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
Posts: 52
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:59 pm

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

Post by darkdave1985 »

no, it don't work together. and how can i post pictures here? when i click here on insert image, nothing appears to choose. but here is a link with a pic of the error message. it's partly on german of course but as a programer you surely understand it anyway.

https://picload.org/view/docccplr/errormessage.jpg.html

i will try something meanwhile. i make a copy of my map and then i will look, how much i have to delete of whole types of animating tiles, till everything works again. one by one.
User avatar
Fleexy
Site Admin
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:33 am
Location: Bloogton Tower

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

Post by Fleexy »

Ah, you have Windows 7, which ships with an old version of PowerShell that PSThar can't use. In that case, just delete PSThar.aex; we won't be able to get that running. Making a copy of the level and deleting things until it works is a great strategy. Good thinking!
darkdave1985
Posts: 52
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:59 pm

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

Post by darkdave1985 »

now this weird error line "mm_clear block..." is not appearing anymore for whatever reason, when i start my map. also the "too many unique animating tiles" error line is temporary gone when i start my map but still appears in the level inspector. but all i did meanwhile, was just to change the bg a little bit but absolutely nothing else.

so, and now instead of this the very first error from back then is back. also the "no free spots in ObjArray" one. for what was this one again? i can't remember anymore. and now i can't remove this error anymore, no matter what i do. slowly, i get tired of these things. how can everything be so weird, when i'm just doing basic things all the time and nothing special? maybe i start everything from scratch again and try to build the same map again but then not with so much animating tiles anymore or something like that. but before i have to know, on what all these errors really depending on, to avoid that problem in the future.

oh, and i exported my map and then i imported it again, to have my copy in the level list to work on it. also id 20 in my case. i made a change in it but then as i wanted to play it in the game, i couldn't go to that map. also i mean with f10+w level cheat. what must i do exactly to play a new added map in the game? must there be a connection to the world map maybe?

and am i allowed to send you the map as a pm fleexy? normally it shouldn't be seen by anyone too early and so it's a real pity but fuck it. maybe you can find out, what is really wrong with it and why i have always an error line in the game. sometimes this one, sometimes that one. i'm really sorry for all that but i have no idea how all that happened. i was really careful with everything all the time in mapping, no matter what i did. i was really on a good way in mapping first but now since some days, everything is going crazy. :(
User avatar
Fleexy
Site Admin
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:33 am
Location: Bloogton Tower

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

Post by Fleexy »

Interesting. Maybe removing a few kinds of background tiles made just enough space for everything else. Figuring out the game limits is difficult, and in a few cases, the Level Inspector can only make educated guesses.

"No free spots in ObjArray" means that there are too many sprites (enemies and infoplane points). The Keen engine is indeed somewhat limited, but eventually working around them and pushing them becomes part of the fun :)

By default, the game only allows warping to levels up to a certain number (which I don't remember right now). There are patches to adjust this, but that can get difficult. Instead, you might want to temporarily move an original level to a higher slot. [Caution: Make a back-up of your mod files before doing this in case you accidentally overwrite a level you've been working on.] Switch to a different level, then choose Level | Properties. Note its current ID; this slot will become available after we move this level. Change its ID to something high like 30, then click OK. It gets renumbered, making room for another one of yours. Then switch to the level you currently have in slot 20 and likewise change its ID to the slot you just made available.

Yes, you can send me your exported level by e-mail. My e-mail address is my username at this site (keenmodding.org). I'll keep your level secret.
User avatar
Nisaba
Posts: 320
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2016 11:15 pm
Location: patch.pat
Contact:

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

Post by Nisaba »

this is how you can post images:

[...] you must link to an image stored on a publicly accessible web server [...]. You cannot link to pictures stored on your own PC (unless it is a publicly accessible server) nor images stored behind authentication mechanisms, e.g. hotmail or yahoo mailboxes, password protected sites, etc. To display the image use the BBCode Image [...] like seen in the example below:

Code: Select all

[img]https://img1.picload.org/image/docccplr/errormessage.jpg[/img]
Image
darkdave1985
Posts: 52
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:59 pm

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

Post by darkdave1985 »

ok, thanks to everybody. but what do you mean by "my e-mail address is my username on this site"? oh, and i saw on google that you can change your powershell version to a newer one. should i do that, makes that sense?
User avatar
Fleexy
Site Admin
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:33 am
Location: Bloogton Tower

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

Post by Fleexy »

It is possible to install the Windows Management Framework 5.1 on Windows 7, but there's no need to do that if you're comfortable sending your level to me.

Sorry about the e-mail confusion; I was trying to avoid posting my address in plain text (since then I would get a ton of spam). I sent an e-mail to the address in your profile.
User avatar
Fleexy
Site Admin
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:33 am
Location: Bloogton Tower

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

Post by Fleexy »

I got your e-mail. I'll cover general information in this post so that it can help other people too, and then I'll send you an e-mail with things specific to your level.

I figured out that the MM_ClearBlock error can occur when there are too many kinds of tiles in the level. "Unique tiles" and "unique animating tiles" are not the same. The limit on kinds of animating tiles is significantly lower than the limit on kinds of tiles in general because animating tiles require the game to keep track of more information.

I made the Level Inspector warn about infoplane values over animating tiles because some infoplane values will be destroyed by animations under them. Point items and enemies will be fine, but links and [B] blocks will malfunction. In general, warnings are about things that might be fine, but problems will probably need to be resolved before your level will work. Some warnings just let you know that you're approaching the limit on something.
darkdave1985
Posts: 52
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:59 pm

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

Post by darkdave1985 »

ok, i thank you very much for your big help. i also got your e-mail and now i will look, if i can make everything work again. i will need some time for this and when it's done, i will let you know.
darkdave1985
Posts: 52
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:59 pm

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

Post by darkdave1985 »

so, since some days everything works fine again and now i know on what every sinlge error i had depends on and what i must do, to prevent them in the future. there are still some weird small things that happen but nothing really important.
darkdave1985
Posts: 52
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:59 pm

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

Post by darkdave1985 »

i have a question. how can i make a screenshot from the map, like you see it in the game? when i make a screenshot in dosbox, i only have the seize of the spot where i was exactly at that moment.
User avatar
Nisaba
Posts: 320
Joined: Fri Jan 01, 2016 11:15 pm
Location: patch.pat
Contact:

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

Post by Nisaba »

you have to use an external tool called GalaxyView to do so.
User avatar
Fleexy
Site Admin
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:33 am
Location: Bloogton Tower

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

Post by Fleexy »

If you need monsters and infoplane point items to show up as the actual sprites (instead of infoplane icons), you'll need to use a specialized level viewer tool like GalaxyView, as Nisaba said.

If you're OK with hiding infoplane stuff entirely, you can press 6 in Abiathar to hide the infoplane, then use View | Export Image to save the level image. If you want to remove the two-tile-wide border, Abiathar has an option for that: choose File | Configuration, switch to the Export Image tab, check the "crop out the two-tile-wide level border" box, and click Save. Then exported images won't have the border that you don't see in the game.
darkdave1985
Posts: 52
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:59 pm

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

Post by darkdave1985 »

so, i tried everything out and it works. pretty cool tool i must say. the only thing is, that you can see the sprites in the pics which are hidden behind the fg in the game itself. i checked some other pics like from bio and other mods and it was the same there too. but not everytime. because in some levels point items for example, which are in secret areas were not visible on the pic. why is there a difference sometimes?

here is the pic what i mean. there is a long hallway secret area in the big wall on the right side, where are normally point items in, including an 1up but they are not seeable. but maybe the pic is just from another version, as which i played!

https://www64.zippyshare.com/v/nK5dYZE3/file.html

and one thing fleexy. is it maybe possible for the next version of abiathar, that the user is able to see the real sprites also in the editor itself? also that you can switch the view between ip icons and the real game sprites? just for the view and nothing else? that would be a cool feature when it's possible to make. because ip icons are always in an 1x1 sqare but the real sprites of course are always bigger in the game. meanwhile i know nearly every exact size of all sprites by heart because it takes not so much time to get a feeling for it, but it would be a very cool feature anyway, especially for beginners.
User avatar
Fleexy
Site Admin
Posts: 490
Joined: Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:33 am
Location: Bloogton Tower

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

Post by Fleexy »

Hmm, I looked over that image and it seems correctly rendered to me. Maybe other pictures you saw (on the wiki?) were generated by different level viewers? I'm not sure. That would make some sense, since correctly handling front foreground tiles would require reading tileinfo, which requires more sophistication than reading graphics only.

That would indeed be a nice feature. It would require a lot of expansion, though, since currently Abiathar only has to include and read the tiles, not sprites. (It would also need to be configurable, since patching can change which entities use which sprite images.) Perhaps it would be appropriate for an Abiathar extension - I'll think about it.
Post Reply