OP2Mapper 2.0 Alpha 1, Now Available!

[BlackBox]

Alright, I've finally decided that OP2Mapper is in a stable enough state to release as an alpha (So I think).

It can't create new maps from scratch yet, and doesn't have a few features like undo, but it should still be several steps ahead of the current mapper.

This is an ALPHA version, meaning it could crash at any time. Backup your map files often, and save often. (It's unlikely that it would corrupt the map file, but you never know).

To run the mapper you MUST have an installed working copy of OP2 installed. (Well, maps.vol actually. This version reads the tileset data directly instead of the mapper's own cache so it should be more reliable).
You also must have the VB6 runtime (comes with OP2, as msvbvm60.dll, and most computers probably have this file in their system folder. If the editor gives a specific error about this file, you don't have it. Copy it into the mapper folder).

After extracting the zip file, you need to run mappersetup.bat to complete the installation. Failure to do this will result in the program failing with a bunch of runtime errors.

If at any point you need to uninstall the Mapper, run mapperremove.bat. This will unregister all the modules mappersetup.bat registered, and delete the program executable.

If you get any crashes, run time errors, or Application shell errors, please tell me, and provide as much information as you can (like the actual error message / number, and what you were trying to do when it happened).

I, nor anyone else at OPU, can take any responsibility if this program ends up corrupting the map file you spent 10 hours on, or anything else on your computer. Use at your own risk, backup often, save often, and you should be fine.

To download the Mapper:
Go Here
Please read the above if you haven't, or you're gonna get strange errors when you try to run!

-- op2hacker

[Leviathan]

And it was a good day!

Nice!

Probly wont make my mapping work much easyer tho, cuz I got so much of it

Can you add show grid?
 

[TH300]

Ok, I ran the setup-thing, but still get errors at startup:

Application Shell Error!

Please report this error to the OPU staff as soon as possible.

Error: Loading of essential editor files failed. Occured in: main()

Press OK to terminate the application. You will lose changes in any unsaved files.

before this I get a runtimeerror '440' in vbaIDTab6 and runtimeerror '429' in PopMenu Control.

[Cynex]

Nice. I especially like the faded menus.

And, of course, it's good to b able to place whole tilegroups.

Some suggestions:
- At the bottom there is some space you can't reach by scrolling if the window's height is not a multiple of a tile height. Making scrolling independent of tile boundaries would help.
- The predefined tilegroups are great, but it's hard to select just by name (unless you may get used to it). Better show all the graphics in a list (this is hard to do, so i don't exspect it in near future).
 

[Leviathan]

Yea, I think a black space like b4 would be fine, but just have it 1 square more of black on the bottom/side edge.

Need right click pick up tile feature back.

The tile ref starts at 0,0, i liked 1,1 cuz its same as in game.

When hovering over a tile, it would tell you the tile number, like b4.

Everytime you open a map you get a tile selection box with it, not needed. Should just have one, and option of opening more for your tile selection.

I liked the map loaded, map saved messages, set options to show this 2 the user as msgbox or in status bar. But what i think you should do is add a stats box, so you can, like the status bar, but shows more than one message, and have it time stamped, latest actions show at top. Could have this where status bar is, or click status bar to expand it.

The pasteing is good, the box of area so you know.

[plymoth45]

Well it is about bloody time you get this to a release point. Time to start map making again

Also, i use my scroll wheel to scroll most of the time, is there any way that you can make it so the scroll wheel does the scrolling? also, the tileset window should be resizeable IMHO. having it that small can be annoying with the size screen i have.

[Leviathan]

The tabs are pritty useless unless it brings the map to the front.

Add settings, and one of them, default map diretory, not everyone will keep there map work in op2 folder..

Ok i just found the tile group, haha, it owns! Ive been copy and pasted all that stuff out of a pallet file I made

Need custom tile groups.. not own made, but one where you have all the clifs etc on one selection and you click the section to place.



Cell type view error:

This is on a 128 x 64 map, the view on 128 x 128 maps is fine.

[Leviathan]

Some crazy copy and pasteing going on, unsure about all of it... is it copying cell type? is it not? is that tile have the corect cell type? etc...

I copyed the tiles of the map 128 x 64 to a 128 x 128 map, Nostalgia Beta which the base walls can be seen in red..
I first though the view was wrong, but its not, its just the map cell types are all messed up, i tested this map and the red tiles are impassable and green passable, no idea how it got this mixed up.

Well basicly the problem is, when you copy and paste tiles in it, it dosent bring he cell type with it, so when i have copyed that map onto a notehr map file, it pastes the tiles but not the cell type.

[Hooman]

Yeah, that's a known problem and will likely be fixed in a future update. Only the tiles are copied in the copy and paste operation. None of the attributes are currently carried along with it.
 

[Leviathan]

Also when you place a tile group, it dosent play any cell type, just the tiles.

Could you add a mass tile cell type edit, and maybe copy and paste cell type sections. I wanna be able to make the whole map fast passable.

Also custom color view for cell types, there is only red and green so its hard to see F2 and M1 etc. Be nice to be able to identify all the M1 tiles so i can remove em

When on place tile group mode the copy/paste buttons should be disabled.

Also the mapper only crashes when you open fuxored maps, like maps which were made with the new made mode in old map, and also some others.

[BlackBox]

Ok, I ran the setup-thing, but still get errors at startup:

Application Shell Error!

Please report this error to the OPU staff as soon as possible.

Error: Loading of essential editor files failed. Occured in: main()

Press OK to terminate the application. You will lose changes in any unsaved files.

before this I get a runtimeerror '440' in vbaIDTab6 and runtimeerror '429' in PopMenu Control.

Are you on NT/2k/XP? If so, are you logged in as administrator (or someone with admin rights) when you ran the setup BAT?

Also, I'm not sure if it will work if the mapper is installed on a remote partition. Install to a local hard disk if that's the case.

What's happening, is the ocx's and DLL are not registering. You could try registering them yourself, on commandline go:

regsvr32 DllOrOcxName.dll

for all the DLL's, OCX's in the mapper.

It should say "DllRegisterServer succeeded" or something like that.

If it doesn't, make sure you're in an admin level account, try copying those DLL's/OCX's to the system32 folder, and regsvr32 them from there.

[TH300]

the prob was: I didn't have regsvr32 in my command directory. copied it to that place and the DLLs/OCXs seemed to register.
Anyways, I still get this Shell error, but now after it asks for the op2 folder.

And I'm using win98.

[Leviathan]

If you got to part where it asks for the op2 folder, enter your op2 folder path, click ok and ur done!

Also the fact that it dosent copy cell type could be a good thing, as in leave it as a option, copy cell type on/off

I was thinking, the simpleist way to add the template thing i was telling hacker about could be to have an option which says Add extra layer to file or somthing. It would be just like the cell type view, so each layer you added you could have another button on the list, give it custom name etc. Each layer would have its own file. The map would have a project file you would load which would load the .map and any layers. These layers could be used for whatevea, like you could load ur newly coded map up, and load mapper up, and draw the corners of the player bases onto a layer so you know where they are, and can map around it.

[TH300]

If you got to part where it asks for the op2 folder, enter your op2 folder path, click ok and ur done!

as I said: I get an error after entering the op2 directory.

[Leviathan]

oh, sorry.

the application shell error? you should only get that when you enter the incorrect directory.

[TH300]

I copied the path from the explorer window, thus it should be correct.

Maybe it doesn't find a file. (quite unlikely)

[BlackBox]

All it needs to find is maps.vol. If your maps.vol is invalid, it won't work.

The other possible cause might be that the OP2Editor.dll wasn't registered properly/if at all. It will give that error if the module won't initialize properly (it isn't required by the editor until after the OP2 path is entered).

[TH300]

I manually reregistered OP2Editor.dll and it still does not work.

Thus it might be the maps.vol or even something else. (who knows?)
my maps.vol is:
10690596 Bytes, last change: Friday, August 8th, 1997, 20:39:14

[TH300]

I redownloaded opu4op2 (or whatever its called) and substituted the maps.vol in my op2 directory with the one from the download. And all what happend when I started the mapper: I got the same error again.

[BlackBox]

Well, it's a now known problem with Win9x. The backend tries to call the unicode version of CreateFile, which doesn't work on Win9x.

It will be fixed in the next alpha release.

But to keep you guys waiting, wondering, drooling over the editor, here's a screen shot with the minimap and "Advanced Editor" in place:

[HaXtOr]

thought this was needed, keep all the problems in one spot ^_^
anyway i found out that if you open a world map and save then close it and open another map well this happens.

http://iliketoburnthings.kicks-ass.net/error.jpg

[Leviathan]

On well tile view, it dosnet show all the tiles in the well at the end. Like on well001 it only shows one crater, when there are infact more.

[Stormy]

ok
 heres my idea:
you could have a map thats a solid texture (like the fancy ones, one color, but the nice varying textures everywhere, so that the map looks real..
and you could have what i call a 'scraper' tool
that 'peels' off squares (click and dragging etc) to reveal the next color, with the multi tile variations. and it goes on until you reach the last layer (the last color).
you can have a tool that reverses this effect, and one that draws the correct edges for the squares automatically (assign a number to each side of a square)
Then, a click and drag tool for drawing cliffs, and as you move it, it changes the textures to correspond with the direction youre moving..

I dont know if you guys can understand this... but if you can, plz plz plz try to incorperate it into the mapper... it would make it easy enough to map in under 30 mins, instead of click.. clikc... click... click...
 (thumbsup)  (thumbsup)  (thumbsup)  (thumbsup)  (thumbsup)  (thumbsup)  
keep it up

[Leviathan]

Also i would like a option to set on/off copy of tile type. When its on, you can copy tiles and the tile type, when its off, you just copy the tiles.

Also, you need to be able to select a section and fill it, or set the whole section to a tile type.