the infoplane because nisaba said, that items from there don't take so much memory. except for drops because they are only in the foreground tileset. also the map itself is not so big and now there are of course more items as if in the beginning but not so much that everything should go nuts in my opinion. maybe that was just my own delusion but in some custom maps and also in some original maps i saw, that there were more placed items as in my case. is the limit always the same, no matter how big the map is? that would be interesting to know but i guess yes. but if you have a bigger map for exmaple and such a low limit for items, how in the hell can you place them evenly distributed over the whole map? of course a big map does not inevitably mean that you have to put in a lot of items but if you want to do so, you reach your limit pretty fast and that's sad.

and to the second thing. for whatever reason i cannot connect doors from a new made room back to an original placed spot in the map. i can go from an original spot into my new made room but not back anymore. have i made the room itself maybe wrong because the lines were linked correctly. maybe the original mappers, have made something special into that area which i cannot see or don't understand. i think i drawed eveything correct. fg, bg and infoplane. that's weird and makes me mad a little bit. but it's just in that area, other new doors made by me (by original spots) are working but not there. i don't know if it's my own fault or something else. i don't want to show a screenshot or to export the sinlge map for you because i don't want that someone sees the map before it's nearly finished, even when it's nothing special. i just want to release it later for playtesting but not now. i found out that a door, which leads to a no linked target or has a wrong placed link to a target, leads you automatically to the exit. but in this case the problem is, that keen just not goes into the door at all in my own made room, even everything is linked correctly.

ok, that was pretty much for just two things. i'm sorry! maybe someone can help me with these two things. especially with the door problem, for example which errors all could cause this "not going into a door problem".

thanks!
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