Using studio for a new game

[Jay Lemmon]

I'm trying to find a platform I can use to work on a prototype for an RPG (flesh out conversation trees and maps, etc.). Studio seems like a reasonable (if slightly buggy) tool, and I liked Ultima 7 enough that working with its art and general style might help keep me motivated. Is Studio working well enough that I can use it for this?

I've played around with Studio a bit and can modify U7, so so far so good. Now I need to actually make a raw game project. How do I actually do that? I found the "New Game" option in Studio, and I have it populating folders with some *.vga files. But if I have Exult try to run my new game, it just crashes out to the desktop. Probably I need a base Usecode script to set spawn points, etc.?

Any pointers on how to set up a toolchain? I see the section called "Other tools that might be useful", but I don't necessarily see how they fit together. Just a high level explanation of how I can extract out the art assets from U7 and SI to, say, photoshop files (I know I couldn't release a game with this since it's all copyrighted art, but it works well enough to prototype with), possibly add custom art, and then pack that all together into something Exult can use would be great. Or whatever I probably need to know to actually get something up and working.

Last, how do things like books and keys and levers work? I'd assume that double clicking them triggers a Usecode, but I don't see how to set that up with Studio. Is it something not set up yet? Or is it set up a different way? And for keys and levers, how do you actually have them specifically tied to a specific door, for instance?

[Dominus]

Take a look at http://exult.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=348885#p348885 maybe that helps with the starting of a new game. Malignant has probably much more starting points.

[Jay Lemmon]

I'll take a look at the devgame.

I also found http://exult.info/newgame.txt. Is this still up to date? I see it was written quiet a while ago. It does answer some of my questions about getting items and such to work (looks like you write the usecode, and specify the object index, and the game figures it out(?)). Also, it would probably make sense to combine it into the main manual. It's hard to follow links in the manual if you're just browsing.

[Dominus]

The basics written down in newgame.txt should hold true. I'm sorry the documentation is such a mess. The problem is that *I* kind of stopped using Exult Studio years ago, but Marzo made Studio better and better but since I'm the designated documentation guy the gap between docs and actual program widened bit by bit.
I plan to make it better but found no time and the next few months will probably be even worse.
*BUT* feel free to point out anything that needs fixing in the docs and I can promise to be quicker about fixing that
Heck, I'd even rewrite the whole manual if anyone gave me a better version

[Numsgil]

(I registered, in case you're wondering about the name change)

I'm getting an assert that prevents me from running any new games created through Studio. It crashes during load. I was able to download run devgame, though, so I don't get what's up. Hopefully someone here can point me in the right direction.

"Shapes/Miscinf.cc line 635

sk && (sisShapes || (!IsSkinImported(sk->shape_num) && !IsSkinImported(sk_naked_shape)))"

I could download the source, build it, and step through the code, but ideally I'd like to be pretty lazy about this. I get the assert only after the second run of the game. The first run just exits to the desktop with no warning or error.

[Dominus]

What are the exact steps you have taken? If we can reproduce it chances are higher that we can find and fix the problem.

[Malignant Manor]

It looks like Marzo forgot to have avatar_data.txt be included in the installer and makefile when we ran into this problem a long time ago. You can copy the file from the source and place it in the static folder.

You're going to have a lot more problems with missing information if you don't use the Dev Game download instead of the new game Exult Studio adds.

[Numsgil]

@Dominus1 This is a fresh "New Game" from the Exult Studio "File->New Game" menu, which I then run through Exult (Exult automatically sets an entry in its menu for the new game). I haven't done anything at all to it yet beyond running it.

@Malignant Manor - Including the avatar_data.txt from the head gets me further, but now after loading (after the blotchy color effect), it's all black for a second and just exits to desktop without any warning or error.

I don't mind basing what I'm doing off the devgame but there's a lot it does that I don't understand and I can't find explanations for. If I could get the simple "New Game" option in Exult Studio to run, that should help me understand what's going on. I understand most of what the "New Game" creates for itself.

Specifically, there are a bunch of extra text files (shapes_info.txt, for instance. There are others, too). Also a bunch of .dat files that sound important but I don't see where they come from (weapons.dat, equip.dat, container.dat).

New_Game_doc has a lot of notes it looks like, but they're almost all without context. It does look like there's some changes to the Studio docs you've outlined, but they haven't been incorporated yet?

...

I feel like there's a lot of documentation I'm either not finding and reading or doesn't exist, dealing with more specific issues. I'll keep banging on things and see if I can get closer to something that works.

[Malignant Manor]

Like I said, you will likely have problems with lots of missing data if you don't use the Dev Game template which was designed to help have things setup for easier new game making. It wasn't made to be a game by itself. Exult just expects a lot of data to be there and doesn't even have any error output for a lot of cases.

I don't really have time at the moment to get write documentation on everything and sort out what is outdated.

If you have audio enabled, you likely need a dummy file xmidi.mt in the static folder which can be taken from Dev Game. If you actually create midi tracks, it might need a file with actual data.

If you have face stats enabled, you can a paperdol.txt file with

Code: Select all

%%section characters
:721/0/0/2/0/0/0/1/4/1/3/5
%%endsection

as the content to keep it from crashing until you get the correct data.

Any shape number it tries to open will crash for gumps or fonts will crash without output. More than half of the shapes you see in Dev Game's shapes.vga are hard-coded. All the shapes in sprites.vga are hard-coded. Most or all of the shape numbers in fonts.vga are hard-coded.

[Dominus]

stuff in the newgame.txt is important. It tells you which files are NEEDED. So it's a good idea to stuff the files from Malignant's devgame there or you will need to create the missing files with content first.
Also the editing setting needs to be set in exult.cfg.

I suggested to Malignant to bundle his devgame with Exult, so this all can be less painfull in the future...