Ultima III Map Editor ALPHA Release 0.08 file

Ultima III Map Editor ALPHA Release 0.08
By: Michael "Newt" Cornelius
-=UDIC=- Newton Dragon

Requirements:
486/25 or better PC
6MB of free RAM or more
Ultima III by Origin Systems
Mouse
VGA or better graphics
DOS 3.1+
DOS4GW 1.97

Recommendations:
Sound Card
486/50+

Also Works under:
OS/2
Windows 95

Note about version 0.08:
This is a minor update, fixes a few bugs and adds a few small
features. It was released because the server (AOL) I used lost all
of the files, and I had to re-upload the thing. I cleaned up what was
working and put this together. Version 0.10 should be out before the
end of March!

THIS PROGRAM IS IN THE DEVELOPMENT STAGES SOME FEATURES ARE
NOT FULLY OPERATIONAL!
Missing from this version is dungeon/conflict/special
editing, a good tile editor, pseudo-game mode, saving maps
to other files, saving tiles to other than the default,
loading other tile sets besides default and 4 color set,
elevations, flyby will stick in one corner sometimes,
dynamic overlay objects, smoother map scrolling, eggs, &
recognition of special locations on the maps.

Gee. What features does it have?
Well it edits maps ok, edits tiles (but with a pretty poor
editor), allows views of maps in peer mode, globe mode,
flyby mode and zoom mode (about), allows saving of maps to
PCX files in any size up to 1024x1024 (good for making web
sites with maps of U3!), MIDI music & multichannel sound
effects.

How do I run the thing?

(note) Make sure you have DOS4GW.EXE either in your path or
in the directory where the map editor is located. DOS4GW is
a DOS extender that is included with many modern game
packages, to quickly search to see if you have it on your
hard drive-from your root directory type "DIR DOS4GW.EXE
/s". If you do not have DOS4GW you can get it at my web
site at "http://members.aol.com/ultima.htm" look for
DOS4GW.ZIP.

1. After unzipping the zip file into a directory just type
"U3MAPED"
2. It will ask you some setup questions, first of which is w
here your copy of Ultima 3 resides. Make sure you have
copied Ultima three from the disk or CD onto your hard
drive before doing this. Put the drive and directory
where Ultima 3 is. On my system it would be
C:\games\ultima\iii
3. Next it will ask you if you want to use Digital Sound
effects. -- If you choose yes, you MUST have your
BLASTER environment variable set. Most sound cards will
set this in your autoexec.bat file, but if not you can
manually do it by typing from the dos prompt SET
BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 where A is the IO port of your card, I
is the IRQ line and D is the DMA channel. The default on
most cards is A220 I5 D1.
4. Next choose your MIDI card, or no music. -- If you sound
card is not listed, choose one which it is compatable
with. If not any of those, perhaps there is an AIL
driver available for it. If so you can specify another
AIL (.ADV) driver at the command line with the -MID
switch.
5. Finally it will ask for a speed limiter. This is
designed so you don't fly around Sosaria like a bat out
of hell (where the map moves waaay too fast). A good
value for a Pentium 133 is 10, a good value for a 486/50
or less is 0. You can toy around with this value until
you find something that suits you. You can also change
this value with a command line switch or within the
program itself with Options-Frame Rate Adjustment.
6. Once that is done you are done with setup. Now type
U3MAPED again and you are in.

(Recommendation: Back up all your Ultima 3 original files before using!)

If you need to run setup again just type U3MAPED -s

(If you have problems with the program locking up try
using NO SOUND at all and see if that fixes the problem)

Once in you will see a short title sequence of a big zoom
out of Sosaria, after which you will be placed at the map
area. You will be near the castle of Lord British and the
Towne of Britain. Moving the mouse toward the edge of the
screen will cause the entire map to move around. Clicking
on an object in the map with the left mouse button will
bring up a short description of what the object is.
Clicking the right mouse button will place whatever tile is
currently chosen in that map position. The tiles are chosen
by the tile bar on the right hand side of the screen. You
can see all of the available tiles at once by clicking on
the "all" button at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on
the question mark brings up a map similar to one you might
see by peering into a gem in the game-- From here you can
quickly move the mouse to a position on the map, and by clicking
immediately go there.
To change to the various maps, click on the maps line on the
menu bar at the top of the screen. Then choose from amongst
the various locales in Sosaria. To see your map from a
"global" perspective choose view and then Globe map. You
will see the current map projected onto a globe. You can
also go through a flyby of your maps by using the view-flyby
menu. In flyby mode you can control your speed by using the
- and = keys and move around with the arrow keys. Exiting
from the flyby requires a press of the ESC key.
You can edit the tile currently chosen by using options-
edit tile. From here you will be brought to the poor
(alpha) tile editor, from here you will see a black and a
white square at the bottom left hand corner, these represent
the colors the right and left hand mouse buttons will do to
the image. You can edit the image itself by clicking the
mouse in the enlarged graph view of the tile. Changing
colors is done by clicking on the large color palette next
to the graph.
Saving your changes to this tile means pressing the `S'
key, and to forget what you changes press ESC. Note: To
save your tiles PERMANENTLY you must use File-Save tile set
on the main map screen.
You can go retro by choosing Options-base tile mode, this
will use the original 4 color tiles that the original Exodus
program uses. You can edit these, also, but only with the
same 4 color palette (If you use Save Tile set with 4 color
tiles it will also change the tiles the real game uses as
well!)
To save your changes to a map just choose File-Save Map.
This will change the map in the game, so, for example you
can create a bridge of ships, or easily place horses near
the castle of death. (going through Exodus' castle with
horses is MUCH easier!) Note, if you place moongates,
townes, dungeons, or castles on the map and try to enter it
in the game outside of where the original locations are, you
will get errors!
You can change the frame rate of the program by using
Options-Adjust Frame Rate, you can play with sound effects
by choosing Options-Play Sound Effects, or play the
different musical sequences with Options-Play Music.
To quit the program, go to file-quit. To see the title
sequence again (with whatever map you are on now) select
file-About Map Editor.
That's about it for now, check back at my web site to see
if I have any updates. Any suggestions, criticisms, or
comments are welcome.

REFERENCE (WHAT DOES WHAT, or HOW TO):

REVISION HISTORY:

Version 0.07 - First released alpha version

Version 0.08 - Second released alpha version (minor update)

Bugs Fixed:
o fixed bug that occured with some versions of Ultima 3
saying that "Ultima 3 could not be found"

Things Added:
o Smoothed out scrolling and added adjustable scroll rates /
o Fixed map shortening on Display maps +
o Added Grid option to map display +
o Changed ? Button to show a more usable map +
o 2 Music pieces +
o Improved tilt of Globe map (takes longer to appear, though) +

Why an Ultima 3 Map Editor?

Again, it's totally unbelievable what people will do when
a new Ultima hasn't come out in a while <G>.
As an AVID lover of the Ultima series games, I thought a
rewrite was in order for the earlier games, and Ultima III
was basic enough to be "easy" to do. This "easy" project
winded taking up about two years or so to do, just for me to
learn some of the basics of graphics programming and expand
upon it. I could have done an even more cheezy looking
conversion, but decided to work some cool features into it
by allowing room for expansion. Leon McNeil beat me out by
making an update of Ultima 3 for the Mac. (Which is great,
if you have a Mac) After seeing some of the difficulty he
had putting together a "full" game, and I decided to stop
short (for now) and just make a map & tile editor for the
original game. Not only that, but make it a freebie and
require the original Ultima 3 to use. With what I have made
here, a conversion of Ultima's 1-7 (yes 7) would be fairly
easy (outside of the logic code in the later Ultima's-those
are true pain in the arse). The dungeon code is unfinished
to the point I cannot include it yet. Thanks to all the
Ultima Dragons because without their existence I probably
would have not bothered to do this, and therefore would have
not learned too damn much about programming.
The things that the program can do NOW in its current
form (but not really implemented) is map rotation and
zooming, 255 levels of elevations and overlays of unlimited
size. I may add a feature to allow using of the shapes
files from U7, U8 and Crusader to be used in the enhancement
of the editor. (might not too) I've put in MIDI music
(using AIL & MIDPAK) from John Miles & John Ratcliffe and a
multichannel digital sound system that I wrote with some
help from Ethan Brodsky's code. The graphics routines are
by myself, with the exception of the Globe and Flyby which
are mostly by Peter Freese. Music comes from Ken Arnold,
with the exception of Stones and "Hail Britannia". "Stones"
is David `Iolo' Watson's creation, and the song marked
simply as "11h" is from George A. Sanger. FM OPL synthesis
instruments are also from George "The Fat Man" Sanger and K.
Weston Phelan. U-Song is by one of our own Dragons--I don't
remember how I got the song, so if you happen to be the
dragon who created this work, let me know. "Puff the Magic Dragon"
is the UDIC theme song, so I threw it in. Creation is from
character creation in Ultima 6.
I am an O.K. musician, but a lousy graphics artist, so
the graphics are not as great as they could be. If you
create new 256 color tiles and save them (tile file is:
surface.v00) send `em my way and I may use them instead of
the ugly things I have now. I decided against SVGA (If I do
SVGA I will only do it in Win '95) for this, because with
all the horsepower of today's PCs there is a lot of cool
things possible in low res that would push it too much in
SVGA. I will be improving this Alpha until I'm ready to go
beta (when all the features are implemented) until then
PLEASE give me any suggestions, or things you would like to
see changed. I'm not guaranteeing that you will see your
suggestion implemented, but I may get an offshoot from your
ideas. I will credit anyone helping me out with this
project. When I'm done with this, I will go straight to
Ultima 4, then U5, and then possibly BACK to Ultima 1 and 2.
In case you were wondering, this program was developed half
on a 486/50 and half on a Pentium 133. I've tested it on as
low as a PC as a 486/25 with 8MB of ram. This program MAY
work with 4MB, but I wouldn't try it. The alpha doesn't
have that great of error trapping-including memory loss. So
fragmentation at 4MB could be a big problem. Oh, the
documentation could use some improvement as well.
That's enough for now. I hope you enjoy this program,
and I hope to hear your suggestions. Write me at
mike.cornelius@outdoor.com or another one of my addresses
posted at the end of this file.

To get the latest version of this program, go to:

Members.aol.com

To reach me on questions/comments regarding these files:
Mike 'Newt' Cornelius
-=(UDIC)=- Newton Dragon
2401 S. Atlantic Ave.
New Smyrna Beach, FL 32169
Members.aol.com

The Outdoor Sportsman BBS (407)635-9590 28.8k, n81
Internet E-mail : Mike.cornelius@outdoor.com
America On-Line : MikeNewt@aol.com
Prodigy : KBND17B@Prodigy.com
Microsoft Network: Mike_Cornelius@Msn.Com

I am also Alpha Testing Ultima-On Line