In this chapter, we are going to create a new map, edit the map, add it to "My Adventure", and then create a teleport square from the first map to the new map. In order to create the teleport square, we will be describing the interface within the mapeditor program used to edit special code for a particular square, but will not go into too much detail about the actual instructions used in these scripts.

Run the mapedit program as before, by going to the Start menu, and selecting Programs -> DB2ACK -> Mapeditor. When the file requester appears, navigate to the DB2ACK/Adventures/MyAdventure/maps directory, and you should see your existing two maps listed. In the "File Name:" field, enter our new map name, "sample3.map", as in Figure 18, below.

Specify name for new map

Click the "Open" button to dismiss the file requester, and the mapeditor console window benieth it will ask you for the dimensions of your new map. You may enter "15,20" to get a map that is 15 wide and 20 high, as in Figure 19.

Specify dimensions of map

After entering the dimensions of your new map, the mapeditor window should open with the new map, as in Figure 19, below. Note that the map is empty except for a border of generic brick walls (wall #1).

Just created a brand new map, ready for editing

There are a few new commands you need to learn when editing a new map.

• Press capital 'N' to change the name of the map. Change the map name to "SAMPLE 3".
• Press the lowercase 'f' key to open a window where you can edit some map flags. Most of these fields, we will leave untouched, but you should make the following edits:
  • lowercase 'd': Set the monster density for the map. The monster density controls how often your party will encounter random monster groups on this map. It is a number between 0 and 255, where 0 means you will never encounter wandering monsters and 255 means you have a 25% chance to encounter with every step your party takes. Set this value to 30.
  • lowercase 'a': Set the ambient light for the map. The default value of 0 means there is no light, while 4 is the maximum possible light value. Change this value to 3.

Before pressing escape, your changes should look like this:

Finished editing map "flags"

This room will be the target of your teleportaion from "SAMPLE 1" map. It is okay to use the current, default draw wall, wall #1 to draw this room. The corners of the room should be: (5,7), (9,7), (5,12), (9,12), with an opening for a door at (7,12). To draw the room, move your cursor along the wall and use the lowercase 'x' key to place a wall, and spacebar to remove a wall. When done, your map should look like Figure 22.

Small room in center of map"

All doors are programmed in the mapeditor -- there is no special door command or wall. This way, the behavior of a door can be anything you want: it can always be locked or unlocked, it can require a key or button press or some other mechanism to unlock it, or it can even be drawn always 3/4 shut, or use special graphics or play special animations when it opens. Here, we just want a simple bar door that opens vertically and is always unlocked. The behavior of the door is that when you bump into it, it will play an opening door animation before allowing you to move onto the door's square.

But rather than describe the details of the wall and its special instructions used to program the door opening mechanism, we are going to show you how to use a shortcut to copy and paste a generic unlocked door from another map. The mapeditor actually provides powerful copy and paste mechanisms. You can "copy" a map square including all of its flags and mapspecial code to a named variable, 'a' .. 'z', and then paste those named walls anywhere on the map. You can even paste between maps. The mapeditor also provides a single region buffer that can be used to copy rectangular regions between maps. So to complete this step, we are going to do a simple copy and paste from SAMPLE 2 map to SAMPLE 3 map as follows:

• Save the current map with the capital 'S' key, and exit by pressing Escape.
• Run the mapeditor from the start menu again, but this time, select and open sample2.map.
• Move your cursor to square (3,18) containing the green '-' dash character representing a door. You will also see some mapspecial code under the "MOTION SCRIPT" section of the mapeditor window, as in Fig 23.
  
  
  Postion cursor at door"
  
• Copy the door wall under your cursor to the letter 'd' buffer (for "door"). To copy the wall under the cursor to a buffer, use the command: lowercase 'c' (for copy), then press the letter of the named buffer you want to store the wall at, lowercase 'd'.

Now that we have copied the wall to the 'd' buffer, you can exit mapeditor by pressing the escape key.

Next, run mapeditor again, and open sample3.map. Move your cursor to the opening in the room at (7,12), and press lowercase 'v' (paste) and then lowercase 'd' (paste the 'd' buffer). You should see the green door character appear on your map as in Fig 24.

Pasted door into map"

Save and exit the mapeditor. Copying and pasting walls not only makes map editing easy and less prone to human error, but it can be very helpful when you want to learn how to program a specific type of square that is available in one of the "Sample Adventure" maps (who's complete list of mapspecials is provided here. You can store up to 26 separate named wall buffers in letters 'a'..'z' plus a map region buffer described in the mapeditor documentation. One thing to watch out for when copying and pasting between maps is that you cannot have two or more mapeditor windows open at the same time when copying walls to named buffers. Only the first mapeditor window opened is able to write to these buffers, so attempting to copy a square from the second mapeditor window will fail. It is best to only have one mapeditor window open at a time when doing this type of editing.

In order for your new map file, sample3.map to be included in "My Adventure", you need to add that file to the maplist.txt file in your DB2ACK/Adventures/MyAdventure/lists directory. Open that maplist.txt file in a text editor, scroll to the bottom, and add the following line:

2      maps\sample3.map

After doing so, your maplist.txt file should look like this:

Add sample3.map to maplist"

Save and exit your text editor. Next time you compile your adventure data with the mkpdbs program, it will compile your new sample3.map into your MyAdventure.pdb data file.

The only way to travel between maps is when the party steps on a square that executes a "MAP EXIT" instruction in its "MOTION CODE". It doesn't matter what wall is at that square: it could be a force field wall, an empty square, or even a tree. The teleport we will create will actually have a force field wall to help you identify it in the game. However, rather than copying and pasting from an existing teleport sqare, we are going to create a new teleport wall from scratch using the mapeditor's special code editing features. But first, you need to place a force field wall in SAMPLE 1 map that will be the source of the teleport.

• Run the mapeditor again, and open sample1.map.
• Position your cursor at square (3,11).
• Draw the current generic Wall #1 by pressing lowercase 'x'.
• Change the wall under your cursor at that location to wall #26 using the '-' and '=' keys to scroll through available walls.

At this point, we have created a force field wall, now it is time to add instructions to that wall to teleport the party. But first, it is necessary to learn a few simple instructions for editing mapspecial code. Don't do it just yet, but to edit a MOTION SCRIPT or DISPLAY SCRIPT for the wall under your cursor, you will press the period key, '.'. This will open a new window and places your cursor at the first line of the MOTION SCRIPT. In this script editor, the following keys may be used:

• period key, '.': Pops up a window containing a menu of available mapspecial instructions that can be inserted at that line. Note that most instructions are listed under submenus that can be navigated using the cursor keys. Pressing Enter from this menu selects the currently highlighted instruction, or Escape quits the menu without selecting any instruction.
• arrow keys: scroll up and down through the list of instructions.
• Enter key: edit the current instruction's parameters
• lowercase 'i': Inserts a new instruction above the current line.
• lowercase 'd': delete the instruction at the cursor. Note that when you delete an instruction, all other instructions that reference a line number are automatically renumbered for you by the mapeditor.
• Tab key: toggle cursor between top of MOTION SCRIPT and DISPLAY SCRIPT.
• Escape: exit mapspecial script editing window and return to map editing mode.

Using the above commands as a reference it should be easy to create a MOTION SCRIPT that is executed just before your party attempts to step into the force field that teleports the party to your new map as follows:

• Press '.' key to open the script editing window for the force field wall.
• Press '.' key again to popup the mapspecial instruction menu, and cursor over to the "Map" menu, then right and down to the MAP EXIT instruction, and press Enter to select that instruction. Note that as you scroll through the instructions, a brief description of the instruction appears at the bottom of the window.
  
  
  Select MAP EXIT instruction"
  
• The mapeditor will prompt you for a set of parameters required for this instruction. For each parameter that becomes highlighted, look at the bottom of the window to see a description of that parameter. We want to teleport to the center of the room in SAMPLE 3, so enter the following parameters, pressing Enter between each one. Note that if you make a mistake, just finish entering the parameters and press Enter again to change the parameters for the current instruction.
  • X-coordinate for target of teleport: 7
  • Y-coordinate for target of teleport: 9
  • Map number to teleport to: 2 (this is the map number we provided in step 5, above, when adding sample3.map to maplist.txt)
  • Direction to face after teleport: SOUTH (use cursor keys and enter to select)
  Your mapspecial code should look like this:
  
  
  Script to teleport the user"
  
• Press the Escape key when done to exit the mapspecial editing window.

Save and exit from the mapeditor.

This details of this step is left as an exercise. Create another teleport square in sample3.map, anywhere you like, and have it teleport somewhere back to sample1.map. You may use a different wall for your teleport square in sample3.map, if you like.

Now, because you added a whole new map, you need to delete any old save games or temporary save games before testing your changes.

Walk over to your teleport square and step through and observe on the overhead map that you have teleported to your new map.

Walk through your teleport square to your new map.