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1 BASICS FOR LEVEL-BUILDERS


1.1 ELEMENTS OF A LEVEL

As those familiar with playing Descent will know, a level consists of a mine, inside of which things are more or less indiscriminately distributed (i.e. hostile Robots, Power-ups, Hostages etc.).

Internally the mine is built up out of adjacent segments or modified `cubes' (which don't necessarily have to be regularly shaped). Each of these segments consist of eight points and six sides (as with any normal cube). The points define the position of the cube in space and the sides contain the graphics which are to be seen on the walls of the cubes in Descent. Using the edges of the sides, you can set the lighting values of these sides.

Between two adjacent cubes you can insert a so-called `partition' or simply `Wall', which in most cases is a door or a Switch. A Wall always consists of two parts - one half for the one cube and the other half for the other cube, since the behavior of the Wall can be entirely different on either side (e.g. a door opens from one side, but not from the other). In Descent 2 there is also a Switch for unconnected sides. These also count as walls, being a special type (i.e. this type of Switch is a `Wall'-type which only consists of one part and which is placed on an unconnected side).

You have, therefore, six basic elements in Devil:

I. The Cube itself - Each cube possesses attributes, (e.g. its type - whether it is an energy-center) and consists of eight points and four sides.

II. The Side - Most noticeable about the side is the texture (graphic) which is visible on the side in Descent. Each side has four edges.

III. The Edge - Only important for lighting and for fine-tuning during texture-alignment.

IV. The Point - This determines the position of the cube in space and simply consists of three co-ordinates.

V. The Wall - Doors, Walls and Switches.

VI. The Thing - All sorts of stuff, like Robots, Powerups etc. which are distributed inside the level.

1.2 LEVEL REPRESENTATION

Devil displays the level currently being edited in a window. Multiple levels can be open simultaneously, but only the `current' level is ever changed. It is indicated by an orange-colored frame with the level name top right. The level is either represented via a wire-frame (similar to the `Map' in Descent but navigation follows that of Descent itself) or rendered as in Descent with textures and light (see Section 7.6.1). With the wire-frame there are two possible views: single or double. With `double' the window is split in the middle by a vertical line and a view is displayed in each of the left and right halves which focus on a common point but are reversed 90-degrees from each other.

In both cases (single or double view), a variable visibility range (depth of field) exists to avoid the whole level being displayed at once, since it would firstly be unclear and secondly would be somewhat slower. The boundary lines of all cubes within the visibility range are drawn.

Walls in a Connection are indicated by two protruding crosses. Things are differentiated by type: 3D-Crosses for Things which look the same from all sides (items like Power-ups and Weapons), small stick-figures for Hostages and a stylized spaceship for Robots and Player-starts, Reactors and Mines, larger symbols are larger objects. The various Thing-types also have different colors, a Robot is red, a Player-start is white and Items are yellow.

(A Mine ship is normally indicated in red unless it is the current thing, in which case it is green or blue-green if tagged and current.) Blue is reserved for tagged objects (see Section 1.4).

The modes with texture-rendering make the display look exactly as it does in Descent (although it is naturally slower and the robots are still represented symbolically). There are three different Rendering modes: 'Only Current Cube', 'On', and 'On With Collision'.

'Only Current Cube' renders just the sides of the current cube which are visible from your perspective. 'On' displays sides with a texture as solid when looking "through" the current cube and the sides of all cubes which can be seen from this cube, no matter where your vantage point is. You can be inside or outside the mine in these first two modes. 'On With Collision' puts you inside the mine in the current cube, only now you will collide with the sides, and remain inside. You can pass through Walls (doors) and fly through the entire level in this mode.. It may sound complicated, but is actually quite straightforward ...

Note: If you find that the lines seem to be disappearing from the wire-frame mode despite a large field-depth or that sides seem not to be rendered, it may be that you have rendering mode on and the textures on those sides are dark and have a lighting value less than 10 percent. Also, when rendering is on, Devil sometimes `loses' the current cube which results in a completely blank screen. You can reinitialize the current cube with Ctrl+Shift+Space.

1.3 THE CURRENT OBJECT

A so-called `current' object (i.e. the current Cube, the current Side etc.) exists for each the six basic elements in Devil. This would normally be the object to apply the desired changes to. These objects are displayed differently in the level; the current Thing, the current Wall and the current Cube are indicated in green and the current Point is identified with a green star and the current Edge is indicated with one green line. The current Side is indicated by one purple line, one yellow line perpendicular to the purple line and two brown lines. The current Side can only be chosen from the current Cube and the current Edge only from the current Side.

See Section 4.6.1 for a table of Wall colors.

1.4 TAGGED OBJECTS

You can tag any number of the six basic elements (see Section 3.5 and Section 4.1). Tagged objects are always represented in blue. Tagged objects are always represented in blue unless it is also the current object, in which case it becomes a blue-green color. Tagged Cubes, Edges, Points ,Walls and Things are simply drawn in blue instead of with the normal color. Tagged Sides are provided with a special, blue indicator. You can execute the same operation or particular special-functions on a larger group of objects by tagging them and then performing the operation. A group of tagged cubes can also be from copied from one level to another.

To tag a particular group of objects, the Tagging-Filter can be used (see Section 7.3) or they can simply be tagged with the mouse "selection box" (see Section 3.5).

In Side mode, all sides which belong to tagged cubes can be tagged with the menu option `Tag->Use Cube tag'. In Point mode, the corresponding Side or Cube tag can be used and in Edge mode the Cube, Side or Point tag is available. Additionally, with `Tag->tag/untag special' in Edge-mode, all Edges related to the current Point can be tagged, and in Side-mode the sides can be protected against re-calculation of the Outline (see Section 6).

BTW: you can still use `tag points' if you want to set the light: just tag the points that you want to change and then use `use point tag' in Edge mode. Or use the special tag in Point mode (to tag all edges corresponding to this point) or in edge mode (to tag all edges in the current cube corresponding to the point of the edge)

1.5 GROUPS

Groups (along with the corridor wizard) are the most powerful tools that Devil makes available to level-builders. Groups (also referred to as Macros) are nothing more than a collection of Cubes, Walls and Things (everything is possible, from a single cube to a complete level), which are tagged by the user and then initially created as a new level in memory. These new levels can then be inserted into other levels again, saved and can, naturally, also be reloaded. It is possible, for example, to save whole corridors and, whenever needed, to reproduce them or to steal the big hall out of original Descent 1 Level 7, to reduce or to enlarge it and to insert it again etc.

This technique is effective because it's much easier to work on a small piece of a level. There is less clutter and it's easier to select parts for mass texture and lighting changes. See Section 5.1.1 for more about Groups.

1.6 ADJUSTING TEXTURES

For each side, Descent requires an Outline (or frame definition) for the Side, into which the texture is placed undistorted. Normally Devil re-calculates these Outlines whenever a side is changed. As a Devil-user you must simply adjust the Outline correctly e.g. so that the lights on a side are in the middle. As this becomes problematic with textures which must be aligned together across the borders of two sides; Devil provides a function for this, see Section 6.3.

If you distort these Outlines manually, you can achieve all sorts of amusing effects. To have e.g. a door with side lengths twice the size as normal, you simply halve the default Devil-prescribed side lengths and in that fashion, instead of the same door four times, you obtain a door four times as big.

Those readers who want to know how this works should proceed to Section 6 or to the technical & mathematical basics in Section 8.5.

1.7 USING THE LEVEL IN DESCENT/UTILIZING THE ORIGINAL LEVELS

The simplest way to quickly play a level is using the menu option `Play level' in the `File' menu (see Section 3.1.6). You can also present a fully-playable level to Descent very easily. Using the `Mission Manager' (see Section 7.3.4), you simply compile a group of levels together into a so-called HOG-File. The Mission Manager automatically produces a matching .MSN or .MN2-file for this .HOG-File. You'll find both these files in the main `descent' directory with Descent 1 and in the `missions' directory with Descent 2; when the game is started, Descent locates these files and you can choose to play one of the available missions. In order to explore the complete variety of possible file utilities for Descent, you should look around for additional Decent tools from time to time in the WWW-address indicated on the title-page.

With the mission manager you can also make the original Descent levels available to Devil., see Section 7.3.4. about this.


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