The Map Maker

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The Main Screen

Like in Photoshop, this program has a side panel with icons to click on to do various things:

Icon	Function	What Does It Do?
	NPC Script Menu	Takes you to the NPC Script Menu.
	Place Mode	Takes you to placing mode. You can also right-click anywhere to do this.
	Boundaries Menu	Takes you to the Boundaries Menu.
	Colission Mode	Takes you to colission mode where you can place walls within the map.
	Dimensions Menu	Takes you to the Dimensions Menu. *WARNING: Use this with extreme caution, or for experimentation.*
	New File	Generates a new map based on dimensions entered later.
	Open File	Loads a previously saved map.
	Save File	Saves a map to work on later.
	Enemy Menu	Takes you to the Enemies Menu, to place random battle enemies.
	Music Menu	Takes you to the Music Menu, to set a background song for the map.

Placing a Sprite

In the icon Mode, click on a sprite from the Sprite Palette (to the right of the arrows)
You can scroll through the palette by clicking on the arrows.
Right-click anywhere on the screen to go to placing mode. (This way is a little easier.)
Left-click anywhere on the screen to place a sprite there.
To return to Icon Mode, right-click anywhere on the screen.

Changing Sprite Attributes on a Map

Click on the wall icon to enter Colission Mode.
On an empty sprite, left-click to change the attribute to a collision sprite, which means that the character can't go through this sprite.
On a filled sprite, right-click to change the attribute to a normal sprite.
On any sprite, press the left and right buttons together to change the attribute to a battle sprite, which means that a random battle can occur if the character is on that sprite.
When finished, left-click on the top left hand corner of the screen to return to Icon Mode.

Sprite Codes

Icon	Name	Sprite Code
	Blank	100-131
	Battle	132-163
	Wall	200-231

Changing Sprites in the Palette

To change sprites in the palette, right click on any sprite in the palette and follow the instructions. Type "back" to return to the previous menu.

Entering NPC Script Locations

To pinpoint each NPC Script (up to 9) that can be used in each map:

Move your mouse to where you want the NPC Script to appear.
Notice the top-left hand corner of the screen. Remember the first two numbers. Those the are x and y sprite location values, respecively.
Click on the NPC Scripts icon.
Press the number of the NPC Script Location to adjust, or press 0 to exit the screen.
Enter the NPC Code.

The NPC Code is formatted as follows (NOTE: The spaces between the digits are required!)

## ## # file.npc

The first two digits represent the x-sprite location value. The second two digits represent the y-sprite location value. The third digit is the NPC Script mode, which tells the program what part of the script to run. The last piece of information is the filename (and this time type in the .npc). If you mess up, don't worry; you can always change it again by repeating these steps. Here's an example:

09 17 1 wtchecker.npc

This means that there is an NPC script called wtchecker.npc starting in Mode 1 nine sprites to the right, and 17 sprites down.

Boundaries Menu

You are presented with a list of options. Press the number followed by ENTER to edit that variable. The north, south, east, and west names are simply the names of the map files. Don't enter the extension. The x and y start variables of each direction are how many sprite lengths the "camera" starts at. For example, if x and y start are respectively, 3 and 4, the "camera" will shift the map three sprite-lengths to the right and four sprite-lengths down when you arrive at the new map.

Dimensions Menu

I won't discuss this in much detail, since it's rarely used, and can be dangerous if you use it incorrectly. Basically, what this does is allows you to change the dimensions of the map in sprite-lengths. But watch out, because the results are pretty unpredictable. But if you like it that way, be my guest.

Enemies Menu

The Enemies menu allows you to choose nine enemies for the random battles. When a random battle occurs, the program will randomly choose between the nine you've chosen. Be sure to fill every space with an enemy, or there might be times you would have a battle with nothing. LOL.

To adjust an enemy:

Click on the Enemies Icon.
Press the number corresponding to the enemy you wish to adjust, or press 0 to exit the menu.
Type in the name of the enemy without the three-letter extension. If you mess up, you can go back to the menu by repeating these instructions.

New, Open, and Save

Each of these options are similar in menu style. To open and save a file, click on the appropriate icon, and type in a filename. Save your work often by typing in the same filename (I know, I need to work on that one.) The New Map menu simply asks for the number of columns (sprite-lengths to the right), and rows (sprite-lengths down) to work with.