Vol 1. Basic Elements of a Level : by Master_Designer



Books

This tutorial is both for putting text in books, and putting text onto scrolls.

First, put a book into your level and save it. Then, go into your "wordpad" processing tool and make a new document. I believe any word processor may be used, but I prefer wordpad for this. To make pages in a book, you must number them. For the first page in a book you must first start with Page_0: the next page would be Page_1: etc. After this you type your text in quotation marks. You must end the document with another quotation mark otherwise this will not work. So for example. You might wirte…

Page_0: "Dear Stephanie, I am going on a trip to London to meet with some fellow thieves, be back Wednesday."

OR, for a jounral…
Page_0: "Nothing much happened today"

Page_1: " Nothing much happened today either, I am getting tired of sitting around and waiting on snoty lords. I wish someone would rob them."

(if this last statement were really a wish, his wish would come true!! :0)

After this, save your text in the…

For Thief 1- Books> English

After getting in here, name your file ****.str(where * stands for your file name) This may not work, so you may need to put "***.str"(with the quotation marks")

For Thief2- You must create a Books>English directory Carry out this method the same way, although you need to create your directory first.



Lights

How To: Lights

This tutorial is made for the people who are unsatisfied with the quick light affect they get from placing torches and lanterns etc. This tutorial will jut show you a couple of basic lighting techniques to make your level look 5 times better than it normally would.

1. Hacklights/Omnilights: An omni/hacklight is really just a small light source to use to light up windows and make some neat light effects. These are good for use of making torches look like they cast their glow downwards. Much like a spotlight, but these tend to let the light "float" around the room more and don't center it on one thing. To make an omnilight, either click on the "light" button next to the command box, or go into objects>Fnord>hacklights>omnilght. You usually want to edit the light on these, as the 150 brightness seems to be a bit bright. A brightness of 30 is usually good for making a torch light on the ground.(these work best when you edit the torches light source and set it down to 30-40.)

2. Spotlights: Spotlights are exactly what they sound like. They are used to spotlight an area on a wall, floor or anywhere else you want a light directly focused on. Spotlights are usually used with lanterns, since torches usually don't cast a light directly in one spot as a lantern tends to. To make a spotlight, go into objects>Fnord>hacklights>spotlight. You then may manipulate the spotlight up, down, and to the sides to get the light to shine the right way. The lantern that this spotlight is supposed to depict light from should probably have it's light set to no higher than 30, unless you want the place REALLY lit up. Spotlights are good for making hallways of ceiling lanterns that have a network of shadows inbetween them. This allows for one of the finer aspects of Thief to show….sneaking.



Doors

I had a bit of trouble with doors when I was new to Dromed. So, here is a tutorial to help you make doors! First, lets add a door where you need it. They are located under the "Terrainlike" option in the object higherarchy. Get a "spinny" door of about 4"8 and put it into your world. You will need to "floor" the door. After this, you may notice(if you go to try it) that your door does not work. To fix this, type(without "") "script_load convict" Your door should now work. To get a door to open different ways, just rotate it.

Locking Doors(and keys): To make a locked door, go into it's properties and select "engine features>locked" Click the blank box and close this. Your door is now locked. To hook a door up with a key. Next, create a key and put it somewhere in your level. Now, click into the door and go into enginefeatures> locked and lock your door by checking the box. After this, go into Enginefeatures>KeyDst . Leave the "masterbit" box blank, and type any number from 1-999 in the other boxes(#'s much match). Then, go into your key and go into enginefeatures>Keyscr and type in the exact same numbers as you did for the door. Portalize and your door should now unlock when the key is used on it.

Doors w/Lockpicks: To make a door with lockpicks, you first must give Garrett his picks!(use LockpickSM and LockpickLG). Next, click on the chest or door that you want to make compatible with the lockpicks. (The chest or door must be locked, to lock a door, look above at "Locking Doors.") Then, go into Darkgamesys>pickCfg . Here, you are presented with a few options. If you leave an option blank, it will skip over that step in the picking.

LockBits- This chooses which lockpick will be compatible with this stage. 1 is the pointed, and 10 is the square. 11 is if both can be used.

Pins 1- this is how many stages will be in this pick stage. After a pick stage is finnished, the lock will click to let you know.

Timepct 1- this is the time it takes to pick that stage.

Flags1- Don't worry about this one unless you want a random pick time for that stage. For an example, lets make a 2 stage lock where you must use both lockpicks to open the door or chest etc.

Type 1 into the Lockbits option. This lets Dromed know that the Pointed Lockpick is to be used. Next, put 2 into the Pins 1 option, this means that this stage will have 2 pins to get through. Then, in the Timepct 1, type in 1. This means it will take around 1 second for each pin.

In the next section, type 10 into the Lockbits, 2 into the Pins 2 option, and 2 into the Timepct 1. You are now finnished with your lockpicks and door!



Water

One problem some people have is placing water into their levels. I had this same problem, but I soon figuered out how to make water, and I am now going to teach you how to add water to your levels.

First, make a solid brush, or use whatever it is you want to have water in(ex. Well or a sink). Then, create a Water brush(fill water) and place it inside the solid. Be sure to make the water brush slightly smaller in height etc. so you can have a small shelf before the water. Also, be sure to align the tops perfectly, otherwise this will not work! Portalize and you should now see a brush with the "jorge" texture in the middle of your solid. To make this look like water, select "flow" on the panel next to the command box. Then drag out and resize the flow to fit exactly around your water brush. Click "edit group" and at the bottom choose your color. "bl" for blue, and "gr" for green. Click done and hit the "update in world button" and portalize. The water should change to a funny color. Go into your world and see, the brush looks like water, even though it doesn't in your 3d editing box.

Sometimes water doesn't work for me. I have no idea why, even though I know I have made it correctly. If this doesn't work, just try again.

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