More help then anyone ever require which we all need

[Pheimos]

I've looked throu dosens of 'help' threds here, but more or less they have been.. How to say? Un-understandable?

Do not get me wrong, it's great that everybody helps anybody!
But please! It should be done in a way that anybody will understand.

I got alot of serius problems with Zquest. I tried to work with it before but it only would bug me.. But now I downloaded the newest beta version and it works great with the combo-pages.

So now, I am indeed need of emergency help from everybody and anybody.
So if you feel up to it, let me fill you in with the things I need help with or leave..
======> Your choice..

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You're still reading? Then, arm yourself!
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0. How do you create a Title screen?
Problem; I've searched alot of tutorials but non-of-them shows anyway of creating a title screen. Why? I mean there are alot of good mods out there such as "MM:WW" which has a title screen to it.

0.1. How do you create a Intro?
Problem; I think Intro's are awe-cool! Well, in atleast alot of games they are.. Some literary 'sck' and some 'aegs'. But how do you do one? I've heard that you basicly use tile-warp or a warp atleast to MOVE Link to the next part of the intro.

0.2. A more understandable way to create the effects or rain/snow/clouds?
Problem; I've read about using layers from another help thred here, but it was not understandable, it would be understandable for a advance-expert user of Zquest but not a Newbie (n00b) such as myself. And sure you don't want n00bs' to give up there quest dreams just 'cause they can't understand it?

0.3 The use of MIDI-files in DMaps', OMaps' and SMaps'?
Problem; It seams to me like to ease the Map names they chose to name ALL maps to DMap, but if I hear DMap, I link it directly to Dungeon Maps. If I would want to use a midi-file in diffrent areas, would I then be have to have multiple copies of the DMap? Let's take an example; You want to travel from Minea to Zeptic Village but first you most cross a area of monsters. All these 3areas uses diffrent Midi's. Must I then use atleast 3 diffrent DMaps?

0.4 What defines a boss?
Problem; I've played Ys eternal and there is this Vampire boss. I will not get very much in to details about him, but let's say I want a room full of vampires flying around part 3times or more to kill them before finishing that dungeon. What would I have to do to define them as a boss? (exept changing the midi-song to a fitting boss music)

0.5 To make an ending? (NOTE; THIS ONE IS OPTIONAL TO ANSWER)
Problem; How do you do it? My guess is that it's probably the same as doing an intro, am I right?

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That would be all... For now..
Please, take your time to answer or make a tutorial of all this.

Good Luck
===> If you need it :evil:

/Pheimos

[Espo]

I'm going to make this as understandable as I can but I am forced (through the mechanisms by which quests are created in zquest) to use terminology that the program provides us. If you do not understand the terminology, check out the official zquest tutorial, other tutorials, the help file and experiment with the program. If you still do not understand then there is not much I can do.

1) Title screen:
First choose a blank screen where you will place the combos that will form the graphics for your title screen (the way the screen looks). Example: Map 1 Screen 00. Place the combos on the screen so that they form the graphics for your title screen as you wish the screen to appear. You may want scenary, some text (which will be combos that look like aphanumerical characters). Now for this screen you will want to do one of two things. 1: place all scenary and text on layers 3 or above (I will explain layers when I get to your question about rain). 2: go to the screen flags menu (Data -> Screen Flags of hit F9) and select the Invis. Link screen flag. You need to do this because on a lower level the program will treat this screen as a map in the game where the players position and action control the game flow but on a high level the player will see this merely as the title screen. If you don't understand then you will soon. I'm going to assume you choose to use layers 3 or above (the following instructions apply to either choice with some intuitive changes). So you have this scenary above the player that will hide the link graphics so only your scenary and text are visible. Now in zquest hit the PgDn button on your keyboard until your get a menu at the bottom of your screen with five icons and some numbers under them. Click the green icon and place it somewhere on the screen (this is where your player will begin on this screen as far as the program is concerned. You will no longer see the green icon once you place it by the way so you will want to choose some combos to place on layer 0 so you know while your building this screen where to put what)). On layer 0 surround the space where you just placed that entrance point with unwalkable combos (these will show as pink squares in zquest when you hit w on your keyboard. I will not explain how to make unwalkable combos). So here is what your layer 0 will look like.

XXX
XGX
X X

where X is unwalkable and G is where you placed the green icon. You do not necessarily have to leave the bottom space unwalkable but you must leave one space either up, down, left, or right unwalkable. You may also want to place text on the screen telling the player which direction to press to continue from the title screen to the game. Also, this assumes you are placing the green icon in the middle of the screen and not on the side. Now, in the empty space "below" the green icon (or wherever you left your blank space) place a "stairs" combo. Now go to Data -> Tile Warp and set up a tile warp to take you to the first screen of your quest (or your intro which is coming up). Finally, you must make dmap 0 be on same map as this screen and have the continue set this screen. This is because the program always starts a new quest on dmap 0. This is basically it. So what this does is creates a screen on dmap 0 where the player will start the quest. The green icon, along with the continue location you set when you set up dmap 0 causes this to be the first screen a player will see when they start the quest. The player will start at the green icon and only be able to walk in one direction. When they do, the tile warp will warp them to the first screen in the quest (or to the intro). The player, however, will see none of this since the graphics for the title screen are hiding Link. They will only see the graphics for the screen until they press "down".

***sigh***

2) The intro behaves the exact same way except there is no restriction on which dmap to use. This part is really up to you to create and it truly does take creativity to use zquest. Basicially, you can have the tile warp from your title screen warp you to the first screen of your intro. You may or may not want the player hidden on the screen the same way you hid them on the title screen. This is up to you. You will need to set where the player will appear when they warp to this map by using the green icon you used previously if you are warping to a different dmap, or the blue icon in that same menu if you are warping to the same dmap. Remember the dmap you use dictates what music you will here on a certain screen, the palette that screen uses, the level number and the dmap properties set by selecting overworld, cave, or dungeon. (this info is all discussed in the help file and the official zquest tutorial). Remember to restrict the players ability to walk except for where you want them to warp to the next screen. Use stairs combos to warp to the next screen and set the tile warp. One thing to note: both the intro and title screen are dependant on your graphics. You may need to create more graphics, rip them from an image (not always the easiest thing to do and NOT the topic of this discussion), or download more graphics. When you are done warping from screen to screen of your intro make sure to warp the player to the screen where they will start their quest.

3) You ask about rain/snow/clouds but your realy question here concerns LAYERS!!! (queue dramatic music). So when people first hear about layers they seem strange and frightening and then the light bulb goes on and myself personally felt like a moron once I understood them. So here goes. Layers on a certain screen allow certain graphics to appear above or below certain other graphics. Certainly. All of the game play happens on layer 0 and this layer is active on every screen you use whether you like it or not. You don't even set layer 0. So say you want to create a screen that is just a green field with some rain coming down. Before creating any layers just cover the whole screen with your green field. Layer 0 can be thought of the ground (for now). Next go to Data -> Layers. Now here's how layers work. Your layer 0 exists on every screen. Any other layer you create has to have a seperate screen to store its data (graphics) on. So to make it easy I'm going to call screen A the screen with the field AND rain, and screen B the screen with JUST THE RAIN. Pretty trippy huh? In your layers menu you'll see some columns that correspond to layer data. To tell you the truth I myself am not too sure what some of this stuff does but the important stuff I know. For your rain what you'll do is use the column for layer 6 (why not?). You need to set the map number and screen number for screen B (the rain screen) that will hold the data for layer 6. Now notice the row on the bottom that says Trans (NOT THE VERY BOTTOM!!!). If this box is checked the rain you put on layer 6 will become translucent. Basically the program will blend the colors of layers 0 and 6 and make the rain seem like you can see through it. Useful for some stuff but probably not for rain so uncheck that box if you don't want it transparent. Also the very bottom box. I would avoid clicking that cause in my opinion it's just a pain. What that does is matches screens between maps to automatically create layers on every screen of the map. So if your screen A is on map 1 and you click that box it will ask you for a map number. If you put in say map 2, the program will make it so that for each screen on map 1 a corresponding screen on map 2 will be used to hold the data for layer 6 on the original screen in map 1. I don't really like to use this cause it can get annoying. So just click ok once you set the map and screen numbers to hold your layer 6 data. NEXT!!! So if you hit the PgUp or PgDn button on your keyboard (while in zquest of course) you will eventually come to a Layers menu that has the numbers 0-6 and below them some squares with X's in them. Also there will be a circle underneath layers 0 and 6. These control which layers you can view (0 through 6 and they toggle on and off) and which layers are currently active to place combos on (0 or 6 in this instance). You will also notice that the entire screen is green now (perhaps a different green than the field you put down). This is because there is no data on screen B yet. You will want to find or create yourself a transparent, undefined combo. Now select that combo and click the circle under the six in your layer menu at the bottom of the screen and fill layer 6 with that combo. You should now see the screen that originally create (the green field). With layer 6 still selected fill the screen with your rain combo (again you may have to make, rip, download these graphics). When your finished, if you want to continue putting graphics on your green field you must click the circle under 0 in the layer menu at the bottom of the screen. That's it. Finally, the layers are ranked as follows. Layers 1 and 2 appear below the player and all enemys and such. Layers 3 and 4 appear above the player but below most flying enemies. Layers 5 and 6 appear above everything. Check out idontknow's tutorial for more information on layers.

That's all the time I have for today folks. Join us next time when my quest will be Ed Sullivan. Same time, same channel.

[Pheimos]

That was great! To tell the truth I thought it would be a short answer with nothing to learn but that was really usefull!

Thanks once again

[Espo]

Hints for the day:

4) DMaps: There is no (as far as I can tell) OMaps or SMaps. Here's the deal. Maps and Dmaps. Maps are a tool for zquest to help you intuitively organize your map design. a map is an 8 by 16 grid onto which you place the screens for different areas. The ZeldaClassic program does not really do anything with these maps. ZC only deals with your dmaps. So you always start (as previsously stated) on dmap 0 when your quest begins and from there if you must change areas (and you must to make the game a game) then warp from dmap to dmap along the way. Any area you are in must be associated with a dmap. When you create a dmap you must tell the program what map that dmap "exists" on. Dmaps cannot span mutliple maps so you must make sure that all maps in a given area are on the same map. 3 types of dmaps: overworld, cave, dungeon. The reason I bring this up is size. If you select dmap 0 (your starting dmap) to be an overworld then this dmap (since it is an overworld) can be a size as large as the 8x16 grid map (remember the difference between map and dmap). Cave and dungeon dmaps are limited in size to (i think) 8x8. This is just the way it is. So there is one difference between the three different types. Before I get back to creating dmaps I will just briefly go through some of the other differences (all of which I'm not entirely certain myself). So on an overoworld dmap you are allowed larger map space, I don't think you can have text messages or guys displayed on an overworld map and the level number is usually 0 (although with the BOSS FLAG TRICK you may want to use another level number... not being addressed here). Also, if you bomb something, burn something, trigger secrets, flags, etc. they will remain permanently triggered. Caves and dungeons are pretty much the same as eachother with some small difference. Messgae strings and guys are ok with both. Secrets, flags, yada yada yada are not permanent in dungeons but they may be for caves. To tell you the truth, as I right this I'm learning that I myself am quite unsure of all of these differences and so will stop trying to explain them and request someone more knowledgable to help us both with this. So in creating a dmap you want to make sure that if you use a cave or dungeon that you use the slide bar in the dmap dialog to make sure all of the screen you want available on that dmap are within the viewing range or they will not be accessable if the player is on that dmap. You can set midis. You can set continue points and select whether the player will continue there only if they die (continue here unchecked) or also if they save and restart their game there at a later time (continue here checked). You can also set what the dmap name is (for your editing pleasure), what the player will see above the onscreen area map as the area name, and a message to be displayed upon first entering the dmap. You must always assign a level number and if you want to award the player with a triforce piece on that dmap you must have the level number be from 1-8 (or the number of pieces as per the quest rules). overworlds are typically 0. final dungeon is typically 9 and all other levels are 10 and above (I believe up to 255). So if you want the same midi on two different areas and they are on the same map and fit on the dmap depending on the type you are using and they are to be the same level and all of the names and everythind are the same then yes you can use the same dmap otherwise you must make a new one. You can have up to 255 dmaps and I doubt you will need that many so you should be all set. You can use multiple dmaps per level (I think that 00 bug has been fixed) if you want different music (boss music?) and such. Basically dmaps help you define how each area will behave. And once we can get someone here to help with how dungeons, caves, and overworlds differ (preferrably a complete list of the properties of each) you should have all of the tools you need to be creative and efficient with your dmap (and MAP) usage. I good learning tool is to open the example quest that comes with the program in zquest and just look at how things are laid out.

gotta go.