Bt Builder

[Methuselas]

3. Not something new, but I figured I'd complain about it since dulsi is doing such a great job of making little fixes here and there: if you set the number of items per character to higher than 8, it just writes the item list right down through the mage class spell level list at the bottom of the page. Seems like that should work using some sort of page up / page down feature... (Basically my modules always use 8 items just to avoid that, even though I'd use a higher number if I could).

You can either use the status.xml on my shared drive (or the one I posted to Dulsi in the thread) to alleviate the issue and use a status screen similar to the one found in BTIII

or

edit the following under "screen=2" in the status xml.

<selectInventory action="selectItem" screen="3" noerror="1" numbered="1"/>

Where it says numbered="1", change the int to 0. Then, you can scroll through the items, like in BTIII.

[caars]

Groovy! Thanks!

[Methuselas]

Groovy! Thanks!

No worries. The manual I was working on, that's on my shared drive has notes about modding xml files.

[caars]

Just noticed something: the map editor isn't loading its background screens correctly. If you edit a map, it puts the map and the display window over the "mainscreen" background. The coordinates start out invisible, but slowly "fade in" as you move around the map (or scroll down the specials list).

If you go into map parameters, that (all white) background loads up fine, and then when you return to the map, the background remains the white "specialedit" background (and the coordinates disappear again, and still slowly fade back in as you move around the map).

I can't see any display of the street, the contents of the square, or the type of wall that will be placed. Pressing Q will ask the quit and save question, but you can't actually see it - it just takes you back to the main editor if you answer 'y' to the invisible quit and save question.

Note that the main screen, and the in-game screen don't appear affected (and work normally). It's just the editor. And yes, I did make sure that the various "display" xml files were pointing to the correct png files. It really doesn't behave like it isn't loading the edit screen so much as it acts like it is loading it, but it's been set to be completely transparent (or something).

Oh, and item, monster, and spell edit works just fine too. And all of my tests regarding definable items are working fine (along with Methuselahs' suggestion for getting the display to work correctly with 12 items). The *only* issue is with editing maps - everything else works. And, in fact, you can edit maps, it's just kind of hard because you have to guess or use trial and error to figure out what wall type you're set (and you can't actually see what the exact placed special is on a square, just that there's one there).

[Methuselas]

Oh, and item, monster, and spell edit works just fine too. And all of my tests regarding definable items are working fine (along with Methuselahs' suggestion for getting the display to work correctly with 12 items).

How is that going on? I haven't even looked at it, to be honest. Are you able to define slings and stones, like bows and arrows? What about Rings? I wanted a Left Ring and Right Ring, but I knew that the limitations with items already would have prohibited that.

Also, glad to be of help. My module had 16 slots available per character. I was beta testing the alchemy system I had been working on, so I needed the extra slots. It also made me wish we had a bank.xml system to use, but I never brought it up.

[caars]

Oh, and item, monster, and spell edit works just fine too. And all of my tests regarding definable items are working fine (along with Methuselahs' suggestion for getting the display to work correctly with 12 items).

How is that going on? I haven't even looked at it, to be honest. Are you able to define slings and stones, like bows and arrows? What about Rings? I wanted a Left Ring and Right Ring, but I knew that the limitations with items already would have prohibited that.

Also, glad to be of help. My module had 16 slots available per character. I was beta testing the alchemy system I had been working on, so I needed the extra slots. It also made me wish we had a bank.xml system to use, but I never brought it up.

I'm at the stage right now where I've dealt with the straightforward things you can do (as I understand the system), but haven't really plumbed the nuances to see what (with a bit of clever manipulation) you can do.

The obvious things you can do are define new item types and for each new type specify if it (1) needs to be equipped to be used, (2) if the to hit bonus only applies to when the item is used (e.g. bows versus melee weapons), and (3) if it displays charges left in the status screen. The program still determines which item is actually your hand weapon, bow, arrow, or thrown weapon, based on *position* in the list, not what you've defined it as (so you could redefine hand weapons to be item type "fluffy bunnies", but the program would still refer to the equipped "fluffy bunny" to determine to hit and damage if you make a melee attack).

Left and right rings (on the surface) wouldn't work the way you intend ... you'd actually be effectively defining them as "left only" and "right only" if that makes sense. And you couldn't do slings and bullets (i.e. you can't set the equipped "bow" to only use a certain item type as ammo). Like I said, though, its the first step to definable item types, and there could easily be non-straightforward "tricks" to how you define the item types that could do what you want to do that I just haven't figured out yet (and I'm sure dulsi will eventually add that functionality).

[dulsi]

Just noticed something: the map editor isn't loading its background screens correctly. If you edit a map, it puts the map and the display window over the "mainscreen" background. The coordinates start out invisible, but slowly "fade in" as you move around the map (or scroll down the specials list).

Dammit. I need to stop making releases without testing the windows build. I will try to figure out what is wrong soon.

[dulsi]

Bt Builder 0.5.14 is released. It fixes the map editor on windows.

I also throw in a new feature quickly. The itemtype.xml now has a bunch of itemslot tags. Like:

Code: Select all

 <itemSlot>
		<name>ring</name>
 </itemSlot>

If you change it to:

Code: Select all

 <itemSlot>
		<name>ring</name>
		<number>2</number>
 </itemSlot>

You now have two ring slots. If you have more than one slot, items are not automatically unequipped. You can equip two. When you try to equip the third, it tells you to uneqip one first. It should show what slot you should unequip but right now it does not.

[caars]

Bt Builder 0.5.14 is released. It fixes the map editor on windows.

Uh oh ... it seems like the windows release isn't loading in certain portraits/images. Some load normally (including almost all that are animated), but several refuse to load (I'm using the "full image" set - including the non-GPL images, but I haven't allowed any non-GPL images to overwrite images that are included in the standard release).

Examples (so you can check to see if you see the same issue; if not, let me know and I'll try to produce more detailed steps):

No image:
Orc, Goblin, Gnome, Vampire, Paladin (and many, many others, but those are a few I remember off the top of my head).

Image is still there:
Lizard, Lizard Man, Spider, Golem (note some are still, and some are animated).

I checked, and as of 5.12 the images show up okay, as do 5.13. It's just with 5.14 that some images don't appear when you try to display them.

EDIT: Note that the images are present and appear to be intact in the appropriate image folders - they just don't actually appear in the game when you tell it to display.

[Methuselas]

Yeah, I downloaded the newest version to validate Caars' claims and they are accurate. I had the same problem.

[dulsi]

Dammit. I checked that it worked. Apparently I didn't check enough. Not going to release a new version yet but here is a fixed binary.

[Methuselas]

New build is working now.

I'm updating the manual, but I have a few other questions, to make sure I'm putting in the correct information. I want to make sure that all the information a new user would need, is all in one location, even if it can't be put with build archive.


Itemtypes.xml:

1. The order of elements are as follows, correct?

<itemType>
</name>
</mustEquip>
</showCharges>
</toHitBonus>
</slot>
</number>
</itemType>

2. Also, these are all the elements that are available for use, correct?

Spell Editor:

1. Location effect is simply the original BT Scry Site, yes?


Map Editor:

1. All of the Keybinds that enable street names were listed on your main BTBuilder page, right? We're not missing any commands?




In checking for image errors, I realized that a lot of images are still missing. I'm going to do one last batch of images, to at least make sure that all the class images are done. They'll be static images, to keep size down and I don't really want to go through everything to get them animating. (HDD crash - nothing is installed, right now, but bare minimum on my replacement SSD.) I'll also make new images for the Editors and a mainscreen for the Pocket Chip edition. It's about time they were done, as well.

Happy Holidays, All.

[Methuselas]

Okay, it may be a bug, but I was testing images I was rendering and when I went to look at the engine, full screen, I got a black screen with what appeared to be an 8bit mouse icon. I hit F12 to go back to normal size (640) and the screen was still black. Hit F12 again to go to full screen and it was black. Hit F12 again and it was still black.

[caars]

Incidentally, I've been having no problems with the editor, but haven't yet done a lot of testing of game play just yet (I want to get to a certain point in the module before I play test); so far, everything does appear to be working.

For what it's worth, whatever pictures you add are much appreciated! I use the full "non-GPL" picture set as placeholders, but any "Methuselahs" version always replaces the "non-GPL" version the moment I get my hands on it.

(Incidentally, the ones I've actually needed are a white dragon, a selection of "fire critters" - like salamanders, fire elementals, azer, hellhounds, etc., and variations on zombies and ghouls ... by the latter I mean nothing more than the exact same model as the zombie or one of the two ghouls with some minor color or "skin" variations. The reasoning is very simple ... I've got variants of the "basic" zombie and ghoul monsters at various difficulty levels to have something "zombie like" or "ghoul like" in several different dungeons. The purest in me wants them to look slightly different from each other if I can ... although in the absence of those I just re-use the "base" picture, much like the original BT1 game did.)

[Methuselas]

Incidentally, I've been having no problems with the editor, but haven't yet done a lot of testing of game play just yet (I want to get to a certain point in the module before I play test); so far, everything does appear to be working.

This is what I am seeing, when I go to full screen. If I jump out of full screen, it's still like this. It does it with both my laptops integrated chipset and my GeForce chipset.

(Incidentally, the ones I've actually needed are a white dragon,

This should be fairly easy to accomplish. I'll get back to you on this.

a selection of "fire critters" - like salamanders, fire elementals, azer, hellhounds, etc.,

This is harder. I can go through the images I did for my module, as I'm converting them all to the main build, but I didn't have a lot of fire creatures and most would require animation, due to the flames. I'll see what I can do.

and variations on zombies and ghouls ... by the latter I mean nothing more than the exact same model as the zombie or one of the two ghouls with some minor color or "skin" variations. The reasoning is very simple ... I've got variants of the "basic" zombie and ghoul monsters at various difficulty levels to have something "zombie like" or "ghoul like" in several different dungeons. The purest in me wants them to look slightly different from each other if I can ... although in the absence of those I just re-use the "base" picture, much like the original BT1 game did.)

This shouldn't be too hard, either. I'll see if I can't pad a few more zombie and ghoul images to the slots.