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DUNE - Developer's Universal Non-programming Environment Typed by ZIGOR of THE PUNISHERS, with help from CAPTAIN ZED. INTRODUCTION Developer's Universal Non-Programming Environment - DUNE - is a games writing package from CRL that allows you to link together pictures, animations, text files, music files, sound samples and executable programs. In the finished product, the user is moved from one display to another simply by clicking on different areas of the screen. Each screen is made up of a picture or an animation and is called a SHOT. Sounds, text files or programs are linked to one particular shot. You define the way the user moves between one shot and another using BUTTONS and AVENUES. Writing a game using DUNE requires no programming ability - hence the name - although an understanding of the way the Amiga's operating system works is a help! DUNE currently works on the Commodore Amiga. It can be used on an A500 with one floppy drive although two drives makes it a lot easier. It is hoped that versions of DUNE will be available in the future running on PC compatibles, the Acorn Archimedes and the Atari ST [Not now you've gone bust - Ed.] This documentation refers to V2.2. If you have an earlier version of DUNE, please contact CRL for an update [You'll get fuck all reply - Ed.] BOOTING DUNE Boot the disk and load the DUNE program from Workbench. Press the Esc key when you see the DUNE logo to get back to the control screen. THE DUNE CONTROL SCREEN The Control Screen is split into four windows: The Shot Information window The current Button Information window A miniture of the current shot The Score Conditional Route window (not yet implemented) If you're starting a new game you need to remove any button data associated with the DUNE logo and define your own buttons or you may wish to get rid of the DUNE logo entirely and start your game with your own picture or animation. SHOTS Click the right mouse button and the menu bar will appear at the top of the screen. There are six menus - PROJECT, ACT, SHOT, BUTTON, DISK and TEST. Select the SHOT menu and move the mouse until NEW SHOT is highlighted. Release the mouse button to select this option. DUNE will re-initialise and all routine information will be zeroed. The DUNE logo will remain however, until you load in a new picture to replace it. If you wish to replace the DUNE logo with your own starting picture or animation, select LOAD from the SHOT menu and another menu will pop up asking you what you wish to load. Select PICTURE/ANIM and the file-selector will ask you which picture or animation you wish to load. Choose the one you want and it will be displayed briefly on the screen before you are returned to the Control Screen. DUNE will automatically detect whether you have chosen a still picture or an animation. The new picture or the first frame of the animation will be shown in the Minipic window. You can create the pictures to use in DUNE using any paint package or use digitised pictures, but they must be in ILBM format. Animations can be created in DPaint III provided they are saved as compacted animations, or using Photon Cel Animator. DUNE identifies the different shots that make up your game by the names you give them and saves the information associated with the shot to disk. If you name your first shot "STARTSHOT" it will automatically be loaded in when you boot DUNE. The name of the shot is displayed at the top of the Shot window. To change it, select CHANGE SHOT NAME from the SHOT menu and type in the new name. Whenever you name a shot or refer to it in Button Information, you must use the full pathname of the shot including the disk name which it is stored on - for example, DUNE:STARTSHOT. As well as the main picture or animation associated with a shot, you can have up to three picture overlays. A picture overlay is an ILBM picture which is displayed on top of the main picture but with the "background" colour transparent so the main picture shows through, for example, putting a border around the main picture. To use a picture overlay click on the "PICK OVERLAY" number. It will cycle through the numbers 1 - 2 - 3. When the number you want is displayed, type in the name of the picture to use as an overlay (not forgetting the disk name). BUTTONS In order to move from one shot to another you define buttons on the screens. When the user clicks on the button, a new shot will be loaded. Buttons are polygons, any size or shape you like - a button can cover the entire screen. There is no limit to the number of buttons you have on a shot. To definea button, select ADD BUTTON from the BUTTON menu. Move the cursor down to the mini-picture and click the left button where you want one of the points of the polygon to be. When you move the mouse you'll see a line from the first point to the mouse pointer. Click the left button to define the second point of the polygon - and now you have a triangle joining the two points you defined and the mouse pointer. As you add points, you'll be able to see the kind of shape you are making. Obviously, a button must have at least three points or it wouldn't be a polygon - but there is no upper limit to the number of points it can have. Each time you click the left mouse button, another point will be defined. To finish the polygon, decide where the last point is going to end and click the right mouse button. This defines the point joining up the last point to the first and exits back to the control screen. If you decide you have put a button in the wrong place on the picture, select MOVE BUTTON from the BUTTON menu, click on the button you wish to move and it will disappear. Any information you have already entered about what happens when that button is selected will remain and you can redraw it in the correct place. To remove a button altogether, select DELETE BUTTON from the BUTTON menu and click on the offending button. This removes it and all data associated with it. If you add, move or delete a button in error, select BUTTON UNDO from the BUTTON menu to cancel the incorrect change. If the button you wish to add is quite small, you may wish to draw it on the full-screen picture. Select ADD BUTTON and hit the escape key to switch to the large picture. Draw your polygon then hit escape again to return to the Control Screen. AVENUES Once you've defined a button, you must specify what happens when it is selected - which new shot will be loaded and any other special effects such as sound samples or spot animations. This is called an AVENUE. Each button can have up to 256 avenues with probabilities assigned to each. Select a button by clicking on it in the mini-picture. If you have already defined one or more avenues for the button, the information for the first avenue will be displayed in the Current Button Information window. If no avenues have been defined, the information will be blank and you must add an avenue by clicking on the ADD button. The X and Y coordinates at the top of the window refer to the first point you defined, counted in pixels from the top left of the picture. To specify which new shot will be loaded when the avenue is called, either click on the "ROOT/PROG" box and type in the shot name (including the disk name) or select INSERT AVENUE from the BUTTON menu, then ROOT from the pop-up menu. If you have more than one avenue from a button, you must assign the probability of each avenue being called by typing a number into the "AVENUE CHANCE" box. For example, if you had two avenues leading from one button, each with a chance of 1 there would be a 50-50 chance of one being called. If one avenue had a chance of 9 and the other of 1, there would only be a 10% chance of the second being called. The chance defaults to 0 and even if you only have one avenue from a button, you must type a 1 in the chance box or the user will go nowhere. You can edit avenues you have previously defined; the UP and DOWN buttons cycle through the avenues for the selected button and the avenue number is shown. You can keep adding avenues by clicking on the ADD button, and the DELETE button removes the current avenue. ANIMATIONS If you load in an animation instead of a picture, you have further options available to you. When you load the animation, the first frame will be displayed in the mini-picture window. Any buttons you define for the shot will apply to the whole animation, but the avenues that lead from the button can apply to any or all of the animation frames. For each avenue, the number of the current animation frame is shown in the Curent Button Information Window. Next to that is a button saying either ENABLED or DISABLED. Clicking on the box toggles between the two. So for each button you can specify which avenue might be called if the user clicks on the button while a particular frame of the animation is on screen; you could have a button that will do nothing at all unless it is selected at exactly the right point in the animation. To go through the animation frame by frame, select NEXT ANIMATION FRAME from the BUTTON menu - or type the frame number directly into the box. You can also have a closing animation for each avenue that will run before the new shot is loaded in. However, the first frame of the closing animation MUST be the same as the first frame of the main animation, or the screen display will be corrupted. To use a closing animation for an avenue, either type the file name (including the disk name) into the box, or select INSERT AVENUE and ANIMATION from the BUTTON menu. When the avenue is called, the main animation will continue playing until it cycles back to the first frame and then the closing animation will run. SAVING THE SHOT Once you have added all the buttons and defined all their avenues, you should save the shot to disk. You can either save it under the name it currently has - select SAVE SHOT from the SHOT menu - or you can save it under a new name by selecting SAVE SHOT AS and typing in the new name. Then select NEW SHOT and load in a new picture, change its name, add the buttons and avenues, save it and so on. You can go back to a shot at any time and edit any of the buttons and avenues. Select LOAD from the SHOT menu and select SHOT from the pop-up menu. TEST MODE Once you have set up several shots, you will no doubt wish to see them in action! DUNE allows you to test your game at any point, starting from any shot you wish. The TEST menu has two options: TEST MODE ON and TEST MODE off. TEST MODE OFF is the option you have been using to make and edit the shots. If you select TEST MODE ON you will be taken to the current shot and will be able to click on various parts of the screen and see if all the right things happen. When you wish to return to the Control Screen, simply hit ESC key and the Test Mode will be switched off. SOUND DUNE allows you to make full use of Sound Tracker music scores and sampled sound. For each shot, you can have one Sound Tracker score, one sample which will play when the shot is loaded and a sample for each avenue which will play when a button is selected. The Begin Sample will play as soon as the picture associated with the shot is loaded. To specify the sample, type the name of the sample (including the disk name) in the Shot Information Window or select LOAD from the SHOT menu and then select BEGIN SAMPLE. You can specify the sample loop - how many times the sample will play - by typing the number into the box. The sample will play until it has completed the specified number of loops or until another sample is loaded. If you don't want the sample to start playing straight away you can delay it by clicking on the "DELAY FOR" box and typing in the number of seconds. The Sound Tracker score will play continuously from the time the shot is loaded until a new score or sample is loaded in - or until it is told to stop. The end sample will play as soon as the user clicks on a button to move to a new shot. Each avanue can have a different sample and you can either type the name of the sample directly into the box for the relevant avenue, or select INSERT AVENUE from the BUTTON menu and choose SAMPLE from the pop up menu. As with Begin Samples, you can specify the number of loops and the delay. The sample will play for the specified number of loops, or until a new sample or Sound Tracker score is loaded. You can stop a sample or Sound Tracker score from playing, without having a new sound by typing the keyword STOP on a later shot, instead of a new sample or score name. Silence is golden! If you can't remember which sample or Sound Tracker score you wish to use, you can select PREVIEW SAMPLE or PREVIEW SOUND TRACKER from the SHOT menu and listen to the result. When you have heard enough ,select HALT SAMPLE/TRACKER from the SHOT menu. Note: The player will not play recent Tracker modules, you will have to dig out your really old copy of Sound Tracker!! TIME LIMITS If you wish, you can set a time limit on a shot - if the user doesn't click on a route within a given time, they will be taken to a new shot against their will! Time limits are measured in microseconds (there are 999,999 microseconds to a second, which should be sufficient for anyone!) and you enter the number of microseconds you wish to allow into the Shot Information Window and the name of the shot to which they will be sent if they are too late - or select EDIT TIMEOUT ROUTE from the SHOT menu and select the name of the shot. SCORING A game wouldn't be much fun without some way to keep track of how well - or how badly! - you were doing and DUNE provides you with ten different scores that can be updated in a variety of ways. If you select EDIT SCORES from the SHOT menu, a large (and rather confusing) window will open, showing you all the scoring information. For each of the ten scores you can choose whether it is displayed on the screen for the current shot. Simply click on the word "ON" in the display column and it will become highlighted. If you decide you don't want it displayed, click on the word "ON" again and the highlighting will be removed. If the score is being displayed you can select the font that will be used. An example of the current font is shown at the top of the window. Click the right mouse button to access the menu and you will find just one option - FONT. This menu lists the available fonts, allowing you to select one and specify the point size. All the scores will be displayed in the same font - you can't use different fonts for different scores. However, you can use different colours for the different fonts, but you can only use the colours from the palette of the picture used in the shot. For each score, you type in the number for the colour you wish to use. Since there is no easy way of knowing which number will give you which colour in the palette, I suggest you experiment by typing in different numbers and see what happens! (I suppose we will have to, 'cos of your lame efforts! ED.) Each of the scores can appear anywhere on the screen - type in the co-ordinates (in pixels) for the correct postion. If you wish to have any words associated with the score, for example "You have achieved the magnificent score of XXXXX points!!" or "You have XXXXX Imperial Groats" you will have to include the text in the picture, leaving a gap for the actual score. For each shot, you can change any or all of the ten scores. There are two ways to change a score. Firstly, if "SET" is highlighted, the number you have typed in the "CHANGE" column will replace the previous score, regardless of what the previous score was. Alternatively, if "SET" is not highlighted, the number you enter in the "CHANGE" column will be added to the previous score and if you prefix the number with a minus sign, the number will be subtracted. You can also combine the various scores. For Score 1, if you type +S3 instead of a number (the 'S' must be in upper case) then the contents of Score 3 will be added to the contents of Score 1 and the result placed in Score 1. Or if you use a minus sign, it will be subtracted. Of course, if "SET" is not highlighted, the contents of Score 3 will replace the contents of Score 1. You can combine or replace as many of the ten scores as you wish using this method, but you must remember that the scores are updated sequentially from 1 to 10 - so adding Score 3 to Score 1 will use the contents of Score 3 from the previous shot and not take account of any changes you make to Score 3 on the current shot. When you have finished editing the score data, click on the top left of the window to close it. To save the data, you need to save the shot. TEXT FILES DUNE lets you display up to five text files on the screen for each shot. They all apear at the same time, when the shot is loaded in, on top of the picture associated with the shot. They are "transparent" to the picture and to each other, so careful placing is needed to avoid them overlapping or getting lost in parts of the picture. You can create the Text Files in a Word Processor or Text Editor, but they must be saved as ASCII. To specify which text files you want to use, select EDIT TEXT from the SHOT menu. The text window will appear. For each of the five files you want to use, click on the word "NEW" and the file selector will come up, allowing you to choose your file. Or you can type the name directly into the "FILE NAME" box (as always, don't forget the disk name!!) An example of the font the files will use is shown at the top of the window. To change the font, click the right button and choose a new font from the FONTS menu, selecting the correct point size. All five text files will be displayed in the same font and point size. However, each file can appear in a different colour. Click on the "COLR" column and type in the number of the colour you wish to use. As with scores, you'll have to experiment to see which number produces which shade. You can also specify the X and Y co-ordinates for the start of each text file, in pixels from the top left of the screen. Each line in the text file will continue until there is a carriage return. There's no word-wrap, so you need to put the returns in the correct place when you type the file. When a carriage return is reached, the new line will start directly underneath the first line using the same X co-ordinate. The Y co-ordinate will be increased by the value in the "SPAC" column. This is the spacing between the top of one line and the top of the next. You may have to experiment with this to make sure the lines aren't overwriting each other - particulary if you are using a large point size. If the text file is too long to fit in the available space, it will fall off the bottom of the screen but if you are only missing a few lines, try reducing the spacing or using a smaller point size. When you have finished with the Text display Window, click on the top left corner to close it. Don't forget to save the shot, or the information will be lost! ACTS Buttons are static. Clicking on a button will take the user to the same destinsation - barring probabilities from avenue chances - no matter how many times they do it. However, there is another method of moving from shot to shot that is dynamic and can result in a different thing happening each time. This is called an ACT. Unlike all the features of DUNE discussed so far, an act is not associated with a particular shot. It stands alone and can be called from any shot. Just like shots, acts have to be named in order for them to be safely stored on disk. Select NEW ACT from the ACT menu and you will be asked to give a name to the act. Once again, don't forget the disk name! Selecting EDIT ACT NAME willl let you change it if you get it wrong. Select EDIT ACT DATA and the Act Window will appear. The best way to think of an act is as a list of instructions. A typical act might look something like this: Top Of File DUNE:shot1 DUNE:shot1 DUNE:shot4 GAME:dead End of File The "Top Of File" and "End Of File" are simply markers to help you see where you are in the list of instructions. DUNE uses this of instructions by working its way down it from top to bottom, implementing the next instruction each time the act is called. The first time the act is called the shot specified in the first instruction will be loaded - in this case, shot 1 on the DUNE disk. The second time the act is called, it will go to the second instruction - again, shot 1 and the third time the third instruction - shot 4 and so on. When you first open the Act Window, the list will just contain the Top Of File and End Of File markers. The End Of File will be highlighted. To construct the list of instructions that make up an act, click on the "ROUTE TO ADD" box and type in the name of the shot and then click on "ADD ROUTE". The route will be added to the list, above the highlighted entry. You can add a route anywhere in the list by clicking on "UP" and "DOWN" to move the highlighter bar. Click on "DELETE ROUTE" and the highlighted route will be removed. Keep on adding new routes by clicking on the "ROUTE TO ADD" box and editing the shot name appropriately. Once you have completed the list of instructions that make up an act, click on the "ROUTE TO ADD" box and type in the name of the shot and then click on "ADD ROUTE". The route will be added to the list above the highlighted entry. You can add a route anywhere in the list by clicking on "UP" and "DOWN" to move the highlighter bar. Click on "DELETE ROUTE" and the highlighted route will be removed. Keep on adding new routes by clicking on the "ROUTE TO ADD" box and editing the shot name appropriately. Once you have completed the list of instructions for the act, click on "SAVE CHANGES" to save the act to disk and the window will close. To call an act, put the name of the act (including the disk name) in the button avenue information, instead of a shot name. You can set up as many acts as you want and call them from any shot, using the avenue chance to set probabilities. If you call an act that has finished - ie. all the instructions in the list have been carried out - it will go back to the beginning and carry out the first instruction again. You can also nest acts, so that one act will call another, by adding the name of the act to the list of instructions for another act. When the second act has finished, it will return to the next entry in the first act. At any time, entering the keyword "SceneEnd" for an avenue instead of a shot or act name will jump you to the next instruction in the act that was last called. Selecting LOAD ACT from the ACT menu will load in a previously saved act, allowing you to modify it. THE DISK CACHE DUNE will set up a disk cache and keep the shots you have used in memory, thus saving the time it takes to pull pictures and samples off disk. There is an option to clear the cache in the DISK menu. AVENUE PREFIXES When you type the information for an avenue into the Current Button Information Window, if you prefix the name of the shot or act with a circumflex (^), DUNE will add it to a stack. The stack can contain up to 50 different avenues. Then, on another shot, typing in the keyboard RETURN instead of a shot or act name will retrieve the avenue from the top of the stack, removing it from the stack. You can also run executable files from within DUNE. Instead of the shot or act name, type the name of file you wish to run (including the disk name) and prefix it with an exclamation mark (!). This means that if you wish to include a section in a DUNE designed game that could not be written with DUNE itself, you can jump into a previously written program. When the program has finished running, you will be returned to the shot that the program was called from. This is also useful if you wish to use DUNE as a shell from which to run other programs. HINTS AND TIPS Before using DUNE, should design the game on paper and decide which pictures you are going to use for each shot and more importantly, what name you are going to give each shot. Otherwise you will get confused when you set up the avenues and risk forgetting which avenue leads where or getting the shot names wrong. Put the pictures for a DUNE game onto the same disk that you are going to save the shot onto - and the same goes for music files, samples and text files. To minimise confusion when using the file selector, make full use of file extensions to distinguish between pictures, shots, acts, etc - or keep them in seperate directories on the disk. Recommended file extensions are: .PIC - Picure .ANM - Animation .SHT - Shot .ACT - Act .SAM - Sample .STR - Sound Tracker Test your game every time you finish setting up a new shot. If it doesn't give you the results you expected, check you have spelt the shot or act name in the routing box correctly and that you have included the disk name. Check you haven't left the avenue chance to zero. When you have finished writing your game using DUNE, CRL will compile it into a working game. (Ha!! Some chance! Ed.) THINGS TO COME * *(Not from CRL, now they've gone bust! We shall add them here anyway, for a laugh!! Ed.) DUNE is still under development and each version will contain new features. The following enhancements will be implemented soon. OVERALL TIME LIMIT - You will be able to specify an overall time limit within which the user must have reached a particular point in the game. SCORE CONDITIONAL ROUTES - You will be able to add conditions to the routes based on the current score - for example if Score 1 is greater than or equal to 50, use this avenues otherwise use that avenue. DISK SWAPS - You will be able to specify how you wish disk swaps to be handled and there will be the capability to add a sampled voice asking the user to insert the required disk. If you have any ideas for features you would like to see in DUNE or if you think any feature could be made easier to use contact CRL. THE MENUS/KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS Most of DUNE's menu options have keyboard shortcuts which are shown beside the menu options. They are accessed by pressing the Amiga key at the same time as the appropiate letter (In the brackets). PROJECT Edit Global Data Not yet implemented Quit DUNE (Q) ACT New Act Edit Act Name Load Act Edit Act Data SHOT New Shot (N) Change Shot Name (C) Load... Shot (L) Picture/Anim (I) Begin Sample (7) Sound Tracker (K) Save Shot (S) Save Shot As (A) Preview 8SVX Sample (8) Preview SoundTracker (P) Halt Sample/Tracker (H) Edit Time Out Route (Y) Edit Scores (0) Edit Text (X) BUTTON Next Anim Frame (=) Add Button (B) Move Button (M) Delete Button (D) Insert Avenue... Route Animations Sample Button Undo (U) DISK Clear Cache TEST Test Mode On (T) Test Mode Off (O) End.