Kult: Heretic Kingdoms Level editor Tutorials, Part 2 Animations, Particle Systems, etc version 1.00, written by Peter Nagy, 3D People Studios All rights reserved

TUTORIAL 2

Creating animated objects, particle systems, 3D objects, characters, items, spells.
Welcome to the second part of Kult 's editor tutorials. I believe these will help you to handle all necessary operations in our editor and create nice adventures;-). At first let's prepare the graphics for this tutorial. Unpack all the files this zip file contains to any of your directory (for example c:\Kult_Tutorials). Now copy kult.exe from your Kult's directory. Run editor.exe. It contains all the files you will need in this tutorial;-). The final result of this tutorial can be found in the directory tutorial1/tutorial1.sav We assume that you have read the first tutorial. This tutorial has turned out to be far larger, than I expected, as I always had to go back and add and explain new things. But at the end I think you will be able to work more or less very well with Kult's editor. A few things to mention before we will start we will use the following colors: Blue it describes the keyboard shortcut I apologize for a grammar, I hope you will understand all;-)). If you have any problems, feel free to contact me at support@3dpeople.de or at Kult's forums (Finger of Light or something similar;-))
Chapter 1 Creating animated objects. So in this chapter we will take care of the creating animated sprites and editing their behaviours. These animated sprites can serve as the pre-rendered fires, water splashes, glows, special effects, or simply present animations of small objects in your scene. Every animated object is Prototype and therefore is being manipulated in the PrTyp table. To create animated object (sprite) you will need at first have the animated sequence of the files you have created elsewhere you can use any GFX package. As the input for prototype we will use the sequence of.TGA files located in one directory. Let's practice it. Create a new prototype, leave the type to sprite and name it Fire. Click update. Now you should have something like following:
Now we need to add the source files. We can do it by adding phase, but much easier is to add all phases at once. Click on the Texture/Object -> Add multiple. Click on any file in the directory Tutorial2/Fire. The prototype table has now being resetted and you have been thrown to the prototype number 0. Co go back to the prototype fire and you should see the burning fire. In fact, it doesn't behave too much like we expect from the fire it cycles and is far too fast. So we need to slow it down and change the animation style to repeated. So with the prototype still active change the following settings in the PrTyp table: Set Anim Type to 1 there are a few possibilities for this setting: 0 cycle (0.end,.0,., end,.0.) 1 repeat(0.end,0,.,end,.) 2 repeat backwards -(end.0, end.0,.) 3 play once (0.end) Set Anim Speed to 3 the highest speed is 0 (default), the higher number you insert, the slower the animation is being played. Now the animation animation should be working and behave more or less as fire. If you slow down the animation to let's say speed 6 we can see that the animation has two phases that are the same, and the fire seems to stop for the moment here. Otherway said, the first and the last phase are the same. We have to delete the last phase from the prototype, to ensure the smooth burning. The number below Update prototype button shows that we have now 21 phases. So scroll down in the in the Textures/Objects window and select the last phase phase number 20 (below Update prototype button). Go to the menu Texture/Object -> Delete. Phase is removed and animation should be perfectly smooth right now. Note: You can work with the animated sprites in the same way as you have can work with the common prototype deform, colorize, change transparency, etc as described in the Tutorial 1. Animated sprites in Kult have been used in various manners: smokes, fires, glares, leaves, grasses, totems/skulls in the wind.

Chapter 2 Creating Particle Systems Particle systems are powerful tool in every engine/3D package. You can create a plenty of things, that would otherwise consume large memory amounts, would be not so smooth and variable. You can create with particles special effects like different fire effects, explosions, waters, splashes, any other effects. IMPORTANT: Please keep in mind, that you have to keep the pictures used in particle systems as small as possible, the size of the file greatly influences the framerate of the scene. Every particle is the Prototype and therefore you can find it in the PrTyp table.It behaves like any other prototype (placing in the layer) but some actions can't be applied on the particle systems (deformations, etc). Very interesting is the possibility of combining particle systems with animated sprites from previous chapter. We will work on this possibilitiy in the next short tutorial: So, start as usualy create a new prototype, name it MyFire, set the type to Particle and update prototype. Go to Texture/Object->Add multiple; click on any file in the directory Tutorial2/fireParticle. Now you have created the particle object. But it has definitively incorrect settings. So let's change the settings for the particle. With MyFire prototype still selected click on the particles button in the PrTyp table. Table for particle settings shows up, you should see something like:

Let's analyze the table.

In the first part of the table you can see settings for position, speed and acceleration (in lines). Columns shows the vectors/direction/size. Our particles work in 2D space, so we will leave the both Z-axis settings as it is it has different function I will explain later. So the most important are X, Y, VX, VY settings. Position: Sets the position, where the particles will born. X, Y sets the place from the prototype's control point where will be the source of the particles placed. 5
VX, VY is the variable X, variable Y the range from the source of the particles (area around the source), where the particles will be randomly created. Speed: Sets the speed and the direction the created particles will move. X, Y sets the vector of movement. The bigger the numbers, the faster particles travels. VX, VY presents the variable random speed factor if you would like to have the particles, that will move in various random speeds, these settings will have to be different from 0. Acceleration: Accelerates the particles in the given direction during the whole their existence. X, Y sets the power and direction of the acceleration VX, VY sets the random factor of the acceleration (direction and speed)

Second part of the table deals with color and alpha of the particles we work with RGBA model (RedGreen-Blue-Alpha). Color is the static factor all created particles will be affected/colored/transparented in the way as it is set in the first line (Color) Color ch is color change. The dynamic change of the particle attributes that will apply until the particle will not die. Reasonable range is from -20 to +20 (most commonly used -2 - +2). The values above 1 are important, when you don't want the particle to be affected by ambient lights (for example fire, spells, etc) it will glow in the night. The columns present the color components (RGBA). The rest of the columns (VR, VG, VB, Valpha) sets the variable factors for the components. For example if you will set up the Alpha to 1, Valpha to 0.5, the alpha of generated particles will be randomly between 0.5-1.5. The same system works for RGB color components. Third part of the table sets the settings for the scale. S default (S)cale transformation that will apply on all particles when the particles are created. VS (V)ariable (S)cale it sets the random factor for scale transformation if you would like to create variously sized particles, you will need to set this factor <>0. Basic principle for these settings: If you set the Scale of the particles to 3, Variable Scale to 1.5, particles will be randomly scaled in the range of 1.5-4.5. If the Variable Scale is set to 0, every particle created will have the scale of 3. DS (D)ynamic (S)cale it sets how the scale is being affected during the existence of the particle. For example the +0.1 will slowly grow up particles, -0.1 will decrease the size of the particles slowly. Size is related to the age of the particles so if you set the age of the particles to 10, with dynamic scale of -0.1 particle will have the size reduced by 1 when dies. (Size (0.1*10)) VDS even our programmer is not sure what it does, so if you will find what is the purpose of this factor, let us know. But we haven't used it anytime before you can get plenty of effects with the previous settings.
Fourth part of the table describes the particle generation and general behaviour. Speed describes how many particles is created per second. The highest possible rate is 1, default is 50. We don't recommend to use value of 1, it might cause problems use the multiple emitors instead. Live it presents how long does the particle live. The higher number, the longer it exists. Be careful with this settings, even invisible particles and particles that are off the screen need CPU time, so optimize your particle systems when you are satisfied with their look. It is often possible to create almost (or exactly) the same effect with several times faster FPS. FX this has the special effect. It creates the special behaviour for the particle, that starts from 0 alpha value (completely transparent) to 1 (full opaque) and back to full transparency. The speed of the change is being taken from the second part Alpha change. FY - even our programmer is not sure what it does, so if you will find what is the purpose of this factor, let us know. But we haven't used it anytime before you can get plenty of effects with the previous settings. STABLE - even our programmer is not sure what it does, so if you will find what is the purpose of this factor, let us know. But we haven't used it anytime before you can get plenty of effects with the previous settings. EXAMPLE CREATING SIMPLE FIRE: Let's say for example we would like to create the particle fire. If you check the normal fire, you can see the color of the fire is changing from orange -> yellow -> red -> dark red -> black. So at first you will need to create the color particle gradient that simulates this behaviour. Use your favourite graphical editor to create the sequence of images. You can see example in the directory tutorial2/fire_gradient. These are only very small particles for a distant fires. If you would like to create close fire, you will need to increase the particle sizes and make it more noised. But now it will work. Create a new prototype, name it myFire. Change the type to particles, click update button. Go to Texture/Object -> add multiple and click on any file in the directory tutorial2/fire_gradient. Now you can see that the particles are animated, but there are some things we will need to set up correctly. At first, we don't want the animation to repeat, so change the Anim. Type to 3 Repeat Once and decrease speed of the animation to 1. Now we need to set up the particle system attributes. Click on the particles button and let's check the table. We want a lot of particles to be created so let's set the speed to 2 Life should be definitively shorter, so set it to about 10 Fire shall not be affected by ambient lightning, so we have to set every RGB setting to 2 The fire particles should be a bit larger, with various sizes, so change the scale to 1.7 and VS to 0.5 we will have the particles created with scale 1.2-2.2. The scale of the particles should decrease as they get older, so let's set up the Dynamic Scale to -0.15 Now the creation of the particles. These should be definitively not created in one place, so set the position - VX = 7; VY = 5 7

If you switch to work type movemap (or press F4), you can see the differently coloured squares red/green and sectors the white/red. Colored squares shows the area characters and monsters can't walk through. Red squares present the wall - any missile, arrow, fireball, etc stops at red color. Green color is the hole - characters can't walk, but the missile, arrow, fireball can fly over it. How to create the movemap. Mouse cursor show the place. By holding the keys A/Z you create/remove red movement square at the mouse cursor position. Hold the A key, move the mouse over the map and you will draw red squares as you want. By pressing Z key, you delete any colored square erase by holding Z key and moving mouse over the map. By pressing S key you create the green squares, for deleting them use Z key in the same way as explained above. 9
Easy, isn't it?;-) Additionaly, there are functions that you can run with F and G - these bucket color to the whole area, that is surrounded by movemap. But you have to be careful if it will color all (you have incorrect borders with hole), there is no way back.:-( Sectors: Sectors these can be very often used for different purposes generally it sets up custom area, where action can be done when needed. For example also every monster has a reaction sector attached it defines the reactive area on the mouse cursor only if you are above this sector, you can attack (and the name of the creature is displayed). If monster doesn't have any sector, it can't be harmed. How you can create sector. When in F4 mode (movemap), you create one vertex/point of the sector by pressing Spacebar in the mouse cursor's position. By pressing BACKSPACE key you delete last point/vertex. EVERY SECTOR NEEDS TO BE CLOSED to create a valid action area. - the last point of the sector has to be in the same position as the first one. It is possible to edit sector by pressing LEFT SHIFT key and moving points of the sector. If you would like to move the whole sector, just do not hold left shift button. How to make sectors closed: The feature of snapping to the grid is always on, when grid is shown. Toggle key for showing/hiding grid is G. The best way how to create the closed sector: 1. Start on any point of the grid. 2. Shape sector as you need to have it. 3. Finish sector at the starting point of the grid. 4. Verify that the sector is closed click and hold mouse on any point of sector. Several parameters appears on the screen the last one - uzavrety: 0/1 shows if the sector is closed or not. In case sector is closed, the value is one, if it is not closed, it shows 0. If it is not closed, delete the last point by pressing BACKSPACE and try creating the last point again. If this did not help, either move the first point to the grid point again by holding LEFT SHIFT and move it, or delete the whole sector and start again.
Use of sectors Sectors can be used in very different manners. Most commonly use for sector is: creating description area - when the mouse is over it, it shows up some text create the exit area when character is in the area, other map is being loaded (or any other) create container area area, where when you click, the container is being opened. Create trap area when character enters the sector, trap is being launched assigning reaction sector to the monster creating AI sectors for random movement of the monsters create sectors for different footsteps You can see, that the sectors can be used in very different styles. Let's describe the every use of them: How to create description area: 1. Create closed sector of area, where if mouse is over, text is being shown. Check for the sector number: 1. Click and hold the LMB on any point of the sector. 2. The first value that is being shown is the number of the sector if you create the sector in the new scene, you will get sektor: 0. if checked. Sectors are numbered from 0 -. 2. Create text you would like to have shown 1. Go to menu Options -> text. The following window should appear:

2. Go to Text -> New 3. In the name fill in the name of the text, for example MyTextName, type can left as was set by default 4. Type in the biggest window the content of the text in the following format: 11
^mouse_center ^gl_a 0.6..TEXT.. 5. Click on update button and you are done. 3. Associate the sector with the text: 1. Go to the table Ident in the main table window. 2. Create new entity -go to entity -> new

3. 4. 5. 6.

Type the name, let the type to normal as set by default To the sector fill the number of the sector, where text should show up (in our case 0) Description find the text you want to show up. Click update and you are done when mouse over the sector, text is being shown. Note: In case you create new text record, you will need to switch to table other than iden and then back to update the text records in the description list.
How to create exit area: 1. Create a new sector (area of exit), check for the sector number. 12
2. Go to options -> event. The following table should appear:
3. Create a new event event -> new, call it exit2dung1 4. You can see the pre-condition and Post event parts of the table. In the pre-condition part you present the conditions, that needs to be met, in order to post-event to be realized. In our case we need to have player in the sector (number 0 if we have created a new map) to load map. 5. Find the pre-condition player in sector, fill the number of sector. 6. Find the post event - load map, fill in which save dung1.sav (directory data/levels) and the starting position one map can have several starting points defined, if only one, than it is 0:
How to create container sector: This is less trvial matter than the others. It combines several above mentioned things. You will need your container chest, box, pile of bones, etc. It can be either animated, or not animation of opening chest, box, etc. For ease, we have placed the exported prototype of animated chest (the most difficult option. Let's go for it step by step: 1. Import prototype of the animated chest from Tutorial2/animated_chest.pr. Check the settings of the prototype especially that the animation type is 3. 2. Place the chest into the scene 3. Create closed sector around the chest (reaction area) 4. Create text you would like to have shown, when player is mouse over. In our case we create text Chest 5. Create a new container in Cont. table of the main table. Go to container -> new, name it First container, set the size of the container to 4*2 it will be a smaller chest;-) 6. Go to Ident table, create new entity, call it My_First_Chest. 1. Set the type to kontainer 2. sector number is the number of the sector (0 in our case) 3. Description text for chest we have created 4. Add container link by filling My_First_Container in Kontajner list. 5. Click update and the container is ready. Correctly filled table should look like:

Create trap area: How the traps in Kult work. The style of the trap is shooter - you cross some area, and from other the spell/projectile is being cast/shot. One sector is the trigger - if you enter this area, the trap triggers. Other sector is shooter - launches the spell/missile from every point of the sector. 1. Create 2 sectors, check for the sector's numbers. 2. Create new entity in the Ident table, name it MyTrap, change the type to trap. 3. Set the sector to the number of trigger, and Add id to the sector number of the shooter. 4. From spell list choose the one you want to cast. 5. Click update, and the trap is ready;-) Note: You can use any existing spell, or create a new one, if you would like to shoot projectiles, etc. Assigning reaction sector to the monster Every monster, character or NPC has the reaction sector assigned the area, that is moving with the character and acts as the target area. This is fixed and is defined by a single sector. You can redefine it any time. 1. Place the character into the scene. Note: Read below for detailed description how to put a character to the scene. (Press F5, go to the level table of the main window, select the desired monster (bear), hold mouse over the place you would like to place it and press SPACEBAR). 2. Create a sector (in F4 mode), that surrounds the monster you can be generous, if you will create it too small, it will be too difficult to hit/click on the monster/NPC. 3. Go to the ChMain table. Find the character you have just placed into the game in our case it is bear, in the position 1 (0 is main hero Alita) 4. In the right bottom of the ChMain table you can find button Add Sec (Add sector). Push it. It adds sector #0 to the character, overwriting the old character's sector (if any). 5. Export character (character ->save). Place it into the directory data/monster there should be bear.chr file from this tutorial already, so choose different name instead. If you will restart editor, you should be able to find a new character in Level table. How to create AI sector AI sector defines the lines, that monster follows. For example if you check the butterflies or children in the village, or Taymurian Shaman's in the Forgotten Cannyons, you realize, that these are following sector lines. They simply move like the train following rails. So you can see, that it is not important the area of the sector, but the lines. Lines can intersect each other. 1. Place the character into the scene (bear). 2. Create Sector (check for it's number), now you can have something like: 15

3. Select the character in the ChMain table, that you would like to follow the sector. Fill in the Action sector with AI sector number you have created. Check the Random AI move. 4. Click on update character. Now you have the character that will randomly move following the rails;-) Create sectors for different footsteps Every map has defined the default sound (in the table level there is the listbox of possible default types dirt, dungeon, ice, water.) - the material that covers most of the level. Exceptions are definedby sectors. Whenever character enters these sector, it's footsteps are changed accordingly. 1. Set the default sound. 2. Create the exception sector, that defines the area of different footsteps. 3. Click LMB on the sector and hold LMB. 4. Pressing numbers on !!!Keypad!!! changes the parameter value (you have to hold sector still) (while pressing normal keys changes the color of the sector). Keypad numbers define the sounds, that 16
character's footsteps will create. Color defines only color;-) So now we have finished describing of using sectors. You can see, that there is plenty of things how to use them for variety of purposes.
Chapter 3 3D models. Every character or bigger animated object (wheel of mill) is 3D model usualy it can spare significant amount of memory comparing with sequence of sprites. We use the vertex transformation of vertexes for animations of 3D object. Also we use our own 3d model format -.3d, created from DirectX.x format. 3D files are located in the directory 3D. 3d files can be created in any 3D package, export it as.x file, or export it as any other format and convert it later using any convertor, there are plenty of them available you can test for example Deep Exploration from Right Hemisphere, although it is not free, you may find it interesting. But there are others free available as well. When exporting/converting to.x file, make sure that you have only the folowing things active vertex position, texture placement, normals. Nothing else should be active to be correctly imported to our engine, otherwise you may have difficulties to import it. I have included the sample of the animated 3D object in.x files in the directory tutorial2/3d/anim_x. How to create 3d object and import it into the game engine. I assume you have.x file of the model available (tutorial2/3d/anim_x.) First we will convert it to native Kult format.3d file. It is the similar approach as if you are adding converted 3d file. 1. Create new Prototype, change the type to 3d mesh, click on update. 2. Go to menu texture/objekt -> add (or only add, in case you want to add static, non-animated object). Click on any file in the directory tutorial2/3d/anim_x.It will create 3D prototype. 3. Go to texture objects ->save 3d object, name it bear.3d 4. You have created new 3d file. In fact you can use directly.x files, but.3d files are compressed, especially significantly smaller for animations (about 20 times) and faster to load. We have created 3d file. But you can see that it has any or none texture assigned. For assigning texture on 3d object we use.sk file. This file needs to have the same name as 3d file, but extension.sk. The.sk file has the following structure: for non-animatied texture (example /kult/3d/a_guard1/1/stand1/body.sk): first line contains the number of textures on the model the next lines contain the addresses of textures - skins Textures can be changed by items with skin changer ability (described below under items section) Generally all files in directory 3d has appropriate.sk file.

can easily work with, also create a table where you will notice all of your items real name + engine names desc name, as it will appear to the player type you choose the type of the weapon; and its type if it is heavy/two handed etc. weapon category - axe damage basic damage critical % - chance of the critical hit x critical hit multiplier (in case the critical hit is done, what is the multiplication of the damage)
Attunement what attunement is hidden in the item Price basic price- every shop uses different multiplications Range range of the weapon Attack Bonus not use in this RPG system; remnant of previous RPG system AC Bonus not use in this RPG system; remnant of previous RPG system Duration not use in this RPG system; remnant of previous RPG system Num of use not use in this RPG system; remnant of previous RPG system Period not use in this RPG system; remnant of previous RPG system Destroy after use not use in this RPG system; remnant of previous RPG system
E Requirements This section sets the conditions for the item. In fact, it has only sense, when the item's type is Attunement, otherwise the conditions are derived from the Attunement in the item. For example You have Attunement Might I, with condition Melee. If you will add this Attunement to the item, the conditions are derived from Might I, so it doesn't matter, what conditions are set for Dagger. F Anim prototype we have used 4 different animation prototypes one handed, two handed, staff, bow. So every weapon needs to have assigned one animation prototype. Attack sound Which sound scheme will be used with the item this includes the sounds for dropping item, attack, inventory work. The sounds must be placed in the directory data/sound and the name convention is following. Let's say you would like to have the basic sound scheme name dagger. d_dagger1.ogg sounds of the dropping item you can use 3 different variations, numbered 1-3 i_dagger1.ogg - sounds of working in the inventory you can use 3 different variations, numbered 1-3 a_dagger1.ogg - sounds of the attacking you can use 3 different variations, numbered 1-3
Hit sound no use Stamina move/attack penalty no use Kontainer x/y size Size of the container (if the item is container) Interface name name of the interface icons usualy the same as the engine name, could be different though Model name name of the 3D model usualy the same as the engine name, could be different though G This is very important part of the editor it gives you capability to add special effects and various properties to the items. It is very variable and can have different range of effects.

I will explaing the most often used properties and general system used in G part of the items table. a) listbox with the names of the effects according to the chosen effect, the parameter listbox are changed, if necessary b) list of current effects of the item one item can have up to 32 (I think) different effects c) Parameters listboxes Usualy the names of the effects are explain themselves. Though I will try to explain most of them at least these, that have any effect and we have used them. We tried to create these as generic as possible, so you can easily modify it. We haven't suceeded in every case :-( List of the effects: base damage add increase the basic damage for the current weapon for example it should be possible to craete a Ring of the warrior, that will increase +5 basic damage base damage on creature add increase basic damage against specific creatures in the same way as above but only against these monsters for example Goblinslayer sword can have +50 basic damage against goblins. - used in Attunements critical chance add increases the chances for critical hit 28

critical damage add increases the critical damage add protection increases defense of the character slashing/piercing/crushing damage resistance add increases the resistances against specific damages hitpoints add -increases hitpoints - for example Fortitude serendipity gives the serendipity ability to the item the chance to find more valuable item is increased resurrection gives you the chance to resurrect the character after death soulthief When a foe is killed, 1% of his Hit Points is gained to your Blood Points. Dreamform gives you the dreamform ability you can stay in DW without limits add experience Sets the multiplication on every experience you earn for example the Quick Study Attuements reflect damage- gives the reflect damage ability if the attack is blocked, damage is returned back to attacker. dodge add increases dodge chance block add increases block chance set ac sets your defense to the desired value for example Aura of Protection magic/cold/fire/poison/lightning resistance add changes the resistance to every element for example Burning Aura. change 3D part in the moment it only enables you to switch off any part of the character. Characters usualy consist of few parts head, hairs, body, etc if you would like to switch off something, you will need to use this function. For example helmets switch off the hairs of the characters, so that hairs doesn't go through helmet's polygons change 3D part color changes the color of any character's part. Parameters are part of the character, their RGBA components respectively. This can be used, if you don't want some part to be affected by ambient color also for example magic wands, etc just set the color of weaponr part to 2.0, 2.0, 2.0, 2.0, 1.0 change char color changes the color of the whole character in the above mentioned way change skin Skins you character can have several textures assigned, althoguh only one is used at once. This function changes the current texture used in Skin changers for example add effect3d Adds the effect from the effect table to any 1 specific vertex of model add effect2d Adds effect from effect table above or under the character. add life not used in current RPG system add mana - not used in current RPG system add stamina - not used in current RPG system change char part - not used in current RPG system cast spell when attack when this item is equipped, the spell is being cast when any attack is done. Kickback Knockback -throws enemy, that has been hitted a step back. earthquake when attack creates earthquake when attack learn spell - not used in current RPG system cast spell when hit whenever a foe is hit, the spell is cast earthquake when hit whenever a foe is hit, earthquake is being created cast spell when death whenever a character dies, the spell is cast 29

eartquake when death creates earthquake whenever character dies add effect3d2 similar to add effect3d, but adds to all vertices below the specified if you specify 13 in parameters, it adds effect to all vertices below 13 add char light increases the light character bears sub char light decreases the light character bears cast spell when groundstep whenever you move, the spell is being cast damage type add adds multiplication + changes the damage type - for example Poisonblade enemy damage add multiplies the damage dealt to you by enemies enemy critical chance add multiplies the critical chance of the enemies enemy ac add multiplies the Ac of enemies shred enemy armor Shred armor attunement enemy block/dodge add multiplies block/dodge chance of enemy Touch of Death touch of death attunement Haermmorrhage - Haemmorrhage add ticks stun enemy stuns enemy berserk adds berserk feature sunlight add sunlight feature to the character (aphotic enemies take damage) change damage type slow enemy slows down enemy cast spell when quickused equipment spell whenever an item is in the inventory, a spell is being cast for example Attunements are considered as being in inventory when active any aura is realized here cast spell when critical on foe enemy casts spell whenever is critically hit cast spell when hit on foe there is a spell being cast on enemy after every hit cast onspell when critical add residual when hit on foe adds residual damage whenever a foe is hit add residual when critical on foe adds residual damage when a foe is criticaly hit base damage fixed add increases basic damage by fixed amount cast spell on attunement spell -
How to test the items you have created. 1. 2. 3. 4. Create item or modify existing item. Copy directories 3d/heroine and textures/hero to root directory of your tutorials/testings. Add item to inventory of the main hero/to any place you would like to have it. Press TAB to enter the test game mode.You can now play the game/work in the same way as you would with normal game
Chapter 4 Spells. How to create your own spells. Hm, this documentation turns out to be needed far larger and more complex than I ever expected;-). Nevermind, let's continue with the spells and later items. Please contact me at support@3dpeople.de if you have any questions, or if there is something unclear. Let's prepare the environment first. Copy the directory data/spells textures/gfx from your Kult's directory to Tutorial2 directory. Usualy spells use particle systems, that were described above as the shots. It is not the rule though. You can use any static/animated sprite for spell effect. Spell properties can be set up in the menu RPG->Spells. It opens the spell table. It is important that you have correctly copied the above mentioned directories correctly, otherwise you may encounter crash when opening spell table. When you open spell table, it should look like following:
Please note the Add/Update/Remove buttons in the upper left corner if you would like to see any changes, it is necessary to click Update button for every change. Let's describe the parts of the table. On the left you can see the list of the existing spells, numbered from 0. Please note, that there is much more spells, than there was ever used in the game a lot of them is used only for effects and are fake spells. In the upper right corner you can see GENERAL OPTIONS for spell. Let's get explained these in more detail: Name - ;-) Mana not used in the current game; none effect, remnant from previous RPG system Roll - % of basic damage (taken from rod) ie. Fireball deals 500% of normal damage = 5x basic damage K none effect, remnant from previous RPG system +/- none effect, remnant from previous RPG system damage listbox set the effect of the shot on the enemy (when exploding/hitting enemy) damage deals damage per shot no damage shot deals no damage heal no effect, remnant from previous RPG system heal other no effect, remnant from previous RPG system close dam deals damage to all monsters in small circle around the caster far dam deals damage to all monsters in large circle around caster (a bit off the screen also) Type no effect, remnant from previous RPG system mtype (M)otion type this describes the way, how particle emitter behave when fired out I suggest to test everyone to understand the differences every type is being influenced by different attributes. directional shoots simple one shot in the direction rotating shoots rotating missile around the caster stational no movement line create particle emitters in one line sinusoid creates missile going in sinus wave global emitters appear on the whole screen bezier non supported/documented still in development lightning non supported/documented still in development dtype (D)istribution type in case that more than one shot is being fired, how these shots are being distributed example is FireBlast linear shoots all shots in wall from the caster circular shoots all shots around the caster in the circle random - - should fire shots in random angles from caster seeker should seek the closest enemy and fire the shot in his direction. Efect very important it describes which prototype is being taken as the shot. If you check the directory data/spell it is the directory, where the prototype of the shot is placed. 32

Let's describe this in more detail it is very important. Every spell can (doesn't have to) consist of the several different effects every effect has to be named according to some convention. SpellEfect the main shot e_SpellEfect explosion (starts whenever main missile hits the target/wall) ee_SpelEfect second explosion (starts whenever main missile hits the target/wall) e0_SpelEfect third explosion (starts whenever main missile hits the target/wall) e2_SpelEfect efect around caster usualy sparks when casting fireballs, etc e3_SpelEfect efect at the point where the spell is created glow in casters hands, from which effect is being fired Note: I suggest you check the data/spell directory for anyone spell. Take for example Fireball and check all its efect components that are placed in this directory according to the above mentioned name convention. Example:Fireball has the efect name fire. So we can see that explosion of Fireball is created from e_fire.pr, e0_fire.pr, ee_fire - you can import one after one into the editor and see what every component does. level no effect, remnant from previous RPG system icon no effect, remnant from previous RPG system
PARAMETERS: spell duration presents the life of the main emiter - missile spell pause no effect in current RPG system spell speed speed of shot spell phase in which phase of the casting animation (of the character) the shot is being fired spell height the height above the ground spell is fired spell xpar no effect spell ypar distance from caster the spell is being created spell rotspeed in case the mtype from General settings is set to rotating it sets the speed of rotation spell multi how many emitters are being launched at shot in case you need strong shot;-) dist number this sets how many of the main shots is being launched dist step in case there is more shots fired (dist number > 1) how are each other from each other castef duration duration of effect on the caster castef scale scale of the caster's effect castef shift what is the height of the effect castef multi how many emitters is in the caster's effect. glow duration how long shows up the glow glow scale - scale of the glow glow multi how many emmiters/prototypes is being shown expl duration duration of the explosion expl scale scale of the explosion expl multi multiplier how many emitters (similar below) expl 2 duration as mentioned above expl 2 scale as mentioned above expl 2 multi as mentioned above 33

expl 3 duration as mentioned above expl 3 scale as mentioned above expl 3 multi as mentioned above
SPECIAL is light if the spell has dynamic light attached to the shot move with char if the light moves with character, or not (if it's position is relative or absolute) hit spell you can cast a new spell when enemy is hit upon enemy. For example you want to make enemy burning if he is hit by fireball, so you will create a new spell FireballBurning and start it upon Fireball explosion r,g,b normalized (0-1) RGB parts of the dynamic light attached akt anim the cast animation that is being played for this specific spell we used only one casting animation, so it is only 1 for every spell. cast sound sound that is being played when spell is casted. 3d rot type if spell is aura 3D object below character (around character), you can give him the rotation (using rotation speed from Parameters) item efect we haven't used it, although you can link an effect from items to be played better to ignore, it is not well tested and can cause you troubles. stun min/max for how long is enemy being stunned after hit quake min/max if there is a quake played upon hit, how long will it last. IMPORTANT Notes: So, this is the brief description of all spell parameters we have used. I recommend you check all spells we have created and test their different versions. Spell Table is being placed in global/spells.dat. Spells are saved whenever you quit engine, so be sure, if you are happy with the result quit engine to save your work. I strongly recommend to create a backup directory of the whole global directory backup every day, or whenever possible ;-) In the directory global is created directory undo it is supposed to be deleted whenever the engine closes, but sometimes when crash, or any other circumbstances it may forget to delete :-) - so check it sometimes, if there are not excessive data it could easily reach the amount of several GB with more complex saves and you may find yourself running out of HDD space;-) How to test spells you have created. The easiest and fastest way is to create item, that will have ability cast spell on attack. So: 1. Create a spell 2. Create item (or use existing) dagger, sword etc. 3. add to the item ability cast spell when attack (spell you have created and want to test) 4. Add item to your inventory 5. Press TAB to test the game equip and attack with the weapon it will cast the spell you want to 34
test. Make sure you have all the directories that are needed (3d/heroine and textures/hero) 6. You can easily modify spell, and test it again (you will need to pick up item from inventory and put it back to refresh memory data). 7.