Dungeon Master Forum

George, as you've noticed I've returned to RTC editing these last couple of days, and have come to one conclusion: we need the specifications!

Andyboy_UK is doing a great job with the Definitive Guide, but it'll never be definitive unless you can provide us with a lot more detailed information. I've spent quite some time messing around with stuff, in particular graphics replacements and cloning, and have literally wasted hours having to mess around with bitmap sizes and offsets. Edit, compile, test, ooh-not quite right; edit, compile, test, etc... It's a complete waste of time frankly!

What is your view on publishing specs for all the replaceable images and suchlike? It's my view that the lack of such documentation is what's preventing people who are keen to build new RTC graphics/dungeons from actually doing so. Lots of times I've given up with this because the info isn't there and I don't really want to sit there for hours trying to guess coordinates of a freaking door post!

Forgive my frustration; I'm simply very keen to build RTC dungeons but it just ain't gonna happen anytime soon without the necessary background info. Throw us a bone here! I realise that you don't owe us anything as RTC is your own personal baby, but given the amount of time you've spent making it editable, it seems a shame to have it all sitting there going to waste!

For the record, I *have* managed to take the DM2 dungeon wallset and put it into RTC, along with the doorframes. But I've kind of given up on doing the same for staircases, pits, etc as it's just sooooo time-consuming. Specs would really help....

Any thoughts....?

I quite agree with you!

I am (and have been for a month or so) compiling together a full set of all the data you need to edit a dungeon. Things like complete lists of objects, spells, attack methods, bitmaps, sounds etc Not only their Unique IDs but also their bas properties (e.g. for bitmaps, their size, position and scalings).

Unfortunately this is taking a while to do but I do have every intention of releaseing all that data.

[In addition to the above] As Andy and Gambit are succesfully doing already, what I definitely won't produce is a guide for how to use each object and how to create types of puzzles by combining objects etc. Of course, please feel free to keep asking any questions you have and I'll be very happy to help!

Cool, cool, cool. You are a God! Thank you; I look forward to it!

Also, I'm am quite happy to share my discoveries with everyone and to publish info on how to achieve different things. I'm in the process of building a sample dungeon with replaced images and such like just to show some of the possibilities of the engine as it stands. Should hopefully inspire people to start doing the same, and your documentation will be the icing on the cake for those of us wishing to do in more detail!

Just wondering if any of those specs might be available yet George?

/Me Drools )

George:

I have a 2 massive requests for you and a couple of RTC feature requests (not that you have to do them of course, but it will help me no end with the editor - I would have to do it myself otherwise and it seems that you will be extracting - or have already- the data that I need).

What I could really really really do with is 2 sets of text file, the first is to describe the properties that can be assigned to objects in a generic fashion, 1 text file per property in the following format is what I am working with at the moment
Im not completley sure of all teh different property types and how they work but basically, what I was looking for is a way to describe each property and what possible values it could have, with some hard coded value types like (objectNumber) which would look through the objects in the dungeon and allow you to select one that exists in the users dungeon.

name being OPBY or ACTION or CARRYING, etc
valuetype should be TEXT, INT, OBJECT_NUMBER, OBJECT_TYPE, LIST etc (however many value types there are - as I have no idea)

listoptions would be the list values i.e. ACTIVATE, DEACTIVATE, etc for when the value type is a LIST

Does that make sense? Im not sure of all teh value types that are available but the idea of using the text file approach is that if they are added/changed then all you do is amend the text files without amending the editor, as the files are loaded in first time around.

This leads on nicely to the second set of text files that is 1 for each object in the game in a format similar to below.
The name would be the WALLITEM_SWITCH
type is the type of object that it is, a feature being a wallitem or floor item (not decor), creature being MONSTER_*, decor wall and floor being decoration, etc, etc.

size = being SMALL (5 positions on a dungeon square, dead centre, top left and right, bottom left and right), large being 1 position on the square (i.e. Dragon)

Image being teh name of the object with .BMP added at the end

Description is optional

and the properties are a list of properties that the item needs to be entered correctly in teh TXT file for correct compilation, this list has names that are linked to the PROPERTY files in teh first set of files described above.

Can you think of a way I could get this information out of RTC? Are you able to help out in any way? I may be able to extract the data from a section of the source code (the ones that deal with each type of object?) if you didnt mind emailing me that section?


Ok, thats the editor stuff out the way, I do have a feature request for RTC 2.5 as well to do with cloning object.

What I would like to be able to do is rather than cloning a certain item with properties that are close, I would like to be able to start iwth a blank canvas of an item type, i.e.

I want to create a new monster so I would do something like

[NEW MONSTERS]
MY_DRAGON NAME=(MY POISON DRAGON) ATTACKS=(ATTACK_POISON) BITMAPS=(left:, right:, front:, back:, attack:) ... etc

the same with weapons but with the ability to do something like...

[NEW ITEMS]
MY_SWORD name=(andy sword) MODS=(str:+3, dex:+2, wizlev:+1) ATTACK=(SWING, FIREBALL) IMAGES=(icon:, dungeon:)

That would make a sword that +3 to strength + 2 to dexterity and ups the wizardlevel by 1.


Is that possible at all GG?

Cheers,
A

Andy, have you considered structuring your data using XML? Perhaps there is already an XML parser for Blitzbasic that would make this worthwhile?

I still agree with my original comment (and yours!) that a guide would be really handy, but also that I don't have the time right now to put one together.

What I could do is quickly put together a GUI editor for changing all the attributes - that would effectively give you a list of all possible options for each object, but not what they did. At the very least it would mean that the editor would always produce "valid" RTC text files and limit the time taken to re-compile / test etc.

Does that sound useful?

Yeah I guess that would be pretty cool and the idea is that the editor will not allow you to produce an invalid file (even if you dont fill in the info) it will do the basic checks before you can compile

Just the text based data for the GUI editor that you are talking about would be useful, as raw information like

OBJECT,PROPERTY/PROPRETY/etc/etc

As for XML, unfortunatley BB doesnt have a native XML parser, there is a library to make one but it is something else I would have to look at to get implemented.

I have started looking at DirectX in C# but I dont think I will be in a position to do anything in that for a little while.

For now I think the text based solution will work for what it needs to do.

Hey, to all of you working on the RTC editor...
Just wanted keep you guys encouraged. I can't wait for the day when you get it all done. I have so many dungeon plans already to go - I just don't have the time to type it directly into a text file by hand.
Keep up your efforts, and thank you.

{
I want to create a new monster so I would do something like

[NEW MONSTERS]
MY_DRAGON NAME=(MY POISON DRAGON) ATTACKS=(ATTACK_POISON) BITMAPS=(left:, right:, front:, back:, attack:) ... etc

the same with weapons but with the ability to do something like...

[NEW ITEMS]
MY_SWORD name=(andy sword) MODS=(str:+3, dex:+2, wizlev:+1) ATTACK=(SWING, FIREBALL) IMAGES=(icon:, dungeon:)

That would make a sword that +3 to strength + 2 to dexterity and ups the wizardlevel by 1.
}
Cheers Andy!!!

I would also like to see this feature implemented in future revisions of RTC. It would be a great addition to the editor. (If it is possible to do that is) The dungeon creation possibilities would then become almost limitless!

Regards.

The editor would deal with this in the following way.

You would have the "NEW_MONSTER.TXT" file and you would have the properties ATTACKS, BITMAPS in there.

Then the ATTACKS.TXT file in the property Vault would be a multi-choice list that only allowed you to choose ATTACK type objects.

The BITMAPS.TXT in the property vault would be configured to allow you to select BITMAP type object and any CLONED bitmaps that are defined in the TXT file.


The other way to do it is to create a TXT file in the userVault called

POISONDRAGON.TXT and then just put the entries directly in there, then you can place poison dragons the same as any other items.

Cheers

I presume you'll be allowing a way of editing these text files directly in the editor? I imagine that the whole point of the editor is to give the user a GUI to dungeon design, so I hope that this extends to all aspects of editing...

I was thinking notepad to start with

I was also speculating on a nice GUI. RTC dungeons are hard to create if you do not look in the code for a long time - if the editor has the same recommendations that will be not much easier, will it?

Regards, PitD

With a little luck the editor will not allow you to produce an invalid dungeon, but for the features that are not in there for version 1 and for more advanced stuff, it is going to be a case of get the dungeon so far and then hit trusty notepad.

The GUI engine I am using for the interface is called BlitzUI by Chris Fuller,

http://www.legacygames.co.uk/projects.php?disp=blitzui

As B3d does not have the ability to use the windows GUI and I dont have the cash at the moment to upgrade it to BlitzPlus which would suit this sort of editor very well. Not to worry though. I'll get there.



Oh and just a thank you to all those supporting this editor (and me), I know that it is taking a while but with a bit of luck it will be flexible and easy enough to use for everyone.

You can even have your own tilesets at different sizes depending on your viewing preferences.

Cheers

Nice. Can I also make Chaos play the tin whistle for me?

Regards, PitD