The Custom Event Editor is a standalone program to create event files that could be loaded in COM3D2 with the Custom Event Loader mod. You do not need COM3D2 to run the editor but you will need COM3D2 to capture the data for your events.
The editor looks like the following when you open the program.
The Custom Event loader will parse json files with suitable format and process it as an event. The json is quite difficult for others to start with, I understand that, so I try to make it looks like a flow chart so that everyone could understand what they are going to do. You dont need to have programming experience. You just need common sense and a bit patient to capture the game data for the editor.
A workable event is looks like the following:
This is a relatively short one. If you want to create a quality and a more lengthy event, the chart should be much more complex.
It may look a bit confusing right now, but it is not that complicated once you understand what these things are.
Now lets get familiar with the screen.
(1) The area with a grid background. This is the main working grid. You will create the chart in this area.
(2) This blue or red rectangle is the main component. I call it "Step". Each step contains information to instruct what the game should do.
In the WildParty mod, each scenario probably contains several hundred steps. Of course it is not necessary to add so many steps there unless you really want to create a complicated one. And you can always start with something simple first.
Note that it is okay to create the flow chart in any shape. You can make it a straight tube, in circle or in star shape, whatever you want. It does not matter as they are just for human to read. The Event Loader does not care how it is shaped as long as the data is correct.
The detail of the UI for the step item will be discussed in the next post.
(3) These lines indicated how the steps are connected. The step that the arrow head points to is the next step to be executed.
For those who have programming experience, the concept behind is in fact the linked list structure. For those who don't, you can think of it like a book: at the bottom of each page it tells you "go to page X".
We mark down what the next step is for each step, so that the game knows what is going to be executed after the current step is processed. And these lines are the visual presentation.
Same as (2), it is okay to have any length of the connecting arrows. It is okay to have an extremely long or extremely short arrow as it does not affect the Loader at all.
Every event must have an entry step. It is marked as orangish red in the chart. Everything is started from that step. The entry step is unique and cannot be deleted. Theoretically it does not need to be a character initialization step, but to make things simple I make it to be always a chara init step.
Every event have an ending step in order to let the game to finish the event and go back to the event selection scene. It is not compulsory to have one when you are testing the event, but you will need to click the go back to the title button from the option menu every time.
Note that it is fine to have some stray steps that are not connected to any other steps. The editor does not clean it up so that you can try linking up with different steps to see which way could achieve the best result you want to have.
(4) The menu in the left hand side is for adding steps to the chart. Clicking the menu item will add the corresponding step item to the chart.
We will go through what each step do and how to fill in the info in the next few posts.
(5) The menu button to create / save / load the event files in the editor. Note that this editor does not do auto-save so be sure to save it often.
(6) These 2 buttons are for the step used. If you click a step in the chart, follow by clicking one of these buttons, the editor will clone or delete the selected step based on what you click.
(7) Button to change the language of the editor. It just change the text displayed in this editor and will not affect the things you input for the event.
That said, it is English only at this moment and I haven't really translated it into other language. If you are interested in translating this editor, you can go to the github page and find the "Properties\Resources.resx". I have already extract all the texts and put it in a single file.
(8) The editing panel. The place for editing the content for each step. If you click on a step item in the main working grid, the corresponding panel will be displayed and you can fill in the data to let the game know what it needs to be in that step.
When you want to test the event in the game, you click the save button and create a zip file. Here is how the zip file looks like:
(i) def.json:
This is the event definition file. The Event Loader will parse this file and create the list of event when the custom event button is clicked.
(ii) steps.json:
This is the file that contains all the steps of the event.
The zip file also packs other files if provieded. In the screenshot above, I added a npc and provide the preset file so it is included in the zip file.
In theory you can create an event without this editor if you follow the file structure and add the content in the correct json format. That said nobody will do it in this way. But lets say if you find a typo in the event dialogue, and you do not want to open the editor to locate that step, you can unzip the file and edit the json file in a text editor. It works as long as you zip it back and keep it in the same file structure.
Please note that when using the editor, a folder "workspace" will be created. When you select to include an external file such as preset, the files will be copied to that workspace folder. Please be reminded that do NOT use the workspace folder as your storage as the editor may delete the content there from time to time. Always keep a backup of your external files in other places.
No comments:
Post a Comment