Exult Studio Z Position

[Donfrow]

Hi,

It's been awhile since I last used Exult and Exult Studio. I'm glad to see it's still here and updated.

I may have asked this question maybe 3 or 4 years ago about Exult studio, but cannot find the question in searching, and I have a vain hope that maybe something has changed since then in newer versions.

Is it at all possible to update the position for a group of objects? My biggest obstacle as I make new cities, mountain ranges, etc, is the pain of having to make every top object (roof, mountain top, etc) up to z position 5 individually even though they are all pasted into the world and all selected. I have combos for mountains, roofs etc that fit a variety of terrain/building shapes but still need to go to each individual object to update the z position to 5 as by default combos always come in at 0. I usually end up taking breaks to build cities and mountains because of the pain on my wrist from all the clicking and updating object heights when working with so many individual roof and mountain objects.

I know it wasn't available years ago, and from what I've seen in the newest version looks to be the same, but I'm hoping that perhaps I've missed something.

If not, does anyone have any useful tips as to how to make it so it's someone less tedious to update the z position on a large number of objects?

Thanks!

[Donfrow]

It would seem I may have missed the obvious all these years and somehow only found this right after posting... it seems ctrl-page up seems to work with multiple selected objects.

I suppose I had too much tunnel vision as I always wanted to numerically enter it; the keyboard shortcut of ctrl-page up seems to accomplish what I'm looking for to easily adjust the z position of multiple objects at once.

So, if anyone else has this question, the simple solution is to use the keyboard hotkeys while multiple objects are selected.

[Dale]

What are you working on? Though I suppose for forum clarity sake, this could be answered in one of the current mod threads.

[Donfrow]

I will answer it here as I hadn't created it as a mod I planned releasing as I was mainly using it as a creative outlet; I don't want to clog up useful thread with my patchwork project. I also never made note of properly sourcing some of the graphics that I grabbed from these forums (such as downloadable face pack), various code snippets, etc, so anything I could release wouldn't get the proper credit.

However, for those curious it's a full game world based roughly on the main landmass from Serpent Isle, with a completely new story, NPCs, etc, to create an independent mod with no relation to the Serpent Isle or Ultima story lines but using the Serpent Isle game mechanics. Since I made it over the course of 5 or 6 years with no true vision for what I was making it ended up being a cobbled together creation with a loosely over arching plot and many smaller sub quests. Some of these I consider decent while others, in retrospect, could use improvement.

What I'm working on now is is a sequel to that for game/mod, in so much that I'm continuing the over arching main story line I cobbled together from the first one, to make a new game/mod based in the same world. It's the kind of thing I will try to add some of my ideas/mechanics from the first one, such as going diving at a sunken ship, to actually have a purpose in this new one.

If there is interest I have no problem putting it out there. I never did for the sourcing reasons I mentioned above and I'm not really clear how I could release it without falling into the pit of releasing the patch folder with the game files itself, would would be considered pirating? That and not being sure as to how to make it into an installer to easily install it rather than manual editing some of the config files.

[Knight Captain]

It would be hard to tell without looking at it. If you email it to me I can take a look and give my input. Most likely you'd want to make it into a mod as opposed to a patch folder item.

[agentorangeguy]

Hi there,

If you go to exult studio at the top and in the "Edit Lift" box, you can use the arrows or type in a z-lift value (5 for roofs/mountains). When you have that up to 5, just place roof pieces or mountain pieces and they will keep the lift value until you change it back to 0. Just be careful because everything you drop/pick up will use that lift factor until you turn it back.

Your combos should use the lift as well when you set the lift and then drag and drop. Additionally, holding ctrl and using the arrow keys you can move those selected pieces around as a whole instead of individually. Hope that helps!

[Donfrow]

Thanks, I've sent you an email.

I tried using the Edit Lift box to 5 for the z value, but it still seems to put in the items at position 0. Must be something I'm doing wrong if it's working for you though. The ctrl keys on the combos solve my main problem at least so the z axis paste not working isn't at big deal. Roofs and such are no longer extremely tedious!

[agentorangeguy]

If you sent me an email, I didn't get it for some reason, try it again if you need to, its agentorangeguyATyahoodotcom

Are you using the current version of ES and all that? Sometimes it helps to use the arrows to change the lift factor rather than just typing it in. Then once you do that, anything you drag and drop *should* be at that lift factor. Finding out about the cntrl arrow key thing really made my life much easier haha.

[Donfrow]

Sorry, I combined 2 responses. I meant I sent an email to Knight Captain regarding the patch folder item he mentioned.

Seems my issue with the lift position was about typing vs using the arrows. As soon as I used the arrows instead of typing in 5 it worked as expected. The ctrl arrow thing is so nice too. Only annoyance left for me is all the matching chunks being scattered all over the place numerically (by that I mean cave left may be chunk 1000, and cave corner left-to-up being chunk 2000). That's not nearly as as annoying as the z lift was and don't believe there is anyway around that last annoyance.

Thanks a bunch for the information!

[agentorangeguy]

The best thing to do about chunks is make them into groups. Click the "chunks" file, then above the list click the "Groups" tab then at the bottom click "New". Name it to what you want. Then go down the chunk list and right click then "add" to the chunk grouping you want. For example, say you want to group together all of the rocky cave chunks (like in Destard). What I did was make a group, then went through the list adding ALL of those chunks that were rocky chunks. Then I'd make a new grouping, and start looking through the group I just made, and adding them into a more organized chunk group. I'd start with the "top" pieces, then bottom pieces, then Left sides, Right sides, corners, and so on. Then you can delete the original grouping, and use that new gruop for easier, more organized access. It makes map building SO much easier. I've made a group for pretty much all sorts of things, forests , rivers, water, etc.

One word of warning though, never, ever "move" chunks in the main group up or down on the list, or add or delete chunks. This will mess up the order and mess your groupings up.

[Dale]

I am sure people would be interested in seeing your games regardless or credit. Anything you don't credit, people will most likely notice and just let you know after the fact which can then be rectified. Just my thoughts though... it wouldn't be any of my stuff anyway.

[Donfrow]

Neat about the groupings for chunks. Unfortunately I'm not sure it will work too well for me since I pretty much always duplicate chunks and add/delete something from them. One time I accidentally deleted a wave in the water and it resulted me having to redo water for almost the entire world and since then I've been a duplicate chunks fanatic. At least in the short run it will work.

I sent Knight Captain the patch folder, hopefully he can have some input as to whether or not it's feasible to easily convert it into a mod. Would be nice to at least have someone give it a try, even if some of my design is... less than good

[Knight Captain]

I've converted your patch.zip into a Mod, and separated out the Usecode source and misc artwork. Shortly I'll email back the two files.

What I did to convert this over:
1) Created a new folder in Exult\serpentisle\mods\ called glimmerscape.
2) Created a new folder in Exult\serpentisle\mods\glimmerscape\ called data.
3) Copied Exult\serpentisle\mods\sifixes.cfg to glimmerscape.cfg in the same folder.
4) Edited glimmerscape.cfg in the display_string tag to show GLIMMERSCAPE BY DONFROW split on two lines.
5) The next part was dividing up the actual "product" of the mod from the sources, like the uncompiled .UC files and non-Exult-format art. In this case, anything that wasn't a mapnn folder I set aside, along with the usecode.uc file.
6) Copied 172 files and the 5 mapnn folders to Exult\serpentisle\mods\glimmerscape\data.
7) Tested and zipped it all up.

[Knight Captain]

To be clearer on step 5 above, any folder that wasn't a mapnn folder I set aside.

@Devs, is there a way to put map edits back into a compiled initgame.dat?

[Dominus]

The mod is now uploaded to our download page "Glimmerscape" and mentioned with Donfrow's notes in the mod archive thread http://exult.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p ... 9#p1716199

@KnightCaptain, I know old question but I might be of help if you haven't figured it out yet. Just let me know what you want to accomplish (initgame.dat is a zip)

[Knight Captain]

Thanks for your email Dominus. It looks like patching works a bit differently from modding, so they're not always one-for-one convertible.

Glimmerscape has a great intro scene, it's worth trying for that alone!

[Dominus]

Yes that intro scene is marvelous! Very well done!

@Knight: patching and modding are the same, only you can decide to load a mod but a patch will just apply to a game. There is no difference to file structure (only in the folder structure as the patch folder is essentially the data folder pointed at in the mod cfg).

[Dale]

This was my big struggle... I couldn't figure out how to make what was a patch into a mod. KC, looking forward to your 'for Dummies' explanation!

Super looking forward to checking out this mod, too!

[Dominus]

The basic of turning a patch into a mod:
- In the mods folder create a folder and a cfg with the same name (e.g. /MyMod, MyMod.cfg).
- Move the whole patch folder into the MyMod folder. (Rename the patch to data - but that's just superficial, doesn't need to be done)
- edit MyMod.cfg with

Code: Select all

 
My Mod Name
 
 
  1.5.0svn
 
 
 __MOD_PATH__/data
 
 
 __MOD_PATH__/saves
 

As you can see, the important part is . In that you need to point at the patch folder you moved to the mymod folder in step 2, depending on whether you renamed it.

[Dale]

I know this may belong elsewhere...
but if I was foolishly doing all my work as part of a patch instead of mod, I can simply move it over? That's amazing. I think Dominus explained this to me once, but my brain was fried at the time. So thank you both...

And the other hurdle I hit was how to make these changes so they don't affect the start of the game. I wanted to add an NPC, but for whatever reason, it all changed how the game started (it skipped the story opening).

[Dominus]

To prevent it from destroying the first scene you have to start Exult in edit mode (exult.exe --edit) and then start a new game and then do your work. It's a bit cumbersome and hard to reset once you messed it up.
As long as you haven't done any changes to the startup scene area, I may be able to reset your initgame.dat.
(It means, opening initgame.dat and resetting the starting point area u7ifix file, and then replacing other files with the respective files from a pristine game's initgame.dat, right after starting a new game etc...)

[Dale]

I dumped the NPC I had made right ar the startup scene because I thought it was the best way to test hahah. I reckon an easy workaround would be to just clear the patch folder? I believe I have all the files I've worked on stored elsewhere..

[Dominus]

If you have everything elsewhere you can reset doing this, but all map works is going to be gone.
My advice is to start with a mod folder right away. And only start the mod in edit mode.
If you need more clarification about mods vs patches, look at the keyring mod zip and the included files and folders. The keyring's data folder is the same as the normal patch folder (as I've written higher up).

[Donfrow]

Thanks for the compliments on the intro scene. I wish when I first made it I wasn't using 800x600 resolution so I made the "mountains" bigger so that they don't just suddenly get cut off on the north/south when using a higher resolution.

Oh well, won't make that mistake on my new project!