PK2 Level Editor???

[hakin9]

When will the PK2 level editor be released??

[Janne Kivilahti]

Merry x-mas everyone!!! ;D ;D
Check the site!

[FearMTC]

How can you make a map to your episode? - such as in rooster island 1 and 2.

Now I mean the map where you select the level..

[Janne Kivilahti]

FearMTC said:

How can you make a map to your episode? - such as in rooster island 1 and 2.

Now I mean the map where you select the level..

Once you have made one or more levels (.map-files)
and they are in your episode's directory, the map
screen is automaticly displayed in the game after you
select your episode. In the editor, you can choose the
icon for your level and - if you want - define the x and y
cordinates more specificly.

Instead of the default map picture the game uses, you
can also make your own picture. You need to
make a BMP-image of 640x480 resolution with
256 colors. Name the image file 'map.bmp' and place it in
your episode's directory. The tricky part here is that the
image needs to use the game's 256 color palette, or
otherwise it will look odd in the game. You can get the
game's palette from any image file that came with the
game. There are variations of the palette, but they all
follow the same pattern. Note: Not all image processing
programs understand 256 color palettes. The programs
I use are Paintshop Pro and Deluxe Paint.

[npr32]

Can I run the level editor in a lower resolution than 1024x768? it doesn't work correctly on my computer

[Matina]

mine isn't working also !

what's happenin?

[Iv4n]

Hi

Mine is working fine. So I'll make some suggestions for improveing the editor.

But first I want to say that I'm working on my very first Pekka Kana 2 level. Everything was doing well, untill something went wrong. I was placeing loud speaker in the beggining of the level. It was working fine. So I continue with working on my level. I don't know what was happening, but at some time, when I play the level to test it, I get the loud speaker but Pekka refuse to use it! Pekka even don't get red when is hit twice! What's wrong? Pls help!

Also, I was getting sprites for the needs of my level, but then I found that there is a limit of 100 sprites. Some of my sprites are repeated. How can I remove those sprites that I don't need?

My ideas for improvements are:
Make that the editor can remember the last opened level and windows possitions. Not like it's now - every time I run the editor, I press F1 to disable the help window, then I press the F5 key, search for my level to open it up and then fixing the possition of the most windows which I need. This is little annoying because there is a bug when switching between editor (with alt+tab) and the desktop or other applications. The editor simply crash and exit. This is why every time I want to test my level, I need to save and exit.

Other annoying thing is that the editor don't save your level in one directory, but in the directory that you have last use the F5 menu for your needs (for example in the sprites directory, but not in your episode directory). So every time you need to watch in what directory are you saveing your level.

Minimazing the ineditor windows can be a good idea.

You can make to use the scroll button of the mouse! This will help alot when scrolling in tiles and sprites windows or in the map.

There is an option for secelting an area in the level by pressing the alt+lm. This can be add for selecting tiles too. For example, this will be helpful for makeing faster trees.

Another thing that can be improved is: while seceting an area, the program automatically to copy the selected area in clipboard, instead of makeing the ctrl+c procedure.

Faster copying sprite (like ctrl+) by pressing the scroll button over one that you want (in the map instead of searching it in the sprites window).

[Janne Kivilahti]

Well, I thought that there would be only minor
improvements in the final version of the editor,
but there is obviously still a lot of work to be
done.

Anyways, to answer your questions:

npr32:
The editor supports only 1024x768 resolution
at the moment. I quess that resolution is (for
some reason) causing the problems. I'd be interested
to hear what kind of systems do you have (what
operating system, video card etc.).
I'll make it possilbe in the 1.0 version of
the editor to select the resolution.

Iv4n:
Heh, I didn't think that someone would actually
load 100 different sprites in one level.
Obviously I was wrong. The problems you are
having should go away if you delete some
sprites from the sprite list.

You can delete sprites from the sprite window
by moving the mouse cursor over a sprite and then
pressing DELETE (or DEL) key.

I'll have to expand the 100 sprite limit in the
next version

The editor uses the same engine as the game, so
it shares the same problems with the game (including
the ALT+TAB problem).

I'll be spending my next few weeks doing
my school graduate work, so nothing new is
going to come out for a while. I know the editor
and the manual are lacking a lot of stuff,
and hopefully I'll get those things fixed
eventually. Meanwhile, just try manage with
the current version (if you get it to work)

[Iv4n]

Thank you!

Removing some sprites (including the Rooster and adding it again) did fix my problem! Thanx!

The huge amount of sprites I load before was because I don't know what every sprite was for. So I load one in the level to see it with picture! While I wasn't know that I can delete sprites, they fastly become 100. Now I reduce them much . But if someone is planning to make a really big level, he may use all 100 sprites, so It's a good idea to increase that number.

The editor actually is verry good! With it it's so easy to make levels! Not like other editors for other platform games (i.e. TED5 for CK4-6, KeenIsis ed and others). The one thing that little bit surprise me is that there is another limit with tiles (this time with 150). It's just that I was expecting to see all tiles in the game in one window.

Did I mention the design of the Pekka Kana 2 levels? They are brilliant! I just love the way you make levels! They are so much with a details and it's obvious that they are made with thinking in every little aspect. Just amazing designed levels!

Unfortunately, I have another problem. It's about the sloping (or ehrm titled?) tiles. It's just that Pekka and the enemyes (which move on the ground like the hedgehogs) can't walk correct on them. For example, I made one hill. Pekka just move on the first tile untill he stuck and cannot move anymore up except turning back down. The only thing that he can do is just to jump and continue moveing upwards until he meet the next tile. Then he jump again and so on. Do you have any ideas what's wrong?

Another thing that I want to discuss is about makeing tiles in foreground which can be used to hide Pekka Kana. I just want to make some "secret" rooms. But I can't. I make some fake foreground walls, which do make illusion for a solid ground, but in the game Pekka can't walk through them. They do think as a solid walls. Is there any way to do that?

Also, If you don't mind, I want to share another idea for the editor. It's about improveing the xy position in the world map. Just a little preview of the position is needable. Otherwise it may take a long time to define the exact position you want for every level.

You can make the tiles rotateable.

update: I found which tiles can be used as a foreground walls.

I also take two screenshots of my level:
screenshot 1
screenshot 2

I hope everybody can see them.

That's all from me. Happy New Year!

[Matina]

hey
my editor closes as soon as i click the "ok" button [welcome to PK level editor...]

is this what it sould do, close?
i'm a bit confused... can someone give me instrustions plz??

[Janne Kivilahti]

Matina said:

is this what it sould do, close?

Erhm... No.

I'll have to get into it as soon as I have some
free time...

[Iv4n]

I found more that some .s3m files did not play correct in the game.

In other news, I'm still working on my first level and I'm planning to release it with or without the hill platforms problem. I'm also working on my second level. So I may release staight an episode with two levels (maybe more in the future). I may also include some new music with it.

I sitll cannot manage how to convert pictures in your color palette.

[Janne Kivilahti]

While waiting for the complete manual,
here's a tip to how to make the slopes
work properly: Instead of using a wall
tile next to the slope tile (or hill tile
as I called in the manual) use a
background tile that looks like a wall
tile. Every tile palette should have at
least one (I think it was tile 130 in
every palette). You can use that tile as
a secret wall as well. I fyou use a real
wall tile next to the slope, it will block
the sprites climbing up the hill.

I have never tested how well Housemarque
Sound System plays S3Ms, but since it says
in it's documentation that it can play S3Ms,
I just assumed it could. If it can't, then
there is nothing I can do about it

Making your own tile palettes and background
images is a bit tricky, because of the
256 color palette. You'll need a program that
can convert a picture to a specific 256
color palette. There is two programs that
I know that can do this: Deluxe Paint
and Paintshop Pro. I'm sure there are others,
but these are the ones I use. I'll try to
write a tutorial about this later.

Heh, I'm looking forward see what
you have done Iv4n

[Gargaj]

Using Housemarque wasn't a good idea anyway, I prefer (and really recommend) BASS.DLL, which is free for non-profit use, and is probably the most flawless player to date.

The level editor is cool, but where's the "golly gee i made this part cool, but it looks hard, let's test it whether i can make it"-function?

[Iv4n]

Thanks Janne! I'll try this later.

Gargaj: . I believe that there is no such thing. Whenever I want to test my level, I just change the start position to the part which I want to test.

Btw I really want to know if anyone can see my screenshots! I upload them on one BG server and I wonder if they can be seen by foreigners. If you can't see them, then there is no point for me to upload levels on this server.