exult estudio questions

[Excessus]

Hello!

I have been playing a lot with Exult Studio lately. I created a small island with a lot of work because browsing the chunks to look for that certain chunk of map is hard, and I even created a house with several objects inside. Then I clicked on "Save all" and woop... Exult closed itself. I then ran Serpent Isle to teleport to my isle and wasn't there... all the work has lost.

I was wondering if you could have an idea why this happened.

Besides... how do I start Exult Studio with a blank map?

Keep up the good work: both Exult and Exult Studio are awesome!!

[Dominus]

Ok, you NEED to have a patch dir in your exult.cfg (see the ES docs) and maybe save more often.

Blank Map: Read the ES docs

[excessus]

Oh please... I have run through all the documentation and I was unable to find what I needed... could you please enlight me and put straight what I need to do to start creating a fresh, new map rather than messing with the actual game? I would be most grateful, really...

[Dominus]

I'm not writing it here as it is a bit too extensive. Well, you could try just running Exult Studio on its own and then press File->New Game...
Take a look at http://exult.info/studio.php#file_menu
Only problem I just noticed is that in the latest snapshot of ES the necessary files are missing! I'm contacting Kirben so in the next those files necessary for a new game are in!

[Dominus]

Ok, should be in the next snapshot!

[excessus]

Thank you!!

I have been watching Exult to grow and fine-tune for quite a lot of time now, drooling in excitement by every update of Exult Studio, looking forward to create my own Ultima game. I have the whole story wrote already. In fact, I was the one that attracked Ken Demarest III to the forums like a year? ago. I was writing with my real name, Carlos Sisi.

Good good. I will try if my wife allow me to play this night a bit more

[drcode]

For now, be sure to create a 'patch' directory at the same level as 'static'. (Of course, EStudio ought to create it automatically.) If you're planning on writing mods to the existing games, you probably don't want to do a 'File-New', as that's for creating a new game from scratch, using all your own graphics.

Sorry if things are still a bit rough. I'm working on one last major feature, and then will go back to being a guinea-pig myself.

[Excessus]

Picture this:

I launch Exult Studio.

I click on "Create New game"

Exult asks for default graphics (I know I will be able to edit them later)

I appear in a fresh map.

I add some chunks and shapes. Funny!

I click on "Add NPC". I click on my NPC... Lets see... change shape... edit dialogue... edit route... edit tasks... nice! I add some dialogue and events atached to it.

I add a dungeon.

I succesfully link my dungeon with the dungeon entrance creating an Egg with the Egg-Wizard. I choosed the Invisible Teleport Egg.

I keep adding chunks and shapes, objects and the like.

I click on "Save everything".


Aaaah... that's life. When do you think this is going to happen?

[drcode]

Most are done, although not tested much:-) The one piece that's not complete is the set of 'default graphics' when you create a new game. My plan is to provide a set of initial files under 'data/estudio/new' that get copied into your new game. There are already a few (just recently being added to the Windows installation), but not all are there.

Seems like ExultStudio is being pushed in two directions: Some people want to make mods to U7. For them, most features are there, but there are some severe usability issues (try making a roof), and, of course, bugs.

Then there are people like you (and maybe me) that want to create a new game from scratch. That means creating loads of data files that don't exist. My guess is that in a real game company, a 'tools developer' would write custom programs and scripts to create some of these. It wouldn't be really friendly, but it wouldn't matter, since the users are fellow employees who would just learn to live with them. We're already at that stage, in that you CAN create a whole new game with the use of our command-line tools like 'expack'. As time goes by, I'm trying to make the process easier.

[excessus]

Thanks! I know everything is actually possible with the current set of tools, and I have tried hard to learn and try to make something with them, but the whole process is definately too hard for me... I will keep looking for something more friendly to come from you, Ultima gurus.

Do not dismay!

[Pertex]

Just two questions: Will it be possible to use grafix from BG and SI together? And will it be possible to change the size of the world (smaller or larger)?

[nadir]

World size is currently fixed. Making a smaller world should be no problem (surround it with water). This should change after 1.0.

As for graphics, if you are making a new game it is not a problem as you can create a custom .vga file, but if you are using a patch it's a bit harder.