Make a Clean Slate

HOW TO....

	Make a Clean Slate
	==================
	
First of all, a bit of explanation about how Alien Breed 3D II works.

Before you can design your levels and populate them with vile denizens, you have to
specify the parameters within which the game will operate. These parameters include
such things as the types of aliens you will meet, the wall and floor graphics, the
type of weapons you can pick up and so on. This information is stored in the
GAME LINK FILE.

To begin with you will need a directory on your hard drive within which you will
place all the graphics, sounds and other files your game will use. For simplicity,
AB3DII requires the following subdirectories to be created:

MYDIR
	LEVELS
	INCLUDES
	GRAPHICS

Within the graphics drawer, you must also create two further subdirectories:

MYDIR
	LEVELS
	INCLUDES
	GRAPHICS
		FLOORS
		TEXTURES
		
Also, an assign to your directory must be made, preferably in your user-startup:

ASSIGN AB3: MYDIR

This will allow the editor programs to access your files easily and without
endless prompting for filenames.

Copy all the files from the

	EXAMPLES/INCLUDES/

directory on your editor disk into

	MYDIR/INCLUDES

These are the palette files used by the game, the title screen graphic and
other files used by the game when run. For instructions on changing the
palette, refer to the file

	HOW2-Change-global-palette

Once such a directory structure has been made, you can start to build your game.

You cannot, however, just dive into the level editor. There are some things you
must do first...

For the purpose of this tutorial, I recommend you follow this procedure:

1.
Make a directory called:

MYDIR/WALLGFX

2.	
Copy the file "ExampleWall" from your editor disk (it can be found in the 

EXAMPLES/WALLS/

drawer) into the new WALLGFX directory.

3.
Make another directory called:

MYDIR/WALLINC

4.
Consult the document 'HOW2-Convert_Wall_Graphics', placing the resulting files
in the WALLINC directory.

5.
Copy all the files from the EXAMPLES/FLOORS directory into your FLOORS directory

6.
Consult the document 'HOW2-Convert_Floor_Graphics', placing the resulting file
in the INCLUDES directory.

7.
Make a directory called:

MYDIR/VECTOBJ

8.
Copy all the files from the EXAMPLES/VECTOBJ directory into your VECTOBJ directory.

9.
Copy the TKG file from your game disk into MYDIR.

This process gives you some example graphics to work with when designing your levels.

NB:
	It is likely that at a later stage you may want to design your own graphics
	instead of using those provided. It is a simple matter to remove the given
	graphics and replace them, so for now it's probably best if you follow the
	above procedure so you can get something up and running as quickly as possible.

What you have done so far is place some files, eg floor graphics and wall graphics,
in conveniently accessable positions. The next stage is to incorporate them into the
game.

For this purpose, the GAMELINKER program loads and saves a file called TEST.LNK which
contains all the information about alien behaviour, weapons, graphics and sounds and
where to find the relevant files on disk. Consult the following documents:

How2-Incorporate_Converted_Walls
How2-Incorporate_Converted_Floors

to incorporate the background graphics you have converted.

Once that is done, you can begin editing levels. Consult these documents:

How2-Start_A_New_Level
How2-Run_Your_Game

for further instructions. The file:

How2-Create_New_Aliens

contains information about creating new alien types, or

How2-Edit_Alien_Stats

tells you how to modify existing aliens.

How2-Design_Weapons

gives full instructions on creating new weapon types. You are given one weapon to
begin with as an example; the shotgun.