Creature editor instructions
----------------------------

Mike - Mon Jul 11 22:39:56 1994


First copy all the files into your Jaguar debugging directory, or make
a new working directory & put the files there.

To use the creature editor, you need some debugger macros. These are already set
up on the machine Andy was using at Atari, but if you need them on another machine
then they are in the text file 'ed_macs.rc' and they should be added to the file
'rdb.rc' on the new machine (using cut & paste on a text editor).



Before your FIRST session on the creature editor:
-------------------------------------------------

Un-write protect the ROM, load creature editor into the ROM with

read editor.dat 802000

then write protect again. This should only need doing once, then
the Alpine card has the creature editor in it.




Before EVERY session on the creature editor:
--------------------------------------------

To start the creature editor, enter the debugger, then type

getsym ed.sym


The creature editor is now ready for use.



To use the creature editor:
---------------------------

To start editing a whole new level, type

newamps



To load a current level, type

loadamps
read <filename> .editor



DON'T start the editor without doing one of the above first, or it will crash.



Then to start editing, type

g 802000


After starting the editor, the first thing you should do is to press option-0
to bring up the display of level & position.

Within the creature editor, there is ONLY ONE active placement at once, so
whichever level you move to will be filled out with the placement you are
working on; but the placement only makes sense on the level it was designed for,
so DON'T FORGET to move to the proper level (using OPTION-A & OPTION-B as usual)
BEFORE you make any changes to the placement.


Whenever you want to save a placement file, stop the jaguar with the reset button
and type

saveamps <filename>

(saveamps & loadamps use a different format to each other because of limitations
in the debugger, so please use them as described above.)


You can also find out how many amps you have placed, before or after saving, by
typing

numamps

(by the way, numamps DOESN'T give you the true number of creatures in a placement
straight after you have loaded the file with loadamps and before you've started
the creature editor).

You can see how many creatures are in a saved file without loading it & starting
then stopping the editor, by looking at the file length & using the sum

num creatures = (length - 4) / 6


Once you have saved the level, you can restart the editor to carry on editing
by typing

g 802000

again. (You don't have to use loadamps or newamps again at this point, as you
already have a valid level placement in the memory).

Each time you restart the creature editor, you have to remember to move to
the proper level for the placement you are editing before you start editing
that placement again.



FILENAMES
---------


Please use the following filenames for your placements:

l1_comm.dat - l15_comm.dat  for the common objects (which appear in every creature's game)
l1_mar.dat  - l15_mar.dat   for the objects & aliens which only appear in the marine's game
l1_al.dat   - l15_al.dat    for the objects & aliens which only appear in the alien's game
l1_pred.dat - l15_pred.dat  for the objects & aliens which only appear in the predator's game

level 1-5 are marine ship level 1-5
levels 6-13 are the 8 airducts, in this order: 1B,2B,3B,3C,4B,4C,5B,5C (using the same naming
as on the maps Toby did)
level 14 is the Alien spaceship
level 15 is the Predator spaceship

In the zip file I've sent up the placements which you specified & we've implemented


You DON'T need to place the bulk of the enemies in each creature's game. You can just tell us
on paper that you want 100 aliens spread randomly around level 3 for the human game, or
whatever, and we can do it with out random placement routine.



Dead Soldiers
-------------

When you place a dead marine carrying a card or whatever, he doesn't look any different in the
editor to a dead marine with nothing - what you do is tell us on paper what the marine is carrying
and which square he is in and we do the rest.


Number of creatures
-------------------

We're trying to put a total limit, for frame-rate reasons, of 300 items total in a level.
For any one creature on any one level, this number is the number of items in the common
placement for the level PLUS the number of items in the creature's special placement for
that level, plus the number of random enemies specified for that creature for that level.



Please phone us if you've got any questions...
