Putting together an LVZ with DCME tutorial

[grazzhoppa]

This walks you through adding images into an LVZ package, and using DCME to place the images on a map, and finally save the .LVZ package. This is a tutorial on how to create LVZ objects called "Map Objects" that appear on the map.

 

Open the "LVZ Manager" from menu Edit>Manage Lvz...

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Press the "New LVZ..." button

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A Box appears where you need to type the name of this LVZ. Do that.

Then press the "Add Item..." button. You're going to add images into this LVZ package now.

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Find the images you want to put into the LVZ on your computer, and select and "open" them.

Do this for all the images you want to be included into this LVZ package.

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What the "LVZ Manager" should look like after adding a bunch of images:

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Now you have to tell DCME what images are going to be used as Map-Objects and/or Screen-Objects.

Click on the "Images" tab. Then press the name of the LVZ package.

Then press the "New Image..." button.

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An item appears in the outline of the LVZ package you're making.

This item needs to point to an image before you can use it as a Map-Object or Screen-Object.

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Select the "Image0" item. Then double-click an image from the list near the bottom of screen. This makes the "Image0" item point to a real image.

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You have to do this for every image you want to use as a Map-Object or Screen-Object.

The method is: "New Image..." then double-click a file name to make the Image# point to that file.

What the "LVZ Manager" looks like after setting up all the Images I added into this LVZ package earlier.

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I'm going to be adding images to the map, so I'm going set up some Map-Objects.

Click the "Map Objects" tab. And press the LVZ package name.

Now press "New Object..."

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A "MapObject0" appears in the list of Map-Objects for your selected LVZ package.

This will be just like creating Image#'s in the "Image" tab - you have to point the Map-Object to an Image.

Select the "MapObject0" item, then double-click an Image name from the list near the bottom of the screen.

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Keep doing it for all the Map-Objects you want.

The method is: Press "New Object..." then double-click an Image name from the list near the bottom of the screen.

This is what it looks like with a bunch of Map-Objects set up:

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You can change the properties of a Map-Object, if you want.

Just click/double-click on the "Value" column to change it.

You don't have to manually type in x and y coordinates, because you can just drag the Map-Object around and let DCME fill in the object's x and y coordinates - that is the biggest reason to use DCME to create LVZ packages when you're using Map-Objects.

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You can add Screen-Objects to the LVZ package if you need to. I'm not going to here.

Anyway, it's the same method as adding Images and adding Map-Objects...

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Now that some Map-Objects are set up, we can place them on the map.

Close the "LVZ Manager". Click on the toolbar button near the bottom of the left side of the screen. This is an LVZ Map-Object placement tool.

Also, make sure the icon near the top of the screen is active - this toggles showing or hiding Map-Objects. When it's pressed down, Map-Objects appear so we can look at them.

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After clicking it, a new toolbar appears near the top of the screen.

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Move the map around to about where you want to have the Map-Object's image appear when playing the game.

Then press the "Move Object to Screen" button on the toolbar near the top of the screen.

That change's the Map-Object's x and y coordinates to ones that you are currently looking at.

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You can see how DCME automatically changed the x and y coordinates of "MapObject0" because of pressing "Move Object to Screen" when "MapObject0" was selected in the toolbar: the x and y values used to be 0 and 0, but now they are like 7000 and 8000.

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You can move all the other Map-Objects you set up, by clicking the drop-down-list in the toolbar and pressing the name of the Map-Object you want to move around.

Then click "Move Object to Screen" again to have it appear where you are currently viewing the map.

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You can also click and hold, while the mouse is on top of an image, and drag it around the map.

Here I put two Map-Objects on top of each other by clicking and dragging them. They are around some regular map-tiles.

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Once you have all your Map-Objects in locations that you want them to be in, go back into the "LVZ Manager".

Press the "Export LVZ..." button. This is like a "Save As..." button - you're going to save the LVZ package now.

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Give the LVZ package a name, then click Save.

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You're done creating an LVZ package, and it's ready to be uploaded to the server and enabled in the arena settings so it can be seen. Talk to moderators/staff-members in your zone about getting your LVZ package uploaded to the server and enabled in the arena settings.

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There are other things called "Screen Objects" which act differently than "Map Objects" - Screen objects are like HUD (Heads Up Display) elements.

LVZ packages can also contain files that can override the default graphics and sounds of Continuum. This tutorial doesn't cover those, but... [short walkthough for these things: just name the new images/sound the same name as the default graphic file you want to override, then add the files into the LVZ package, and you're done].

Edited April 13, 2007 by grazzhoppa

[Samapico]

Nice! I had alot of ppl ask me how to do it... cause I admit it, it's not very easy right now, it will be simplified in the future with quicksteps.

The only advantage now is that you can do everything you can with a LVZ. Like add sound files, or help files, or whatever

 

Some things you might want to add in the tutorial:

-You can add any kind of files in the LVZ package, not only images. Graphic files to be used by continuum will be previewed with its correct animation.

-You can select multiple files to import at once (though some people told me it wasn't working for them... but it 'should' work)

[Witchie NL]

It didnt work in a earlyer version but with 3.1.1 you can add multiple files by selecting them all at once..

Neato mate, i couldnt fully figure out things at first but now i did .

 

Also a few bugs still are:

New LVZ -> Images tab -> New Image -> Remove image.

Another Runtime error which makes DCME crash and make you lose all your unsaved data.

This is only with images. Not with the map/screen objects.

 

Maybe it would also be nice if 'Move objects to screen' on the LVZ toolbar will just draw a new image instead of removing the first image...

Kinda useless now..

[Samapico]

Yeah thers another thread about this one

 

To get around that (I think), you can force dcme to rebuild the whole treeview by clicking another tab and coming back... delete only one at once

[Witchie NL]

you cant... just clicking that buton makes it crash.

[grazzhoppa]

importing multiple images/files at once does not work for me (v 3.1.3)

It allows me to select multiple files inside the dialog box. But after pressing Open, the LVZ Manager doesn't import any of them (the list of files remains empty)

[Samapico]

Yeah it must depend on some system setting or something... the way the dialog control actually sends the list of files is kind of dumb and really hard to handle correctly with VB... it works half the time

[Witchie NL]

Somehow it always works for me now.. but with 1 version earlyer it didnt..

[Drake7707]

!@#$%^&* thats complex. We need to throw in some wizards =.=

 

And drag dropping from windows explorer on the treeview was to be expected ? or was it already done ?

[Samapico]

drag and dropping files work yes, I did that

eventually will work for images, adding the image definition and map object automatically

 

and wizards... I thought exactly the same thing today on my way to the job...

 

Some stuff could be done automatically all the time too.... like adding an image should create a new image definition with that file, unless it is one of continuum's graphic file... Creating the mapobject automatically might not be the best thing since someone could import the image for screenobject

 

But the current layout will probably be kept as some 'advanced' LVZ manager... We'll need a step-by-step manager that asks you what you want to do first... add a mapboject, add a screenobject, add a custom graphic/sound file... etc.

[L.C.]

!@#$%^&* thats complex. We need to throw in some wizards =.=

 

And drag dropping from windows explorer on the treeview was to be expected ? or was it already done ?

I honestly think that it would have been much easier to go ahead with the design/layouts I drew in MSPaint (but this is sheerly opinion, of course). But hey, you gained some experience using trees. Nothing is more important than having more experience and a broader spectrum of coding abilities (I'm not being sarcastic anywhere in this post).

[Samapico]

the tree approach isn't the most simple to use, but it gives alot of flexibility...

 

http://forums.sscentral.com/index.php?s=&a...st&p=150670

 

the thing I didn't like about your design was that everything was at the same place, and it was pretty heavy... if everything needed was there, it would be fine, but it was still needing a lot of buttons to add/remove of each element (images, files)... plus handling screenobjects would require some kind of additionnal form, or more fields , and more buttons to choose if it's a mapobject/screenobject.... plus you had only one list to show images/mapobjects... the distinction between a map object and an image definition is quite important, especially when you need to consider the limit of 255 image definitions (However, it could be done with some code to compare each map object you defined, and make the image definitions needed out of them, re-using the same if needed)

 

I'm not saying it sucks, but it would have needed some more coding and we didn't feel like spending much time on this for now (If we had spent more time, dcme would still have no LVZ functionnality whatsoever )

I'm not saying our current approach is much better either... but its structure is somewhat closer to MGB's lvztoolkit, so I just felt more confortable to start it like this... It will obviously be improved in the next versions, still not sure how though...

[Witchie NL]

Make a Step-by-step LVZ wizard and end with the window you already have now.. (or click 'Skip wizard' and go to the window you have now emedietly).

I think this would be the best way to make it.

 

Or a wizard which will result in a final window which lists all lvz files included. And then you can click new Image/mapobject/screenobject.

Sort of like LvzViewer but with extra functions.

[Samapico]

People will most likely not add all their LVZ stuff at once though

 

Hmm... the best would be to make the lvz toolbar be able to do everything... kind of like the Regions toolbar

[L.C.]

In Valve Hammer Editor (Map Editor for Half-Life) it is extremely easy and quick to use the method that I had illustrated for you. I could create a ready-to-go en!@#$%^&*y in <5 to <10 seconds. You simly right click in the grid, select Create Point-En!@#$%^&*y in right-click menu, select the damage/booleans/functions of the en!@#$%^&*y real quick, close the window, and then move the Point-en!@#$%^&*y where you want it on the grid.

 

Ok. I'll stop.

[Samapico]

Why has this topic fallen into oblivion... probably won't be needed anymore soon when the new LVZ interface is done, but for now it's useful