DMBuilder version 0.88.g is out!

[Sphenx]

Probably nobody cares anymore about this old tool...
However, for what it's worth, I've put the current version I use as is -- with a few updates to make it more friendly, I hope (though the controls are still not those of your regular windows app) -- so that it can now edit quite almost everything within a dungeon file (specially text editing was missing in previous versions).

Here are some visuals:



Map header info:


New text editor:


More help info within the application:


Visual list of creatures within dungeon:


Visual list of items within dungeon:


I also wrote a guide for it that you can find here:
https://dmbuilder.sphenxmusics.fr/files/DMBuilder.pdf

And for bonus:
I've made adaptation to compile it with MinGW, and for Linux.
I've made almost 95% of its code published on GitHub (old student code, plenty of quick and dirt code ...)
https://github.com/gbsphenx/dmbuilder

I really wanted to build this release and deliver something more complete than before in order to make a good step with DMBuilder and be able to move on with other projects.

[ChristopheF]

I did not have time to try it yet, but that is great news!
Does it support Theron's Quest dungeons? I remember a very long time ago you worked on it if I remember correctly

[Sphenx]

I included with DMBuilder the original TQ's conversions for PC-DOS I did back then. But it can't edit directly into TQ's data. I have lost part of my notes from that time -- and it's a long time I did not try PC Engine emulation to test. Data were found in TQ02.iso and an actual dungeon is split in several parts rather than one "dungeon.dat" file. At best I may try to add direct read from TQ02.iso.

[ChristopheF]

I would be interested by any notes and tools, even incomplete, to try and document the format used in TQ, this would avoid me starting from scratch.

[Sphenx]

OK this is weird, the conversions I did do not seem to match exactly what I see from TQ02.iso and I don't remember how I did this back then. Let me some time to collect my information and make some new tests.

[ChristopheF]

OK, no rush !

[Sphenx]

I figured out again most of the map data stuff and I am currently integrating it into DMBuilder. And about the differences, it is because I forgot there are 2 versions of TQ (JP vs US) -- I don't know from which I did the conversions -- so I need to sort these things and make sure it works for both . I'll give news in few days then.

[ChristopheF]

Great!
I didn't know the maps were different in JP and US versions. I only played the US version many years ago.

[Sphenx]

I have updated DMBuilder into v0.88.g2 which can load (95%) dungeons from TQ US files (TQUS19.iso) (but not writting them back to TQ file)
I have put some documentation here for you to look : https://dmbuilder.sphenxmusics.fr/files ... Format.pdf.
If you want to check my code for it : https://github.com/gbsphenx/dmbuilder/b ... ddungeon.c then search for "loadTheronsQuestDungeonData" function.

There are some information I did not find, mainly wall, floor decorations and item activation list, so I have hardcoded them (partially) to fix a TQ dungeon after loading it.
There are also some hardcoded offsets because the data is split into several parts and I did not check how to properly get these.

I can't find anymore the program I wrote back then and how I figured out the decorations, but I know understand the differences I see with the original and my conversions because I did actually "rearrange" the dungeons when converting them for PC-DM (mainly all objects ID are renumbered depending on their position).

So far, only Ak-Tu-Ba is fully read/fixed. I would rather understand the missing parts instead of doing hard-coded fixes for all others.

[ChristopheF]

Thanks a lot for sharing this info. I'll have a look when I find some free time and see if I can help discover the missing parts.

[ChristopheF]

In DMBuilder 0.88.g2, I'm trying to add a new scroll in a dungeon.
I add the scroll with + and press enter to edit it.
Then selecting a text for the scroll fails: by default it uses text 0, and using the right arrow I can move to text 1, but then it stops working and I can't select any other text.
Is this a bug or am I missing something?

[Sphenx]

a bug, it is changing the scroll "type" instead of the text reference. I'll fix that.

[ChristopheF]

Another one: when editing the stats in the text of a champion, only the first 4 digits of the stamina value can be changed, not the fifth one.

[Sphenx]

I have updated DMBuilder 0.88.
-> text edition ok for stamina (and fixed another issue about misplaced values)
-> scroll text selection fixed + adjusted selectable bit (scroll open vs scroll closed) + DM2 scroll management (dungeon text vs. graphics.dat text)

[ChristopheF]

Thanks for looking into the issue.

With this new version:
- I opened an existing dungeon.
- I added two new texts
- I added two new scrolls in the dungeon and selected the two new texts for these scrolls.
- I saved the dungeon.
- I closed DMBuilder, reopened it, and loaded the modified dungeon
- Everything looks fine in the UI. Scrolls and texts are still there.
BUT
When I load the dungeon in the game, wrong texts are shown on the scrolls !

It's great that DMBuilder can now load big endian dungeons, but it still always saves them as little endian (I know we have converters at hand for that purpose). Would be even better if it could also load compressed dungeons.

A few more minor non-blocking bugs:
- F10 screen: When I add a new text, on the left it shows as ".%7", this is weird.
- F10 screen: When editing a text, and the text is empty ("0" character count shown above) using the DEL key adds 1 invisible character, and further characters you type are also invisible
- F10 screen: When I edit the first text that I add, the cursor position is at the start of "NEW TEXT" and typing overwrites this default text. When I edit the second text that I add, the cursor position is at the end of the default text.
- On the main screen, when the cursor is over an empty corridor or wall (no items): pressing enter shows a list of square types but "left/right arrows" cannot be used to change the square type. Pressing the "down" arrow shows door types...