Map Editor Manual

Window Size
Do not change the shape of the window to unorthodox sizes, because you might get some nasty artifacts. As opposed to the game client, the map editor was made that way so you can resize the window, but don't abuse it.

Saving Maps:
The maps should be in a top directory inside the directory you have the game. That is, if your game directory is c:\el then the maps should be in c:\el\maps or c:\el\my_maps and NOT in c:\whatever or c:\el\my_maps\maps_backup .
*All map names should be completely in lower case!*

Do NOT modify the official game maps. The game maps are stored in the \maps directory. If you modify those maps, Bad Things will happen! If you want to play with them, make a copy first, and play only with that copy. Preferably, put those copies in a new directory.

Distances:
The coordinates used in EL are in meters. If you don't know the metric system, learn it. It is the international standard after all. The smallest coordinate (for walkability) is 50 CM. Each height tile step goes up 20cm. Each ground tile is 3x3 meters.

Toolbar:
As you can see in the menu, there are a few modes:

1st- ground tile mode.
2nd- 2D objects mode.
3rd- 3D objects mode.
4th- Particle mode.
5th- lights mode.
6th- height map mode.
7th- settings button.
8th- "Select" object/tile/light/height under mouse.
9th- clone object.
10th- New object.
11th- Kill button.
12th- Save Map.
13th- Load Map.
14th- New map.

Special 2D objects settings:
-Hold down CTRL while placing 2D objects to RANDOMLY ROTATE and alternate the heights of the objects. This is extremly useful when you need to place many 2d objects near or around each other. It is not a fool-proof way to prevent "flickering" however, so you still have to manually check that by rotating the camera slowly(shift+home/end).

Special 3D objects settings:
-Ctrl+b -press this to bring up a window with categories of objects to select from. You can view the objects as thumbnails, making it a lot easier to use than the normal file browser.
-Pressing the 'B' key, while having a selected object, will make that object BLENDED with the background. It makes it kind of glow and can be cool to use on things such as crystals. You can press the number keys 1, 2, 3 to increase the Red, Green, or Blue values of the blended object. Holding down ALT while pressing 1, 2, or 3 DECREASES the RGB values.
-Pressing L will make the object be Self Lit. This is usually usefull for things such as light sources. However, note that the Self Lit objects will NOT become self lit in the daytime, only in the evening-night-morning. With the number keys 1, 2, and 3 you can change (increase) the R, G and respectively B intensity of that self lit object. Notice that, by default, RGB=0, so the object is very dark. By holding down ALT while pressing 1,2 and 3, you DECREASE the intensity of that color. Notice that no changes will be visible at day time, so make it night first. Night means around minute 0 or so.
-Press and hold CTRL down while placing objects will make the 3d object duplicate or "stick" to your mouse like in the 2d object mode.
-Press ctrl+w to set some random rotatation and height settings for 3d objects. This is useful when you need to place many default objects like trees, plants, grass, etc. You can enable the rotation for each axis individually, or a combination or all of them at once. The height you can set the min/max values to as well. To move angles/numbers faster you can use ctrl+leftclick(100 increment) and alt+leftclick(10).

Light Mode:
-The Lights can be only rised/lowered, with Ins/Del (keep shift pressed for accuracy).
-Lights are represented as colored cubes. The lights are visible only at night, they are turned off at daytime (except if the map is set as a Dungeon).
-You can increase the lights intensity by pressing 1,2, and 3, and decrease it with Alt+1, 2 or 3.
-The intensity range is from 0 to 5.
-The range of each lights is 30 meters (a height tile is half a meter, a normal tile is 3 meters). It is IMPORTANT that at any place in the game there won't be more than 7 visible lights at a time. Otherwise, there will be some nasty artifacts. Also, try to avoid as much as possible setting a light intensity over 3. That is, try NOT to have any of the R G B components above 3.

**Very important note!- in this game, you can walk on diagonal tiles. As shown in the picture. So if you're making a fence, that you don't want someone to walk through, and the fence is set on tiles diagonally, you must make it so there are no "walkable height tile corners" touching each other!

***Also very important!- You MUST place unwalkable tiles EVERYWHERE that you cannot walk! Such as underneath mountains, in the middle of the ocean, everywhere! The reason for this is because we do not want monsters to spawn inside mountains, or in areas of the map where you cannot walk, where there is nothing. The entire map MUST be full of height map tiles at the correct height! If you make a map, and you only fill half of the map, the other half MUST be filled with unwalkable tiles!

General: ALL objects MUST be placed at least 1 full ground tile away from the very edges of the map! This is because you cannot fully view those objects(they get cut off at the edge). Important objects should be placed even further inside the map.

--BAD picture:Objects are placed too close to edge of map! We will NOT accept any map like this!!
--GOOD picture:Objects are placed far enough inside the edge of the map to be seen and not cut off. It is ok to put objects used as BORDERS at the edge of the map, such as these huge rocks which are the "mountains", or a very thick layer of trees or some other things are ok too.
**note, I left the green tiles at the edge of the map here so you can easily see what i’m talking about. For your real in game map however, you’ll delete those tiles so you will only see black there. You also need to make ALL those deleted areas UNWALKABLE.



Placing Objects Underground: Should ONLY be done when it really has a good impact on the map. Otherwise you are wasting resources. These 3d objects are made up out of hundreds of triangles that get rendered by the client engine. They will get rendered whether or not they are underground. So the more you place, the slower the game will be.

Random Rotation:This is VERY important to use on objects that are close to each other on the map, or objects that act as a border(mountains or boulders for instance). Press ctrl+w to bring up the random rotation screen.

Height mapping:When you make your height map, always remember "less is more". The less tiles that are unwalkable, the better the experience is for the player. If it looks like you should be able to walk somewhere, then it should not be unwalkable! It is very frustrating as a player trying to click somewhere and you can't go there. Make the height map minimal. Here are examples:

Trees: randomly rotate them to get as much a variety as possbile. And don't get too carried away with placing LOTS of trees with leaves, or plants near water, or in general. Why is this? Because the leaves have a transparency on them, and it makes the game slower, we don't want it to be too slow. So watch your FPS. Of course if you have a fast machine, then it will be no problem for you, but keep in mind the people that don't.

Also...when placing the trees USE THE GRID!!!(G on the keyboard). You need this so that you can accurately place objects for the height map. For instance, with "tree1", this tree only takes up one tile on the grid. So you place it in the center of that tile. Otherwise if you just place them randomly, you'll have a lot of work later on when placing the height map, because you'll have to center the trees, etc. (I know it is, it happened to me, that's why using the grid is NECESSARY, unless you like to make more work for youself)

Ground Mounds: are very useful objects, especially to make corners look more natural. Here are some examples that you should follow with regards to edges between 2 different types of tiles, or water:

2D Edges, Spots of grass/dirt/etc (and some 3D objects): -You MUST alternate the height when you overlap the 2D/3D objects!!: grass edges, dirt, leaves, etc... or flickering will happen. They are by default at .00 Do not place them higher than .03, as it's really not needed (Do this by holding down the shift key+Ins or Del to move the objects up and down with one cm increments).
-Also note that you can use Ground Mound 3d objects for the edges along with 2d objects. This gives more of a variety, makes things easier, and altogether looks better.

Wateredges:when you put the water edges in place, they must be .23 below ground level. Except for "wateredge1.e3d" which you should put at .24 (just use the delete key to make them go to .20, then shift+delete to get that accurate .23cm level). -Also, at times a few edges might not line up properly. You can just place a rock, ground mounds, or some tall grass over the area to conceal it. But try to make them line up as good as possible. We don't want to see 3 million rocks all over the edges.
-In addition, using the ground mounds is a good way to vary the water edges. So put some of them in there too.

Roads: must be placed .01 or .02 above ground. Alternate when you overlap them, or flickering will happen.

Hedgemaze:if you want to make a maze, you MUST place the hedge .01 above ground(just one step), or there will be some nasty flickering when you turn the camera slowly.

**To see "flickering" between objects on the map, just rotate the camera slowly by holding the shift key as you rotate. Or, when you have an object selected(for instance a road), you can move it with your mouse over other roads, and if you see weird flickering, that means it's at the same height as the other road(and you have to make it 1cm lower, or higher to not have the flickering).

Here are the TOTAL areas(the house itself plus the "buffer zone") that the house insides take up on the map: Houses 1-5,10,11,14,15,16,18,house9_small, room1, and Treehouses*......6x6 GT
Houses 9,17, and the Temple.......7x7
Houses 12,13......7x6
Building1, house9_big .....8x8
hallway1.....5x7

*With the treehouses, the "roots" will go outside the 2x2 area. However you can't walk in those roots anyway, so you're not missing anything.

**When you place the inside of a house that already has a door attached to it by default, you must find the same door object and put it in front of that door. This extra door will be used as the objected you click on to leave the house.

Particle keys:
Ctrl+p open particle editor
--On ANY + or - button you can:
-Click with mouse alone go up increments of 0.01
-Click with mouse AND hold down shift: increments of 0.10
-Click with mouse AND hold down ctrl: increments of 1.0
Shift + Right click on Particle mode icon will turn on/off the black boxes

Light keys:
ins/delete-(same as functions as mentioned above)
1, 2, 3 -increase RGB values
alt+ 1/2/3 -decrease RGB values

Height Map keys:
Tab-shows the Height in "3d" mode
ctrl- puts down 9 squares instead of one.(while you have a square selected)
alt- puts down 49 squares
alt+ctrl- puts down 121 squares
Shift+clicking- when a height map tile is under your mouse cursor this acts as a "paint bucket fill".

Tile mode keys:
*you CANNOT rotate, or adjust the height of a tile
Putting many tiles down at once: first, select a tile you want to put down. Then, without deselecting that tile, go into the minimap mode. Then hold down the right mouse button, and you can "draw" the tiles. This also works in the regular map mode.