Guide to making levels for Absolute Beginners

[AWS]

\ And Eufloria looks soooo stunning on my new plasma TV.

pics??

[Avaguard]

okay currently making a map............. i just gotta get this global stuff right   

[Widget]

I've finally got round to going through this and it's a brilliant tutorial, you're a great teacher annikk 

Once I've found some time for a couple of "levels" (to make sure I properly understand the concepts in here) I'll move on and see how I do with your intermediate guide. Thankyou for all this work. I wouldn't have considered looking at the level making process without your guides here.

[Bonobo]

Okay then, here I am.

As you may remember, I’m on an iMac, and when I play Eufloria, it is in a Parallels Desktop Virtual Machine w/ Vista. For now I’d like to stay with TextWrangler, a free Mac coding editor I’m already quite comfortable with. Lua colouring etc. included.

And now, when saving the first file, I have other choices than in step 8 your first post. Please see attached images:

1st image shows the settings as I have copied them from a level of yours.
2nd image shows the line break options
3rd image shows encoding options

Since I copied the options in the 1st image from your file I guess all is well, but [s|being a perseedtionist[/s] I just want to be sure.

OK or not OK?

TIA, Tom


<edit>

BTW <brag mode> I copied all the code by hand, didn’t cut’n’paste. I mean, IF I want to learn it’s best to train my fingertips’ nerve connection to brains, right? Once I’ve understood some more THEN I can make me my macros etc., I know how to do THAT. </bragmode> <back to humble coding n00b>

</edit>

[annikk.exe]

okay currently making a map............. i just gotta get this global stuff right   :-\

Post up with any specific problems you are having and I'll see if I can help out.  :>  It's quite tricky getting started, don't worry, everyone has the same problems including me when I started.  :>
All the global commands are listed here and if you want to see what the default values are, just open up "default.xml" in a text editor.  You can find this file in your Eufloria folder.

I've finally got round to going through this and it's a brilliant tutorial, you're a great teacher annikk  ;)

Thanks! :D

Once I've found some time for a couple of "levels" (to make sure I properly understand the concepts in here) I'll move on and see how I do with your intermediate guide. Thankyou for all this work. I wouldn't have considered looking at the level making process without your guides here.

It's great to hear that.  :>  Obviously the purpose of writing the tutorials was to encourage more people to start making levels.  Looking forward to seeing your first initial experiments!

Okay then, here I am.

About time! ^_^

As you may remember, I’m on an iMac, and when I play Eufloria, it is in a Parallels Desktop Virtual Machine w/ Vista. For now I’d like to stay with TextWrangler, a free Mac coding editor I’m already quite comfortable with. Lua colouring etc. included.

Sounds good.  :>

And now, when saving the first file, I have other choices than in step 8 your first post. Please see attached images:

1st image shows the settings as I have copied them from a level of yours.
2nd image shows the line break options
3rd image shows encoding options

Since I copied the options in the 1st image from your file I guess all is well, but [s|being a perseedtionist[/s] I just want to be sure.

OK or not OK?

Hmm, you know, I'm really not sure.  I always used Ansi in Notepad, but I just checked and Notepad++ gives no such option.
I suppose one way to find out would be to open one of the level files that have been posted on these forums, and see what the settings for that are.
The other method would just be to try random settings until you find something that works.  :>

The settings you have in the screenshots look like they would probably work fine.  Whatever the default settings were is likely to be fine, I'd imagine.  :>

<edit>BTW <brag mode> I copied all the code by hand, didn’t cut’n’paste. I mean, IF I want to learn it’s best to train my fingertips’ nerve connection to brains, right? Once I’ve understood some more THEN I can make me my macros etc., I know how to do THAT. </bragmode> <back to humble coding n00b>

hehe, it's funny, a lot of people seem to want to do that.  :>  I guess it is good practice, getting used to writing things out in the correct syntax.  However, it does also mean that your initial maps are prone to throwing up errors - one minor typo like a comma instead of a full stop can cause the whole thing to not work.  If you have any problems with the code from the initial steps of the demo crashing, I'd recommend just using the copy and paste method so that you don't get stuck on the early steps.  Don't worry, there will be lots of opportunities to type out code by hand later on, I assure you!!

[Avaguard]

okay map is doing ok........ quick Question how do u make 1 specific asteroid reach all mainly just trying to get the send distances right on things

[annikk.exe]

During LevelSetup(), you will have code for each asteroid that looks something like this:

Code: [Select]

a = AddAsteroidWithAttribs(0,0,0.6,0.4,0.2)
a.owner = 1
a.radius = 500
a.SendDistance = 1500
a.TreeCap = 0
a.Name = "Fluffy"

a:AddSeedlings(50)

Find the asteroid that you want to be able to reach everything, and just change "a.SendDistance" to something big, like 10000.
If you don't have a Send Distance command, add one! :>

[annikk.exe]

Is that what you meant?

[Avaguard]

TY got it 1 mo thing what kind of AI command is it or how much. to make the enemy send all available seedlings to attack u

[Pilchard123]

It must be ANSI, not UTF-8. That was one of the major problems I had with EUCLiD (which is still going, by the way) at the beginning.

I think. Fairly certain.

EDIT:

http://www.dyson-game.com/smf/index.php?topic=830.msg4956#msg4956

[Avaguard]

hmmm well Never mind i know that it will take me for ever to do this my map do to my intellect IL just try to make it differen

[annikk.exe]

TY got it 1 mo thing what kind of AI command is it or how much. to make the enemy send all available ::) seedlings to attack u

There's not really any commands that tell the ai directly what to do, but there are various global settings you can adjust to change the overall ai behaviour.

Alternatively you can use the sendSeedlingsToTarget command on specific asteroids to force those seedlings to attack. It sounds like that might be the most suitable approach for your level.
The guide shows you how to do this in the closing steps. Let me know if you need a hand with it. :>

[Widget]

I've been intending to bodge together a very basic level with a (hopefully!) interesting layout. Pitched to my ability as a total novice, basically. The trouble I'm having is figuring out the values for the layout.

I've found to my relief that I can remember enough Pythagorean theorems to calculate some of the location values based on the intended distance between asteroids but I'm having trouble visualising what I'm working towards. Other than buying some graph paper to plot things out on (which I'll be doing this weekend) are there any tips anyone could offer to help me along?

[annikk.exe]

It's usually best to sit and draw out your idea on paper.  I find that helps a lot.


A way to do it visually would be to just chuck the right number of asteroids in, then play the game and turn on Developer Mode, move the asteroids to the right positions from the console, then record the positions and use those in your LevelSetup.

Turn on Developer Mode with CTRL-D.
Press F12 to show the Asteroid ID numbers.

Now open up the console by pressing tilde (`), which is the key to the left of "1".

You should now be able to fire commands directly into the game, and see the results immdietately.
For example, if you notice that Asteroid 1 is too far to the west, you can move it by typing this command into the console:

Code: [Select]

GetAsteroid(1):MoveBy(500,0)
That would move it slightly east.  :>

You can use those commands on all the asteroids until you're happy with the visual layout of the level.
Now it will be time to record the positions of everything so that you can put those coordinates into your levelsetup, so they will load in these positions from now on.
To do that, use these commands:

Code: [Select]

MessageBox(GetAsteroid(1).position.x)

Code: [Select]

MessageBox(GetAsteroid(1).position.y)
That will tell you the X and Y of each asteroid.  Just edit the initial X and Y of each asteroid in your LevelSetup so that it corresponds to this.

Slightly long winded but if you _need_ to see it visually this method might work good for you!

[Widget]

Thankyou! I'll try that out and see if I find that more intuitive than the alternative