map editor

[Nephal]

well it's been about a week since i downloaded your exult software, and little by little i am finding out more and more. this is incredible. i didn't realize that it was possible to edit the map.. although i am so unfamiliar with it, i have such a hard time getting things done. thinking there MUST be an easier way, i read the rest of your website (as much as i could ^_^) and discovered "exult studio", this sounds like the thing i have been looking for. with this i am able to modify or perhaps even create my own ultima game? wow, only thing is i can't get it to work . please someone help me out with this, if you take the time to help me wit this i surely won't disappoint you. i dont want to boast ... but i'm going to anyway ^_^ . i have had extensive experience with this sort of thing, i hosted my own ultima online shard for nearly 3 years, and it was GOOD. if someone can team up with me and show me the basics of this program (first how to get it to run.) we could accomplish alot. thanks

i use aim, so if anyone else does contact me. my screen name is revenant3801

[drcode]

A few pointers:

You'll want to use the latest 1.1x development snapshots of both Exult and ExultStudio.

If things are set up right, you should be able to launch ES by pressing ctrl-alt-m in Exult. If it doesn't work, you might look at any messages in stderr.txt or stdout.txt (or the xterm if you're using Linux.)

Also, note that ExultStudio may have lots of features, but it's not nearly in a 'done' state. Of course, if you get it working and find bugs, that will help towards getting it finished:-)

You probably should say what OS you're trying to run it on.

[Dominus]

Oh, and please read the FAQ, Documentation and the Exult Studio Documentation.
Note that the snapshot 1.1.x contains a different FAQ/doc...

[Nephal]

well, im using windows ME. and i did do alt +ctrl + M , but that just brings up the map editor where i can onky move tiles one by one with it. and i have to browse around for items in the item browse menu. i was wondering if there was a program that would just make the job easier. like create an island in seconds, or remove a chunk of land instantly. oh and is there a way to create new npcs? not just monsters.. but actual characters that you have to interract with in order to complete the game. i just have so many ideas and dont know how to put them on paper so to say.

[drcode]

First, read Dominik's documentation. It is possible to create landscape quickly by dragging 'chunks' onto the map.

Creating NPC's is both easy and hard:-) There's a menu item to create one easily enough. But he won't do much. To interract with him, you have to write a 'usecode' script which is in a 'C'-like language. An example is in our 'island' patch (and look in our 'content' directory for the latest script source).

We're always interested in suggestions to make things easier. I know that some map-editors provide GUI's for creating conversations, and I'm curious as to whether they're easy or practical.

[Dominus]

And yes, comments on the editor and the documentation (other than that it sucks and is incomplete ) would be very nice. I mean any way to make the editor better is much appreciated.

[IgnitusDragon]

*looks for NPC menu*
All I've noticed is the egg creator which CAN create a npc, but its not the same as a permanent NPC.

[Kuroshi]

Is there an easy way to clear out everything on a chunk in-game? Say I drag an ocean chunk onto a dungeon, but all the objects are still there. How can I just get rid of them all at once? I'm sure I'm missing something here.

[Sslaxx]

Any plans to try and make ExultStudio have some of the ease-of-use of NWN's Aurora?

[drcode]

Kuroshi: No, but that's a good idea.

Sslaxx: I don't have NWN. But I'd like to know what features it has that we might 'borrow'.

[XxVenomxX]

Certain things that come to mind with NWN, are something that I think I talked about a long while back, like area 'brushes'. Say you select 'forest', and you can sort of drag a chunk paintbrush and paint an area to be a forest. Or say, a 'coast' brush, or a road brush, where if you painted a bend in the road, a corner would be automatically placed in.
Aurora has everything divided up into branches. Such as Monsters>Animals>Bear>Black Bear or
Item>Armour>Helmets>Stag Helmet

If you wanted an idea, you can download a beta of NWNs toolset off http://www.neverwinternights.com . You dont need the game to run the beta toolset, it just lets you putz around with a limited version of the toolset, i.e. not all the tilesets and creatures, etc. And not just so you can think of ideas for implementing into Exult studio, but if you have any interest in general, its fun to play around with

[SB-X]

Aurora has everything divided up into branches. Such as Monsters>Animals>Bear>Black Bear or
Item>Armour>Helmets>Stag Helmet

Since ES already has Groups (last time I used it), the code just needs subgroups, probably with a tree-view to navigate them. After that, someone just has to take the time to sort all of Ultima's shapes and chunks for the official ES distribution.