Since I'm making a somewhat big deal out of the fact that Abiathar supports Bio Menace, I figured I should probably play or at least know things about the game. And what better way to play a game than in a let's-play? I recorded a full playthrough with commentary on Bio Menace 1 today and will be uploading one episode a day, with an average length of 12-14 minutes.
Watch the first episode or start the playlist!
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
FMod - v2.1
I did some work on Abiathar today, here are the results:
- Infoplane Override is now an option under Edit instead of a tab in the New Project Wizard. This was done to reduce the length of the NPW and make it less confusing for new users.
- There's a new dialog under Edit: Color Mappings. It allows you to, well, remap the EGA colors to use a different palette in the editor. It even applies to bitmaps.
- Colors have been tweaked very slightly to appear exactly as they do in-game. (Wikipedia's article on the EGA palette, which I had used to write Abiathar's loader, had incorrect values.)
- Bio Menace templates have been added to the New Project Wizard.
These changes were released as v2.1, including yesterday's Level Inspector tweaks.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
FMod - Level Inspector Tweaks
It seems the modding tutorial on KeenWiki had incorrect limits for the number of animated tiles that can appear on the screen at once. It also led me to believe that the limit was for the number of distinct animated tiles that can be onscreen at once, which does not seem to be the case at all. So, I modified the Level Inspector in Abiathar to be better attuned to the state of reality. This change will be included in the next update.
Monday, August 4, 2014
FMod - v2.0.1
Wiivn, one of the Abiathar icon artists, reported a crash bug in v2.0. It occurred when moving to the EGA Layout tab using the Keen 6 template. This was because Keen 6 has more than 2048 background tiles, which I had incorrectly assumed to be the upper limit and therefore used as the maximum for a numeric up-down control. The maximum of that and the related number box has been increased to 65535, fixing the problem. It was published as version 2.0.1.
Also, MoffD (the other icon artist) discovered that it is possible to run Abiathar on Linux using Mono. Unfortunately, since Mono is an incomplete implementation of the .NET Framework, some methods are still missing, causing some strange behavior and warning messages while running Abiathar. It does work, though, and can handle all the features and file IO correctly.
Also, MoffD (the other icon artist) discovered that it is possible to run Abiathar on Linux using Mono. Unfortunately, since Mono is an incomplete implementation of the .NET Framework, some methods are still missing, causing some strange behavior and warning messages while running Abiathar. It does work, though, and can handle all the features and file IO correctly.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
FMod - v2.0!
Abiathar v2.0 has been released to the community on the forums and in the auto-updater! The following is my release post on PCKF describing the update:
First, there's an entirely new way of starting a project! It's called the New Project Wizard, and it is intended to replace the Dependency Collector. (You can bring the DC back in the config file, ShowAdvancedMenuOptions/LegacyDepsCollector.) As I said, it's a wizard, so it steps you through every part of creating a project and offers a lot more features than the old DC.
The features introduced by the New Project Wizard are amazing. Abiathar now supports Bio Menace: choose to input settings manually, select "TED5 MapTemp/MapHead" for the level format, open the GFXINFOE file that comes with Bio Menace, and run the wizard as usual. You should also be able to open other TED5-created games with that or the other TED5 option (MapTemp/MapTHead).
The NPW also permits you to use tile sheet bitmaps as your graphics source. It supports ModKeen and KeenGraph bitmaps (plus KG grouting), automatically detecting what type it was given. You can also take advantage of Infoplane Override to show a different set of tiles in the infoplane layer than in the foreground layer for the same IDs.
Then, even after you're done with the NPW, you can always come back to it to modify your project setup later, using "Project Settings" under Edit. Also, if you get inexplicable errors in the NPW, you can use its new error reporter to send me a report of the issue so I can help tell you what's wrong.
You know the level maps on KeenWiki? You no longer need a separate tool to make them - just use Abiathar's new "Export Image" option under View. The config file lets you do things like clip the outer 2-tile border, use a custom zoom level, or automatically choose a filename based on level properties instead of specifying one every time.
MoffD and wiivn were very kind and made some icons for Abiathar! There are three of them; they appear in various places.
The Row and Column Adjusters have been extended with the ability to update links only if the foreground tile property makes it appropriate. This is not the default, though, because it takes a little longer to complete and doesn't work if the foreground tile changes in-game (such as on the Keen 5 world map). If you don't want to update links for some reason, there's also an option for that. Press Space while using those tools to choose your link update policy.
The Level Inspector has been made more efficient, and given better detection routines (as has the inspection mode of the Tile Property Modifier). It also has a better report GUI, which allows you to scroll through the list, sort it, or save the list to disk.
Performance has been improved, especially while using the Tile Tweaker. Some miscellaneous improvements all over the place speed up other tasks as well.
The Tile Instance Locator (find tool) now allows placing tiles, and updates when you pick a tile from the tile palette.
Translucent colors are now rendered as the normal color with 50% opacity, as opposed to not showing up at all. This works best when loading from EGA resources.
The Reload Graphics command now uses Shift+Enter as a hotkey, and works a lot better. The crashing has been eliminated and the level no longer vanishes while the reload is in progress. (It does still show the "Abiathar" splash screen while reloading on Linux, though, due to a missing API method.) Speaking of keybind changes, the undo command is now simply Z, as opposed to Ctrl+Z. Tile Instance Locator and Tile Instance Remapper have been given shortcuts.
Code cleanliness has been improved, increasing stability and making it easier for me to maintain it and add more features!
A rare level corruption bug involving Dreams levels with embedded tileinfo has been fixed.
Using Assimilate Infoplane no longer disables the infoplane-only palette, and the strangeness with right-clicking in the combined tileset has been removed.
Finally, the plane controls have changed. As you will see quite clearly, the plane state labels give a more obvious visual indication of how active they are. The business with function keys to set plane state is no longer default; the TED5 style is in. You can still use the menu options or the labels to change the state, or switch to the old behavior in the config file. Tilesets can be called with the spacebar and switched between with 1 through 3 while in palette mode, and remember their Y offset. If you don't want to press Space to access them, use Simultaneous Tileset mode or use the appropriate key in the 7-9 range.
Happy modding,
Fleexy
First, there's an entirely new way of starting a project! It's called the New Project Wizard, and it is intended to replace the Dependency Collector. (You can bring the DC back in the config file, ShowAdvancedMenuOptions/LegacyDepsCollector.) As I said, it's a wizard, so it steps you through every part of creating a project and offers a lot more features than the old DC.
The features introduced by the New Project Wizard are amazing. Abiathar now supports Bio Menace: choose to input settings manually, select "TED5 MapTemp/MapHead" for the level format, open the GFXINFOE file that comes with Bio Menace, and run the wizard as usual. You should also be able to open other TED5-created games with that or the other TED5 option (MapTemp/MapTHead).
The NPW also permits you to use tile sheet bitmaps as your graphics source. It supports ModKeen and KeenGraph bitmaps (plus KG grouting), automatically detecting what type it was given. You can also take advantage of Infoplane Override to show a different set of tiles in the infoplane layer than in the foreground layer for the same IDs.
Then, even after you're done with the NPW, you can always come back to it to modify your project setup later, using "Project Settings" under Edit. Also, if you get inexplicable errors in the NPW, you can use its new error reporter to send me a report of the issue so I can help tell you what's wrong.
You know the level maps on KeenWiki? You no longer need a separate tool to make them - just use Abiathar's new "Export Image" option under View. The config file lets you do things like clip the outer 2-tile border, use a custom zoom level, or automatically choose a filename based on level properties instead of specifying one every time.
MoffD and wiivn were very kind and made some icons for Abiathar! There are three of them; they appear in various places.
The Row and Column Adjusters have been extended with the ability to update links only if the foreground tile property makes it appropriate. This is not the default, though, because it takes a little longer to complete and doesn't work if the foreground tile changes in-game (such as on the Keen 5 world map). If you don't want to update links for some reason, there's also an option for that. Press Space while using those tools to choose your link update policy.
The Level Inspector has been made more efficient, and given better detection routines (as has the inspection mode of the Tile Property Modifier). It also has a better report GUI, which allows you to scroll through the list, sort it, or save the list to disk.
Performance has been improved, especially while using the Tile Tweaker. Some miscellaneous improvements all over the place speed up other tasks as well.
The Tile Instance Locator (find tool) now allows placing tiles, and updates when you pick a tile from the tile palette.
Translucent colors are now rendered as the normal color with 50% opacity, as opposed to not showing up at all. This works best when loading from EGA resources.
The Reload Graphics command now uses Shift+Enter as a hotkey, and works a lot better. The crashing has been eliminated and the level no longer vanishes while the reload is in progress. (It does still show the "Abiathar" splash screen while reloading on Linux, though, due to a missing API method.) Speaking of keybind changes, the undo command is now simply Z, as opposed to Ctrl+Z. Tile Instance Locator and Tile Instance Remapper have been given shortcuts.
Code cleanliness has been improved, increasing stability and making it easier for me to maintain it and add more features!
A rare level corruption bug involving Dreams levels with embedded tileinfo has been fixed.
Using Assimilate Infoplane no longer disables the infoplane-only palette, and the strangeness with right-clicking in the combined tileset has been removed.
Finally, the plane controls have changed. As you will see quite clearly, the plane state labels give a more obvious visual indication of how active they are. The business with function keys to set plane state is no longer default; the TED5 style is in. You can still use the menu options or the labels to change the state, or switch to the old behavior in the config file. Tilesets can be called with the spacebar and switched between with 1 through 3 while in palette mode, and remember their Y offset. If you don't want to press Space to access them, use Simultaneous Tileset mode or use the appropriate key in the 7-9 range.
Happy modding,
Fleexy
Saturday, August 2, 2014
FMod - Pre-Release Cleanup
I'm on track to release Abiathar v2.0 tomorrow! Today, I just did some minor clean-ups and tests of various obscure subsystems. The following things were changed:
- The hotkey for Reload Graphics changed from Enter to Shift+Enter to prevent people who press Enter unnecessarily from accidentally triggering a CPU-intensive process.
- The Graphics Source tab's default in the New Project Wizard is now to use the original game's graphics.
- Saving in the Templates dialog now refreshes the templates list in the New Project Wizard.
- Menu separators were added to the File menu.
Now, I just need to proofread the help file again, convert it to a nice PDF, and write up the release post!
Friday, August 1, 2014
FMod - Less Obtrusive Graphics Reload
Gridlock on IRC today requested that the Reload Graphics function receive two adjustments, both of which turned out to be somewhat tricky. First, he wanted it to preserve the plane states and position in the level, which is very understandable. I ended up adding an "after reload" flag to InitializeGraphics that suppresses the, well, initialization of the plane states and selected tiles. The reloading function itself now saves the X and Y offsets inside the level view state and restores them after the InitializeGraphics call.
Then, he noted that, while reloading, the "Abiathar" logo/image appears instead of the level, which makes it hard to compare different versions of graphics because it's interrupted by a big splash screen. I did a whole lot of messing around and eventually settled on using the Windows API to send a "stop repainting" message to the form before doing the reload. For some reason, the level would simply vanish while the graphics reloaded, which was strange because I couldn't find a call that re-rendered anything. So, the issue is now solved, and even falls back on the old behavior if that API call is unavailable (i.e. it's running on Linux).
In other news, I have placed a moratorium on new features until the v2.0 update, and the documentation update has been completed. After a little more testing and feedback, Abiathar v2.0 will be released on August 3.
Then, he noted that, while reloading, the "Abiathar" logo/image appears instead of the level, which makes it hard to compare different versions of graphics because it's interrupted by a big splash screen. I did a whole lot of messing around and eventually settled on using the Windows API to send a "stop repainting" message to the form before doing the reload. For some reason, the level would simply vanish while the graphics reloaded, which was strange because I couldn't find a call that re-rendered anything. So, the issue is now solved, and even falls back on the old behavior if that API call is unavailable (i.e. it's running on Linux).
In other news, I have placed a moratorium on new features until the v2.0 update, and the documentation update has been completed. After a little more testing and feedback, Abiathar v2.0 will be released on August 3.
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