VVVVVV Level Editor Tutorial - Part 2: Entities and Room Settings

Started by Terry, July 29, 2011, 11:09:58 PM

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Terry

Ok! This is part two of my short VVVVVV level editor tutorial. Part one can be found here, and covers the basics of getting a level up and running. This tutorial should explain the various settings and tools touched on in the last tutorial in more detail.

When you press SPACE in the editor, you'll see this toolbar pop up:



There are two pages, that's page one. This is really just to remind you what the tools are - you don't need it on the screen to change tools. You can change your selected tool with the < and > keys, or by using the shortkey for the tool you want.



1 - Walls: The first tool is simple enough - it allows you to place walls with the left mouse button. By default you use a single tile brush, but you can use a larger brush by holding the Z key (3x3) or the X key (5x5).



2 - Backgrounds: For drawing background tiles. Z and X brushes work here too. (Some tilesets don't have backgrounds.)



3 - Spikes: Spikes are spikes!



4 - Trinkets: And trinkets are trinkets! You can place a max of 20 on a map due to limitations with how VVVVVV's structured, but this might change in later versions.



5 - Checkpoints: Checkpoints have two orientations - on the floor, or on the celling. Click on them when they're placed to switch between them. When testing a map, you can press ENTER to spawn at the closest checkpoint.



6 - Disappearing Platforms: No settings here!



7 - Conveyors: Click on these when they're placed to change their direction.

(You might be curious about the larger Conveyors on the right picture - these were just an optimization in VVVVVV because in the old version, having too many entities on a screen could cause some slowdown. They're not really relevant anymore)



8 - Moving Platforms: Clicking on these changes their direction.



9 - Enemies: Clicking on these changes their direction too. This version unfortunately only has 16x16 enemies, but hopefully a later patch will bring custom enemies of all sizes.



0: Gravity Lines: Are placed horizontal by default; click the control point to make them vertical.



Onto the second page of tools! First up:



R - Room Text: Place and start typing! (Little bit of trivia, these weren't actually used in VVVVVV, but were implemented in early versions to give instructions. Another "early version" feature that might make a return for the editor; minor collectibles!)



T - Terminals: When placed, ask you to provide a scriptname. I'll discuss scripting in the next part of the tutorial. Terminals trigger scripts when the player stands in front of them and presses ENTER.



Y - Script Boxes: These are like terminals, except that they trigger their scripts as soon as they player enter them. Again, will discuss these more in part three.



U - Warp Tokens: When you place a warp token, you'll be able to move to any other location in the map to place it's end point. Warp Tokens are automatically numbered so you can keep track of them. If you're trying to find the corresponding exit, just mouse over a placed token to see the room it links to.



I - Warp Lines: Can only be placed on screen edges. The only place these were used in VVVVVV was in the tower level! They're partial screen warps - they allow you to warp from one side of a screen but not the other, or from a single entrance in a room. (Usually best avoided if you can just change the entire warp direction of a room instead, as using these doesn't change the background and can be confusing.)



O - Lost Crewmates: The (current) goal of a level is to collect all the lost crewmates. You'll need to place at least one if you want people to be able to finish your level.



P - Level Start Position: This is the where you start the level if you select it from the main menu. If a start point doesn't exist, you'll just spawn in the middle of room (1,1).

Ok, that's tools covered - now, let's move onto settings. If you hold down SHIFT, you'll see this menu:



The box on the right contains reminders for saving and loading (by pressing SHIFT-S or SHIFT-L). The box on the left are the room settings. First up, to change the tileset you're using, press SHIFT-1. (To change the current room colour, press SHIFT-2.)



Ok! The next two settings concern enemies. Press SHIFT-3 to toggle between the different enemy sprites. You can currently use any of the 16x16 enemies from VVVVVV. Later versions should allow custom enemies, though.



If you play this room, you'll notice these enemies go all the way from wall to wall.



If you want them to have more constricted movement, you can set enemy bounds by pressing SHIFT-4. It'll ask you to draw a box. Enemy bounds are not exact, unfortunately. (If you want to get rid of enemy bounds, just draw a box containing the entire room.)



Similarly, you can change platform bounds with SHIFT-5.



The next setting is the room warp direction. Toggle this by pressing SHIFT-W!



You can change the current roomname by pressing SHIFT-R.



Finally, you can change the size of the current map by pressing SHIFT + Arrow Keys. Sorry, I forgot to add this one to the GUI!



That's about it for settings. The last menu is the global menu, which you can access by pressing ESC. Descriptions we covered in the last part, scripts we'll cover in the next part - the only other thing here is the map music:



Ok! Hope this has cleared a few things up :) I'll post the third part soon, which will covers scripting. Later updates might add new features, which will either get added as new parts or appended to these tutorials.

TheoX

I ♥ you.

:o

Anyway... this is awesome, thanks for continuing to make directions.  I'm really looking forward to the scripting one as that's where most of my confusion is, but this cleared up one or two things for me as well.  Oh and I'm also looking forward to being able to use bigger enemies!

I am Ry

Nice and detailed! I like this tutorial :) Can't wait for part three. I wanted to wait till scripting was thoroughly covered to start messing with it. I'm having fun with this level editor so far :viridian:

Arkatox

A minor typo, you said that to load it is Shift-R, when it is Shift-L.

TheoX

Terry -

Is there a way to shrink the left and top sides of the map?  The arrow keys only seem to affect the right and bottom sides.  I'm asking this because I accidentally started my own map in a weird place.  Not that it matters too much, but I'm nit-picky about my levels.

Terry

No, not yet, unfortunately :( I'm gonna add that to the next version.

TheoX

Ok cool!  No hurry, I'm totally satisfied with the amount of things I can do with the current editor.  I'm making a level now, and it's fun!

EDIT: dammit.  I actually need to shift all 8 screens I made over about two spots, because their connection overlaps the edge of the map, so if I expand or shrink the map in ANY direction it'll cut into/spread apart my rooms.  Blast. 

Insani

Quote from: TheoX on July 30, 2011, 09:12:00 PM
Ok cool!  No hurry, I'm totally satisfied with the amount of things I can do with the current editor.  I'm making a level now, and it's fun!

EDIT: dammit.  I actually need to shift all 8 screens I made over about two spots, because their connection overlaps the edge of the map, so if I expand or shrink the map in ANY direction it'll cut into/spread apart my rooms.  Blast.

Me too, I had to change the walk-in cave in Rescue on Polaris to a portal into the facility.  :(

TheoX

Quote from: Insani on July 31, 2011, 04:32:55 AM
Quote from: TheoX on July 30, 2011, 09:12:00 PMdammit.  I actually need to shift all 8 screens I made over about two spots, because their connection overlaps the edge of the map, so if I expand or shrink the map in ANY direction it'll cut into/spread apart my rooms.  Blast.
Me too, I had to change the walk-in cave in Rescue on Polaris to a portal into the facility.  :(

That sucks.  I actually (for some reason) bothered to remake all my rooms.  I wonder if a move (or "shift) room option is forseeable in the future.

SirBryghtside

Quote from: TheoX on July 31, 2011, 04:58:47 AM
Quote from: Insani on July 31, 2011, 04:32:55 AM
Quote from: TheoX on July 30, 2011, 09:12:00 PMdammit.  I actually need to shift all 8 screens I made over about two spots, because their connection overlaps the edge of the map, so if I expand or shrink the map in ANY direction it'll cut into/spread apart my rooms.  Blast.
Me too, I had to change the walk-in cave in Rescue on Polaris to a portal into the facility.  :(

That sucks.  I actually (for some reason) bothered to remake all my rooms.  I wonder if a move (or "shift) room option is forseeable in the future.
On a similar note, a 'box select' option would be pretty useful. There were a lot of times when making my level that I had to move half of it in a certain direction within a room, so having that would be great :)

Thanks for the tutorial, Terry!

Franz24

Quote from: TheoX on July 31, 2011, 04:58:47 AM
Quote from: Insani on July 31, 2011, 04:32:55 AM
Quote from: TheoX on July 30, 2011, 09:12:00 PMdammit.  I actually need to shift all 8 screens I made over about two spots, because their connection overlaps the edge of the map, so if I expand or shrink the map in ANY direction it'll cut into/spread apart my rooms.  Blast.
Me too, I had to change the walk-in cave in Rescue on Polaris to a portal into the facility.  :(

That sucks.  I actually (for some reason) bothered to remake all my rooms.  I wonder if a move (or "shift) room option is forseeable in the future.

I had the same problem, it would be great to have some kind of grid feature where you can see all the rooms and that you can move them from there (:

TheoX

Quote from: Franz24 on July 31, 2011, 02:09:17 PMit would be great to have some kind of grid feature where you can see all the rooms and that you can move them from there (:

Knytt Stories has a really good example of a grid system like that.

TheoX

hi again Terry -

I noticed a couple interesting things in the editor tonight.

1) Music is disabled with M and Sound is disabled with S.  I don't remember you mentioning this anywhere, but it would have explained why my music randomly stopped sometimes and I had to restart VVVVVV - I think it was just toggling while I was writing scripts and using the letters "M" and "S".  It would be beneficial to write this down somewhere in one of the walkthroughs.  If you already did, my apologies.

2) It seems that flag commands aren't done until you leave the room they were toggled in.  A minor complaint, but it did confuse me when I tried to destroy gravity lines in a room and they didn't go away until I left and came back again.  Perhaps this could be remedied in a later update?

SirBryghtside

Quote from: TheoX on August 01, 2011, 03:50:38 AM
hi again Terry -

I noticed a couple interesting things in the editor tonight.

1) Music is disabled with M and Sound is disabled with S.  I don't remember you mentioning this anywhere, but it would have explained why my music randomly stopped sometimes and I had to restart VVVVVV - I think it was just toggling while I was writing scripts and using the letters "M" and "S".  It would be beneficial to write this down somewhere in one of the walkthroughs.  If you already did, my apologies.
Actually, this reminded me of another sound issue I had - when you quit while the sound of getting a Trinket/Comrade is played, all sound is muted for some reason. Not sure if it toggles back when you press 'S', but it's still a problem.

PJBottomz

Hey, still love the game (and I hope to finish my levels [especially Jailhouse Rock])!

So, yeah, about that sound issue. If I ever type M, all sounds are turned off. Because I've been toying with scripting a lot, I'm pretty good at remembering to hit it again, but sometimes I forget.

I think the best way to fix this is to not allow M to disable sound while in the editor, only in the gameplay.

Pretty nice game! Can't wait for the Scripting Tutorial. Really need it. XD