RTC v0.26 + Editor

George Gilbert · Post by **George Gilbert** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 12:58 pm

As an early christmas present, I've put up my first attempt at a GUI editor for RTC.

http://www.ragingmole.com/RTC

Please note that due to a nasty bug I discovered in the core RTC engine, I've had to change the dungeon format slightly. This means that there's now a new version of RTC; the editor works with this new version. When I get time (early next year) I intend to merge together the codebases (and fix all the bugs that have been accumulating!) to produce a single release again.

As mentioned before, this is not intended to usurp editors already in progress (indeed, judging by the screen shots and posts, Andy's will be graphically and functionally far superior to mine!) but will hopefully provide a better idea of what objects can take what attributes and with what values and speed up the creation of other editors (just like DMute did).

A final quick warning - I knocked this out over just 2 weekends so may not be utterly stable, please let me know if you hit any problems, but don't be too surprised ;-)

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 1:24 pm

W000tttt!!!

Nice work George, I have just downloaded it and cant wait to see what you have done with it.

Merry Xmas GG

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 1:40 pm

Hi GG, Ive had a very quick look (at work - naughty) at the editor. It looks pretty cool.

Any chance you could let me in on a little secret.

How do you store which properties go against which items, is it in the DAT files, or do you have it built in to a resource file?

I will be taking a further look at this later on when I get home.

Could you let me know what changes you have made to the dungeon format (only if they are changes to the text file format - if it is a change to the compiled RTC file, it wont matter for my editor).

I have PM'd you as well.

Post by **Lunever** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 6:51 pm

V0.26 ?! Did I miss V0.25 ?!

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 7:25 pm

lol, yes, same question - i assume 0.25 was unreleased and shelved in favour of this new file structure for editing, etc? : )

and many many thanks - a new RTC with built in editor! another step closer to v1.0! its a good draw, and something very visual and engagign and explanatory for new peopel to play with, with andy's editor also developing for maybe the longer term and larger dungeons with more features and usability...so i'm happy : )

Post by **Lunever** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 7:41 pm

Umm, the Editor looks really great and I'm looking forward to testing V0.26, but - I can't import my characters (I don't need the savegames imported - only my good ol' party). Can you help with that, George?!

Post by **Gambit37** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 12:56 am

I can't download this -- keeps coming back that the site chaos.zpc.cz can't be found.

Additonally, George can you change the page so that the forums link points here instead of the old ezBoard link?

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 1:09 am

Check your PM's Gambit

some guy · Post by **some guy** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 1:37 am

Hi, i've noticed two bugs so far...
First, when editing the state of a door, if the hacked option is selected, it cannot be unselected.
Second, my maximum screen resolution is 1024 by 768. The edit window for floor triggers is too big and I cannot access the lower section of window. When I try to move the window up to see this part of it, it stops at the top of my screen. Therefore, I cannot set trigger delays etc.

Thanks so much for putting this editor out, George! I was able to creat a small dungeon in half an hour.

Where should we post new dungeons anyway? at the encyclopedia website?

beowuuf · Post by **beowuuf** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 2:40 am

Yes to the uploading of dungeons, though at some point it would be nice to order the dungeons, or at lest create references for them, here

Even something simple such as a thread with all the dungeon names, linked by categories: dm dungeons, csb4win dungeons, dmj, rtc, and test/example dungeons

Post by **Lunever** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 12:56 pm

BTW George: Remeber that after not playing RTC for some monthes I suddenly had the problem that my system refused to start RTC ("access violation error") no matter what version of RTC I tried no matter how I started it no matter if I rebooted my system even if I removed all other non-system tasks, although I didn't had any major changes to my system except a few Win98SE updates like DirectX9 and frame network and so on? Remember that neither I nor you were able to find out why this error occured?

Well, as you can guess from my above post I was quite happy that RTC V0.26 does work properly even on my system. But then I was curious whether I could find out what the initial problem had been and was quite surprised that the good old versions of RTC that until recently refused to work now suddenly work again. And again I didn't have any major changes to my system. I've no idea what has been happening but I'm glad anyway that I can play RTC again.

Post by **Gambit37** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 1:40 pm

"£!$£^%(*&)(*(&^%%^*(*& !!!!!!

Fantastic stuff! Just got hold of it and had a quick play. I loaded in my test dungeon which is full of custom graphics and sounds and everything was there! All editable directly within the GUI. Cool stuff indeed.

Go on George, be honest -- you've been developing this all along haven't you?

There's no way you could have done all this in two weekends! Is there?

Add in the fact that the mysterious ICON bitmaps are now explained by this editor, and it's clear you intended to do this all along -- right? This is a great Christmas Present. Worth the wait. Thank you!

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 1:42 pm

Very cool. Thanks for the nice present, George! Some experimenting will be necessary, but on a first quick look no problems with either RTC nor the editor.

Regards, PitD

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 1:45 pm

It picked up your custom graphics!!

Damn, a feature to add to mine.

Im getting quite worried now.

Not gonna stop now though

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 1:56 pm

Not at all - go on Andy, I'm thrilled at the developments at the moment and am quite sure the other regulars feel the same... it should be a moral boost to see what else is done at the moment, not a competition ;o)

Regards, PitD

Post by **Gambit37** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 2:02 pm

Don't worry Andy -- I think yours and George's editors will be quite different. Plus yours will look a lot nicer! (Sorry George!)

Here's a screenie of some custom graphics in the editor:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matt_hill/ ... torgfx.gif

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 2:06 pm

Ohh no Im not trying to compete here, just trying to do something for the community.

Post by **Gambit37** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 2:11 pm

Oops -- I discovered a fairly serious bug: the editor doesn't actually save anything! Is that intentional -- was this supplied just for the properties that Andy asked for?

EDIT: The files were read only, so I reset that and saved, but it just saves a 0 byte file, effectively destroying the dungeon!

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 2:32 pm

I know Andy, just trying to cheer you on...

Regards, PitD

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 2:58 pm

Cheers PITD. Its all appriciated.

L!ghthouse · Post by **L!ghthouse** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 7:09 pm

Is anyone else having problems with the add/replace bitmaps feature? It seems that if I try to import a custom bitmap(something I've made), NOTHING HAPPENS. Though if I import a pre-made bitmap (ie. the ones in the Portraits folder), those work fine. Anyone else having this problem?

GG--
The Editor is GREAT! It has a lot of features that I had not thought of changing in RTC before! It also helps exlpain a lot of features that I had questions with!
--Cheers!

Andy--
Can't wait till your editor comes out! It looks great! Best of Luck!
**L!ghthouse paces, eagerly awaiting a second possible christmas present!!!**

Regards,
L!ghthouse

copperman · Post by **copperman** » Tue Dec 09, 2003 11:29 pm

Although the editor GG has created seems to manipulate most if not all standard RTC features, AFAIK

I find that I cannot save my work.

Nothing more than a zero length file is created on Save as... Anyone know a workaround, or better still a solution to the anomaly ?

Post by **Gambit37** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 12:35 pm

Yup, I pointed this out a few posts back. It's even worse than that, because if you click Save (not just save as), it'll overwrite the file with an empty one, which destroys the entire dungeon.

I really wouldn't recommend anyone use this editor for serious dungeon design until this bug is fixed.

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 12:54 pm

Note to self: Add a save as function to my editor (actually there is no save in mine at the moment, not because Im a lazy git or anything, but the structures keep changing).

Post by **Ameena** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 11:42 am

I tried downloading V0.26 last night, but when I went into Winzip and clicked "Extract", all that happened was the cursor changed to the hourglass and then nothing happened - Ctrl Alt Delete and it showed (after about a minute) as "Not Responding". Tried it twice but it didn't work. Seems a bit weird since so many other people seem to have got it to work.
Well, hopefully Andyboy's editor will be done soon (in basic form at least) so I can download that and play with it instead. Looking forward to being able to use SOME kind of editor anyway, even if it doesn't work properly and has tons of bugs in it

.

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Mon Dec 15, 2003 12:22 pm

Its uncanny the similarities between the two editors considering I had never seen it before and I havent used dMute past firing it up looking at the level and closing it down again.

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 12:20 pm

Are there any plans to unify the two projects? I have not seen any replies from George on the proposal made from Gambit.

Regards, PitD

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 1:04 pm

Well it may be a little difficult to unify them considering they are written in different languages. I am more than happy to work with GG on the shared data element that would cross over (items and properties, etc) but as for the code side of things, I think it would be too much work to cross them over.

I may rewrite the editor in c#.net if I get a chance somtime. Have to learn the DirectX Managed code at some point I suppose.

There is an awful lot of stuff I want to put in my editor and that is why it is taking so long to do, I hope it wont disappoint anyone.

PicturesInTheDark · Post by **PicturesInTheDark** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 2:14 pm

It's not exactly an easy task so I don't think anyone will be disappointed - quite to the contrary actually. At least I am pretty excited on getting an editor (or two as it seems now) for RTC which so far was only editable via working on the txt files for a long time before understanding anything.

Regards, PitD

andyboy_uk · Post by **andyboy_uk** » Tue Dec 16, 2003 2:26 pm

Ive been toying with the idea of purchasing the slightly updated version of Blitzbasic that has a windows GUI interface. Not that I dont adore BlitzUI which is the one that is in there currently, but I feel it would be easier to code and faster as part of the native language.

Probably stick with BlitzUI for the first alpha and version 0.1 for now.

I know cowsmanaut wanted to skin the user interface and I am checking how much easier this woudl be with B+.

If it isnt possible, is that going to bother anyone?

Cheers,
A

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RTC v0.26 + Editor

RTC v0.26 + Editor

George please help!!!

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