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Easy FPS Editor v1.6

Simple way to create an old-school First Person Shooter! · By JessicoChan

this is a very cool little piece of software.

A topic by Ragnar Random created Feb 05, 2022 Views: 1,331 Replies: 43
Viewing posts 1 to 9

i look forward to more thorough documentation, but will fiddle with it to try and figure out what i can make with it.. i bought the pro version, kinda hard to believe you are only charging 10 bucks for it!

Developer

Glad you like it. More documentation is on the way and hopefully will be there with the next update!

(1 edit)

i am already making something cool with it. is there any way to have the keys be a different sprite on each map? if not that would be a handy feature.

another question, will there be possibility of gamepad support?

Developer

Not right now. Both answers.

I don't really support playing FPS games with a gamepad and I don't play them with gamepad myself. Thus I will not be able to make a good implementation of this. It's better I don't even try.

As for keys sprites... yes, that would make sense but there is no way to do that at the moment. Maybe later.

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understood. most people prefer KandM for fps games, i am just an anomaly.

got another question. what format should skyboxes be in? i've tried a few skybox png formats and they all display weird

by format i mean layout on the cross, top left right bottom etc

Developer

Ah. I forgot to mark this in the manual. 

There are two types of skyboxes as of now - a plane and a cylinder. They are chosen based on texture resolution. If it's square, it's a plane. If it's rectangular it's a cylinder. I was going to change that but never got to it. 

So, no cubemaps as of now. 

I don’t want to hijack this thread, but want to ask you a question related to skyboxes.

What is your recommended resolution for a rectangular skymap? I’m testing it with higher resolutions like 1024, 2048. But when the player looks into the sky we can actually see the cylinder-like below.

Do I need to change it to some other resolutions?

Note: Current skybox resolution is 2048x1024.

Developer (3 edits)

This is the proper behavior of this type of skybox. You need to provide your map with a proper fog color, that will blend with the top of your skybox. That's because any other geometry will be hidden by this fog and skyboxes will always be visible. If you don't have a proper fog color it will look as if skybox hides your geometry instead of blending with it. In other words: it's not a good idea to keep your background color (which is the same as fog color) black unless you have a skybox or your skybox is black at the top and bottom. There is no real fix for that. Even a cubemap skybox will have such a behavior.

As for resolution - there is no real limit other than RAM you am at. Although I'd keep it at something like 256 by 512 or 256 by 1024.

Awesome. I will try that. thanks man.

(3 edits)

so i have more questions, figure instead of making a new thread i can keep asking questions in this one.

i assume objects (keys, doors, health items)  are hard coded, as i can't find dat or script files for them. i can't figure out any way to make a sound effect play when you pickup a key or a health item, but you can make sound effects play on door open / locked state with map sounds.

also my melee weapon seems to not be causing damage to decoration entities. is there some way to make decorations "active" other than giving them health and checking "breakable"

also can we get some simple hints on scripting? i know you are working on the documentation. as of now there is no documentation on the scripting lang. rght nowi just wanna figure out enough of the scripting to display simple messages, play sounds, etc. if i attatch a script to a terminal or trigger it just freezes movement but doesn't do anything else. i tried looking thru the Menu.script to get a feel for scripting syntax and the like but no luck. if you could even just give me a list of the scripting stuff with no explanation i could fuck with it and see what i can do.

or a link to the old version documentation in russian, that i could google translate? the vk page says old version will stay around for history, but i can't seem to find any download links to old versions.

EDIT: ok i manage to find a link to version 1.04 and am perusing the autotranslated version of manual. is there a more recent version of the russian documentation, closer to 1.5?

Developer (1 edit)

Is the info on keys sounds absent from the manual? My bad.

Just add sounds named "Hp1.wav" or "Key1.wav" etc. Where you can replace 1 with another key or hp number (1-5 for hp and 1-3 for keys). I'll make sure to add import buttons for those.

Melee weapon not dealing damage to decorations might be a bug. Try making their radius smaller. If it helps, then this is indeed a bug. I'll check it out.

"Menu.script" is a special script and doesn't really reflect on how the whole scripting system works. Basically to show some text you need to add a script with the name of the map. It will be loaded automatically. Then put this inside:

text "Hello world!"

map start

and it should work.

1.04 is the closest to the current version. There are some changes in scripts but the overall reference is recent enough to help you writing simple scripts.



UPD: I checked the code and it doesn't seem like a bug. Do you have all the sprites imported?

no i dont have sprites imported for destroyed decorations so that could be doing it.

translated russian v104 documentation, i figured out how to do messages like i wanted

vn 1

text "you just activated a terminal"

map return

Developer (1 edit)

Be aware that when you start a game (your cutscene is the starting one) there should be "map start" instead of "map return". The later is for active decorations or terminals. Or triggers.

(1 edit)

yeah that was for a terminal and i did similar with a trigger. i wanted to flash a message when you got the tile right in front of the first weapon you get. 

what you mean is use map start for scripts that run before the map begins ( scripts that have the same name as the map? )

the v1.04 documentation is helping alot, i am really looking forward to making some cool stuff with this tool.

i suggest you bump up the price from 10 to 20. it is worth it. but maybe making it cheaper gets more people in the door? i dunno.


alll in all i am having a helluva lotta fun the last 2 days messsing with this thing!

Developer (1 edit)

Yes, "map start" is for scripts that are named as a map.

The price is based on local prices in Russia (yeah, I know. Sounds a little sad). Just a way to make it affordable for the community that made it possible to even exist. I may bump it up a little bit but 10 bucks sounds about right for now.

I'm glad you like it!

just to show appreciation for what you are doing here, i bought another copy of pro. put it towards coffee and vodka

Developer

Wow. Thanks. You really didn't have to.

I may be an unorthodox as I only have a bottle of scotch nearby, but I will buy a small bottle of vodka just for this.

you are welcome. don't drive or go ice skating though. :p

problem with my melee weapon was that i had number of bullets set 0, thinking melee needed no bullets.

Sorry to write here!

If I'm building a building and I want to add windows... How can I make the windows transparent?

Developer

Use models with transparent textures. There is no other way.

Well, you can use transparent textures on walls or floors, but that would end up being.... ugly. The transparency issues will be veeeeeery visible.

another question. i can't get script command to hide cursor in vn mode

i tried cursor 0 before vn 1 and after vn 1 but when script is executed cursor still shows

Developer (1 edit)

Because.... why? VN mode is exclusively to watch some cutscenes while being able to make some choices if you have them. And you can't really do that without a cursor.

There is no way to turn off cursor in VN mode and never will be, it just wasn't made for that.

Ok. So maybe the better way to do messages in game is to make message box pngs for each message. and instead of using text script, use image script

Developer

You could do so.

I just don't see the reason to disable cursor when showing text. It kinda notifies user that you can interact and game isn't broken.

(1 edit)

it is just distracting during the game. you hit a trigger and all the sudden the cursor pops up, then when words are over it disappears. i am not doing choices in dialog, just messages popping up, but i like the way the message box looks with vn 1. i can work around it. it's just like doors and enemies and such only being on the first floor. it's the way the engine works, that's cool. i have done some cool stuff with other floors, it's just about level design and working with the engine. limitations make you creative, that is why retro games are all better than the modern AAA stuff in my opinion. they had to get real creative back in the day to work with limited hardware and resources.

Ragnar is right though. Cursor is distracting when it pops-up in the center of the screen when message box appears. It's just ugly. Making it disappear/appear whenever it seems to be fitting  would be a nice option. You can perfectly show that game is active by showing animated "next page" icons in textboxes

Developer

The whole point of VN mode was to give... er.... visual novel mode. Which has a cursor all the time because it may need an input at some point. Icons are not animated so there really is no reason to disable a cursor. 

That is debatable but at this point there is no way of getting rid of the cursor.

i actually found a decent workaround. i made my cursor the same image as as my crosshair, so when messages popup it is less immersion-breaking.

what is the chance of adding animated decorations?

also i have yet to successfully put any 3d models. i keep getting error messages about parameters exceed something or other

Developer (1 edit)

You can add animated decorations but you need to use state machines. You'll need a manual on that. I plan to finish the manual in two or three updates.

ok i will look into the fsm section in v104 manual. i haven't dove into that yet.

i am of course reading the autotranslated text, so trans could be mangled but i can prolly make something outta it. im a pretty fart smeller.

Developer

Just be aware that enemies have one more state now. It's called SEE and needs to be exited to CHASE state. WALK state is now CHASE.

what about custom button for main menu? v104 manual says 

bind

bind [button] [scriptname] - Binds a script to a button to execute when the button is clicked. scriptname - the name of the file with the script (without extension) that will be executed when the button is clicked. The file must be in the Data/Scripts folder. The script will be executed only while the player has the ability to move. This command should only be used in the Data/Scripts/Menu.script file (see Customizing Menu Items).

so i declare

bind viewcredits viewcredits

in menu.script at beginning

then

mbutton "VIEW CREDITS" 50 610 "viewcredits" -1

under //MAIN


it makes button but nothing happns when click, i assume because manual says script only execute when player can move. so is there any ways to try and do what i am trying to do?

game is for a game jam that requires ability to view credits for assets from main menu of game.

i can make first map show credits in script for first map, and just put on main menu title screen to press NEW GAME to view credits, i am sure that will satisfy requirements for jam. i know v104 manual says no new buttons for main menu but that seems at odds with having a script to bind button for main menu. am i misunderstanding something?

Developer (1 edit)

That means that the command should only be used in this script to avoid any troubles with the bind iteself.

You can't create your own menus. The only way is to edit an existing one by removing some options you don't need to make space and then putting your own text where needed.

Or add credits to the background which you can import through "System Resources Import"

has the script changed for give weapon?

i am using

give weaponname1 1

give weaponname2 2

text "weapon stash"

map return

no funny characters in weaponname

it is called by a terminal. the text is displayed so script is being called.

Developer

It was never like this. 

"weapon" is not a weapon name  it's a keyword. 

So 

give weapon slotNumber

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ok i was misreading the manual. thanx

would it be possible to make a destroyable decoration that can only be destroyed with a specific weapon? .state for the weapon and .state for the decoration, and using variables maybe?

Developer

No. I never planned this.

I might add something to check current weapon in state machines but that is not a priority right now.

ok. the weapon is a bomb so my planned work around was to make the weapon's damage obscenely high and the health of the decoration obscenely high. you would still be able to destroy the decoration eventually with other weapons, but functionally  only the bomb would work.

(1 edit)

so is there a russian manual for current version that we can use translate for? instead of relying on old manual?

edit: nevermind, i see from posts at vk there is not

Developer

Correct.

The current version has a lot of changes compared to the previous one. It needs a lot of testing and bugfixes before a full manual for untested parts is even written.

Hello, I have a question. How do I make the character able to jump with "Space", at least with a script or something.