Tutorial for Qages Knights and Merchants map editor version 1.0.0.1

This program was coded entirely by me. The inner workings of the map files, I learned how they worked about a year ago, enough to edit the map files with a hex editor. Additional help provided by ‘The Knight’ .The map graphics used in it are not mine. They are provided by ‘The Barbarian’. Without those provided graphics, I would not have had a basis to develop graphical a map editor on.

This is the first public release. If any bugs are found I will fix them and release another version, and note your contribution. Requests to features are open. You will find my email at the bottom of this tutorial.

1. Getting started.

When you open the program, it will initialize the graphics; basically it is rotating the map graphics, and saving them in memory. This will be slower on low end computers. This was coded using entirely GDI, which is slow.

You can select to open a map, or create a blank new one.

Clicking on Open will give you a dialog. You can select any KAM map.

Clicking on the new button, will give you 2 places to enter in the maps x and y size. The minimum is 20, if you type and thing lower than this it will set it at 20. Max value is 176, typing any thing larger than this will set it to 176. Pressing the enter key will select the other box. Once you have entered in the maps x and y size, click on the new button again to finalize, and generate the new map.

2. Editing the map.

When the map is loaded, you will be in a no mode. Since your there, lets look at the controls first.

Open: opens an existing map.

Save: saves current map.

New: makes a new map.

Default value box: this box, you can enter in what value your are working with, it will also change when selecting any value elsewhere. Click on the box, to delete its contents, press the backspace key. Then enter the value you wish. You can not enter invalid numbers for the current mode.

Default Add/sub: this is how much the default value increases/decreases by when you click on the + and – buttons.

Mode: Tells you which mode you are working in, Terrain, Height,Light,Usage,Rotate,Rotate+,Object

Selection: tells you which terrain tile you have selected, or which tree.

TPR:TSK

These buttons change the mode to tpr or tsk. If you have tsk, click on the tsk button, it will take a few seconds to do the graphics again. Tpr graphics are different then tsk, this is the reason why these buttons are here. If you use tpr, it already starts in tpr mode, so you do not have to change it.

+/- buttons:

When you click on these buttons, they increase/decrease the default value by the value in the default add/sub box.

Left clicking on the terrain button, or the terrain tile palette, brings you into the terrain editing mode. You can change the tiles on the main map. By clicking on any tile in the main map window, it will change to the tile you have selected, by using the terrain palette, entering a value into the default value box(+/-), or by right clicking on the main map to select the tile that is under it.

You can drag the mouse and it will paint under every square it passes over.

Height Button: this brings you into height mode.

You will see increasing redness of the tile, meaning more height. The actual value is also shown on each tile. You also may use the right click to select values.

Light button: light mode. works the same way as height, except instead of red, the tile is darkened. The changes you see here are not as drastic as you see in this editor, this way it allows you to make fine changes to the light level of the tile.

Usage button: usage mode.

Left clicking on a tile puts a blue box around it. Right clicking removes it. This means you cannot build or walk on this tile. This is typically used over mountains, rivers, stone mountains(always use). Use it in stone mountains, always or your game will act weird. If you do not put these you can build over lakes, mountains etc, and doesn’t look real.

Rotate button: rotate mode.

This will paint rotation in 90 deg increments, valid values are 0,1,2,3. 1, meaning 90 deg.

This is usefull if you if you have a large amount of tiles to rotate the same way. Right clicking will select the rotation value of that tile.

Rotate+ button: rotate+ mode

In this mode, when you left click, it rotates just that tile, by 90 deg. And right click goes the other way. This is useful, as you do not have to enter any values, just click on the tile until it is the desired rotation.

Object button: object mode:

Objects are mostly trees. And some twigs, rocks.

I added several images for the trees, I was unable to find accurate pictures for all of the tree sets, so I used one graphic in each of the sets. The bigger the value in each set, usually means the bigger the tree. These objects are represented on the map as a green box, and its value.

Mapview: click on the minimap, and it will being you to that point in the main map.

By pressing w key, you will move 1 tile up in the map, the d key will move 1 tile to the right. a is to the lesft, and s is down 1 tile.

Valid terrain values are, 0 to 248.

Valid height values are 0 to 100.

Valid light values are 0 to 32.

Valid rotation values are 0,1,2,3.

Valid object values are

0 , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 30 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 71 , 72 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 94 , 95 , 97 , 98 , 100 , 102 , 103 , 104 , 105 , 109 , 110 , 114 , 118 , 119 , 122 , 123 , 124 , 151 , 155 , 160 , 165 , 170 , 172 , 190 , 191 , 192 , 193 , 194 , 195 , 196 , 200 , 201 , 202 , 203 , 204 , 205 , 206 , 210 , 211 , 212 , 213 , 214 , 215 , 216 , 217 , 218 , 219 , 220 , 249 , 250 , 255

Again more thanks to ‘The Barbarian’ for these values.

My email is Randyr@wi.rr.com

I speak English. And my time zone is -6 gmt.

Any comments, questions, bugs etc please email me.