Ive discussed this some with Willis and TerminX already, but I figured Id have a go on here.
I dont have a legacy machine. I cant afford such at the immediate moment, but I am looking to map for Blood, or at least try to learn. I was told it wasnt feasible in XP, but TerminX told me to give DosBox a go as opposed to VDMSound for it. DosBox can run it, but it ran pretty poorly... I fiddled with its frameskip and processor prioritization as suggested by our friendly deathmask host and it unfortunately only got worse. I loaded up a map to test (sinc01 specifically) and it loaded successfully, but it was running horribly... I entered the 3d view and at times that was almost running decent, but its still bad enough I have no hopes of precision within the grid view.
Has anyone had any success with properly running MapEdit on an XP machine or should I just hold out for a legacy machine to run it on? Since I got Blood working on XP again (though Cryptic Passage is an anomaly), much thanks to Willis there, I have been overwhelmed with map ideas that I would really like to give a go... Seriously, unrealized ideas are like a migraine to me. Which Im sure to those who know me would attest that that must be a lot of pain, it is, hence I stab Kazashi.
So any help would be appreciated.
Related topic note: Has anyone heard about that intro to Transfusion mapping tutorial Predator was working on for GTKRadiant?
Of Mapedit and XP
Moderator: General Discussion Moderators
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Anonymous
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RedFanatic
- A More Tidy Caleb
- Posts: 680
- Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 04:56 pm
- Location: Somewhere
I can run Mapedit perfectly well in Xp the same way i run Blood
just using Cmd prompt
cd\blood
nolfb
dosdrv
mapedit
and it runs very well with hardly any crashes and no slow down
i did try Dosbox originally but it's certainly not the way it's just too
older system for blood.
when you do get it going make sure to download ALL the help docs
about mapedit from this site
http://rtcm.thecomitatus.com/
esspecially Mich's sfx that one is vital
also something to remember it would appear that mapedit has a red walled sector limit somewhere around 500 odd so plan your levels
before construction
good luck
just using Cmd prompt
cd\blood
nolfb
dosdrv
mapedit
and it runs very well with hardly any crashes and no slow down
i did try Dosbox originally but it's certainly not the way it's just too
older system for blood.
when you do get it going make sure to download ALL the help docs
about mapedit from this site
http://rtcm.thecomitatus.com/
esspecially Mich's sfx that one is vital
also something to remember it would appear that mapedit has a red walled sector limit somewhere around 500 odd so plan your levels
before construction
good luck
Re: Of Mapedit and XP
You can build a perfect legacy pc for Blood for under 100 bucks. I even got a 17 inch CRT monitor for 10 bucks at the consignment store.scar3crow wrote: I dont have a legacy machine. I cant afford such at the immediate moment, but I am looking to map for Blood, or at least try to learn.
http://www.cruduxcruo.com/bloodpc.html List of my specs there and a couple pics. Just search for those on ebay and you'll be surprised at how cheap they are. Shipping was usually more than the product.
As for mapping, I used to be a master at mepedit. It's been around 7 years since I've last used it, but I fired it up again the other day and it's kind of like riding a bike. Seriously the build engine map editor is one of the best ever because it's so user friendly. I used to make Blood and Witchhaven II maps.
When you get started look for the ControlZ tutorials, they were the best around back then, and they are still around.
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jonny5.1
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Slink
Not to be a dick, but...
- Posts: 1904
- Joined: Mon Aug 16, 2004 04:42 am
- Location: Niagara County, NY
OK, I am going to help you.
1. First, you must create a shortcut on your desktop to "command.com" without the quotes.
2. Now, right-click on the shortcut and select "properties"
3. At the top of the window, click on the tab that says "compatability"
4. In the compatability tab, under "compatability mode", select "Windows 95" from the pull-down menu.
5. If you want to be able take screen captures in mapedit, you must now click the "Misc" tab at the top of the window. That just stands for "miscellaneous options". I wonder if I spelled that correctly...
6. In the "Misc" tab, under the "Windows shortcut keys" section, you must uncheck "PrtSc". This enables the use of the print screen key in ms-dos prompt (when you run MS-DOS prompt from this shortcut).
Now, there are a few things you must know about mapedit with WinXP.
Never, under any circumstances have I gotten mapedit to work close to correctly, in ANY graphics mode beside "200 x 300 (Normal Mode)". This may be selected in the blood setup file, "setup.exe" under "screen setup". That is to say that mapedit will ONLY work (probably still wont work perfectly) if you run it in 300x200mode. So, run mapedit in 300x200. Do not run mapedit in 640x480. It won't even work in Win98, because Mapedit was never totally set up to function under 640x480, AFAIK. I may ask Ken Silverman, and he may reply.
With that said a million times, if you run in 640x480, mapedit will run, but sprite placement does not work in 3D mode, and some other things may not work well.
These indented paragraphs refer to the use of cmd.exe instead of command.com. I prefer command.com, but the command prompt closes when mapedit crashes.
PLEASE NOTE:
In XP, I have never gotten texture/tile manipulation to work correctly on walls or sprites. In mapedit, you are supposed to be able to perform fine adjustment of wall and sprite scale and pan (scaling = stretching the tile, panning = sliding the tile around). AFAIK you can't get this to work, and therefore cannot achieve full functionality of Mapedit in WinXP. Also, fine panning of floor and ceiling textures seems impossible.
HOWEVER, the shift key still works with raising and lowering and tilting sector floors and ceilings.
At last, some things to know about Mapedit
When you start mapedit.exe, the program looks for a file called "newboard.map" in the same directory where mapedit is located.
If it finds this file, it will automatically attempt to load the map and start in 3D mode. THIS WILL NOT WORK IF NEWBOARD.MAP EXISTS AND THE START POSITION IN THE MAP IS LOCATED OUTSIDE OF ALL SECTORS(outside of rooms, out in no-man's land, the void, outer space, the abyss of digitial potentiality, the lack of map, out in the cold, etc.)
If mapedit loads this map and the start position is located outside of all sectors (not inside a sector), then you won't be able to exit 3D mode and enter 2D mode to correct the problem.
Don't worry, just rename newboard.map to something else like "poop.map" (without quotes), go into mapedit, load poop.map (or whatever you named it) relocate the start position to inside of any sector by right clicking there and then pressing scroll lock.
BE ADVISED that mapedit may not load if there is no newboard.map file in the directory. I have made a generic one here! Just extract the map file from newboard.zip.
That is all I am typing now. I apologize if I sounded condescending, I merely intended to be clear and concise.
Good luck.
-Slink
1. First, you must create a shortcut on your desktop to "command.com" without the quotes.
2. Now, right-click on the shortcut and select "properties"
3. At the top of the window, click on the tab that says "compatability"
4. In the compatability tab, under "compatability mode", select "Windows 95" from the pull-down menu.
5. If you want to be able take screen captures in mapedit, you must now click the "Misc" tab at the top of the window. That just stands for "miscellaneous options". I wonder if I spelled that correctly...
6. In the "Misc" tab, under the "Windows shortcut keys" section, you must uncheck "PrtSc". This enables the use of the print screen key in ms-dos prompt (when you run MS-DOS prompt from this shortcut).
Now, there are a few things you must know about mapedit with WinXP.
Never, under any circumstances have I gotten mapedit to work close to correctly, in ANY graphics mode beside "200 x 300 (Normal Mode)". This may be selected in the blood setup file, "setup.exe" under "screen setup". That is to say that mapedit will ONLY work (probably still wont work perfectly) if you run it in 300x200mode. So, run mapedit in 300x200. Do not run mapedit in 640x480. It won't even work in Win98, because Mapedit was never totally set up to function under 640x480, AFAIK. I may ask Ken Silverman, and he may reply.
With that said a million times, if you run in 640x480, mapedit will run, but sprite placement does not work in 3D mode, and some other things may not work well.
These indented paragraphs refer to the use of cmd.exe instead of command.com. I prefer command.com, but the command prompt closes when mapedit crashes.
- I have noticed that in WinXP, sometimes Mapedit tends to crash when you try to switch from 2D mode to 3D mode. As far as I have explored, this is a random thing, and there is nothing you can do except save your map intermittently, and restart mapedit after it crashes.
USING CMD.EXE INSTEAD OF COMMAND.COM IN WINDOWS XP, WHEN MAPEDIT CRASHES AND THE SCREEN SEEMS TO FREEZE, the cmd.exe console is still active, but you can't see that, because the screen will be FROZEN. It's OK, just type "mapedit" (without quotes) and mapedit.exe should start up again.
PLEASE NOTE:
In XP, I have never gotten texture/tile manipulation to work correctly on walls or sprites. In mapedit, you are supposed to be able to perform fine adjustment of wall and sprite scale and pan (scaling = stretching the tile, panning = sliding the tile around). AFAIK you can't get this to work, and therefore cannot achieve full functionality of Mapedit in WinXP. Also, fine panning of floor and ceiling textures seems impossible.
HOWEVER, the shift key still works with raising and lowering and tilting sector floors and ceilings.
At last, some things to know about Mapedit
When you start mapedit.exe, the program looks for a file called "newboard.map" in the same directory where mapedit is located.
If it finds this file, it will automatically attempt to load the map and start in 3D mode. THIS WILL NOT WORK IF NEWBOARD.MAP EXISTS AND THE START POSITION IN THE MAP IS LOCATED OUTSIDE OF ALL SECTORS(outside of rooms, out in no-man's land, the void, outer space, the abyss of digitial potentiality, the lack of map, out in the cold, etc.)
If mapedit loads this map and the start position is located outside of all sectors (not inside a sector), then you won't be able to exit 3D mode and enter 2D mode to correct the problem.
Don't worry, just rename newboard.map to something else like "poop.map" (without quotes), go into mapedit, load poop.map (or whatever you named it) relocate the start position to inside of any sector by right clicking there and then pressing scroll lock.
BE ADVISED that mapedit may not load if there is no newboard.map file in the directory. I have made a generic one here! Just extract the map file from newboard.zip.
That is all I am typing now. I apologize if I sounded condescending, I merely intended to be clear and concise.
Good luck.
-Slink
Last edited by Slink on Wed Feb 08, 2006 02:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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RedFanatic
- A More Tidy Caleb
- Posts: 680
- Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 04:56 pm
- Location: Somewhere
yeah the 2d to 3d mode crash is caused by switching from 3d to 2d
mode when in a sector with lots of sprites when i am adding sprites
i have to put them in monkey with them untill their looking good in 3d then MOVE away from where they are and prefrebly look at a big blank
wall then switch mostly that works but even so i now have about 300
backup saves of one of my level's and i tend to save before going
into 3d mode everytime and after every change if it's a small reverseable
change i save over my previous save but for big changes or after a few
over saves i make a new one.
may i ask what error you have when booting mapedit in XP because as i
said i never had a problem it could just be the no newboard problem
slink was saying about, it should work in cmd prompt with blood at 640x480
with full texture movement ability and very few crashes
hehe look how mapedit brings out the typist in all of us
you think "ahh i'll just quickly explain this little quirk of mapedit"
mode when in a sector with lots of sprites when i am adding sprites
i have to put them in monkey with them untill their looking good in 3d then MOVE away from where they are and prefrebly look at a big blank
wall then switch mostly that works but even so i now have about 300
backup saves of one of my level's and i tend to save before going
into 3d mode everytime and after every change if it's a small reverseable
change i save over my previous save but for big changes or after a few
over saves i make a new one.
may i ask what error you have when booting mapedit in XP because as i
said i never had a problem it could just be the no newboard problem
slink was saying about, it should work in cmd prompt with blood at 640x480
with full texture movement ability and very few crashes
hehe look how mapedit brings out the typist in all of us
you think "ahh i'll just quickly explain this little quirk of mapedit"
WINDOWS XP?!-
predator
- Lead Mapper
- Posts: 1100
- Joined: Sat Aug 14, 2004 12:51 pm
- Location: Warsaw, Poland
- Contact:
Re: Of Mapedit and XP
Oh, I missed that one.scar3crow wrote:Related topic note: Has anyone heard about that intro to Transfusion mapping tutorial Predator was working on for GTKRadiant?
You see, I started working on it a few good months ago, probably more than half a year ago. It was in q1 days - the time when we used q1bsp format for our maps. Then we decided to switch to q3bsp, which proved to be a very good decision, but also made many parts of my tutorial obsolete.
Now I'd still like to complete it, giving instructions and hints about how to map for TF with Radiant in q3 mode, but it's coming slowly. The main reason is that after we switched to q3bsp I became the lead mapper of this team and conversion of all maps from q1 to q3 is something I am doing. This is what occupies most of my time and leaves little time for other TF related things.
I'm thinking about releasing my quick tutorial in a few parts, so maybe soon enough those of you, who are interested, will be able to get the first part and start mapping.
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RedFanatic
- A More Tidy Caleb
- Posts: 680
- Joined: Tue Oct 12, 2004 04:56 pm
- Location: Somewhere
Sounds good pred theres nothing better than a properly made tutorial 
cause of crashes in Mapedit are left click draging when you have nothing
selected (no sprite or vertex flashing) or swapping FROM 3D mode TO 2D
mode when in a sector with many sprites. and yes i never had problems
with Mapedit and XP
ahh yes sorry slink that was a bit confusing, in my experiance the mainRedFanatic wrote:
yeah the 2d to 3d mode crash is caused by switching from 3d to 2d
mode...
What?
cause of crashes in Mapedit are left click draging when you have nothing
selected (no sprite or vertex flashing) or swapping FROM 3D mode TO 2D
mode when in a sector with many sprites. and yes i never had problems
with Mapedit and XP
Necrosis: I'm not sure if any of these will help you, but I'm sure they can't hurt:
http://cruaich.deathmask.net/blood/map_tutorials/
http://cruaich.deathmask.net/blood/map_tutorials/