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Table of Contents

2a. Pickmaps
2b. Memory
2c. Time-savers
2d. Changing Objects
2e. Exits
2f. Saving/Loading

2a. Pickmaps

Tired of having to switch between 2 frequently used tiles? Try using a pickmap. Go on over to the Archtype menu and click on the "Pickmaps" tab. Find some tiles in there and place them on a map. Much faster? Now let's make your own. Right click on one of the tabs, and click on "Add New Pickmap". Input some dimension info (7x7 is what I use) and press OK. Find an empty space on there (You may have to switch on the grid by pressing "Ctrl + G" or go to "Map" on the smaller menu bar right above the map, and press "Show Grid".

Now to put some tiles in that pickmap. Go back to the archtypes tab and place some tiles that you need on the main map. Switch back to pickmaps, and select the tile you want in the pickmap, and right click somewhere on the pickmap. Repeat with all other needed pickmaps. A pickmap is just a small version of a map, so adding and removing tiles is the same.

2b. Memory

Is the editor going REALLY slowly? Having to wait about 30 seconds for a tile to place? Here's the solution.

First, check in the lower-right hand corner of the screen. You'll see something about "Memory: X MB used, Y MB free, Z MB total". If Y drops too low, meaning most of your RAM is used, the editor will slow down. To fix this problem, go into the editor folder, and right-click on "w32_start_editor.bat", and click on edit. If your computer doesn't have an associated program to open batch files, run it with notepad.

Find where it runs Java.exe, and replace that line with:java.exe -Xmx256m -Xms256m -jar DaimoninEditor.jar
Replace the 256's with whatever amount of RAM you want to allow the editor. If you open it, and only get 1 line with a bunch of squares in it, the squares just mean that there's a new line there. Notepad has some issues with Returns.

Now save that, and restart the editor.

2c. Timesavers

Here are a few of the more advanced features of the Gridarta Editor that need to be mentioned, as they can save valuable time.

Autojoin

The autojoin feature is new in the editor. Instead of switching wall tiles every time you make a corner, it allows the same wall tile to make the curves itself. Example: Find the "dark wall" tiles in the walls tab. You see that there is a horizontal, vertical, and corner pieces. Normally, you would have to switch between horizontal to vertical, and you would have to know which corners need which tile(s). But, if you go to "Map -> Autojoin" in the top menu bar, that all changes. Grab the horizontal tile, go horizontally with it for a while, and then go down. Amazing! It automatically switched to the vertical piece, didn't it!? Now try and make a corner going upward on that same corner, too. It makes a "T" shape without you having to switch tiles! Way to go, dev team, making America fatter, one click at a time. You can turn in any way and it will turn for you.

Find Archtype

Did you want a sand tile, but you can't find one? Never fear, this feature is here! Go to the top menu bar, find "Archtypes -> Find Archtype", or press "Ctrl + Alt + A". Type in "Sand", and wait. Now you should find some sand tiles on there. Find the one you want, and then click on "close". Now the Archtype menu has sand tiles in it. You can do that with any object or tile.

Changing objects

Well the default items are no fun, right? who wants to camp a Steel Plate Armor? Well, here's how to make it "Armor of Super-duper uberness!!". Place the armor on the map, and go to the menu on the right.Double-click on the armor in there, and a window appears. You can customize that item with its name, image (WARNING: The images/animations are extremely unorganized), and even the stats. Go through the tabs and input all of the stats you want changed, and then press "Ok". This can be done with any object/tile.

But let's say you make the item with AC +100, but decide that it only needs AC +50. You don't want to go through that big window finding mana, do you? If not, then look in the lower-right into a large textbox. Find "AC 100" and replace it with "AC 50". You can replace any of the object/item's stats. You can also edit walls or NPC's. Now, make a "Creator" in the "Special" tab. Look down there and see "hp 1". Why would that have any HP? It's not a mob or anything... Well the client/server interpret that differently. It isn't HP. In this case, if you go into the object properties window (double-click the creator in the menu on the right), you'll find that the "hp 1" is how many times the creator can be used. Click on the "?" button on the side to find out what each property is. When you change something through the textbox in the lower right, it turns blue if it doesn't match the default arch.
You can also click on the big "Attributes" button towards the bottom of the screen to open that window.
2e. Exits

Exits are considered teleporters, holes, pits, ladders, stairs, and anything else that takes you off of the map. To make an exit, go into the "exits" tab, find a suitable exit, and place it on the map. next, go into the object attributes menu, and go into the "Destination" tab. In the "exit path", either click on the folder icon and find the map you want to warp to, or type in the destination. Let's say your 2 maps are in the same folder. Just type in the other map's name. Or, if they're in different folders, let's say map AAA_0000 is in folder "daimonin_mapmaker-b5/maps/1", while map AAA_0100 is in folder "daimonin_mapmaker-b5/maps/2". If the exit is on map AAA_0100, then put in the field "/1/AAA_0000", or if the exit is on AAA_0000, then type "/2/AAA_0100".

Next, input the coordinates. To find these, go to the map that the exit leads to, and left click on where you want the exit to lead. In the bottom of the editor, you can see "Map x:12 y:12" if the tile is at 12, 12. Type in those coordinates into the appropriate fields.

The other attributes in this tab are more complex, and can be explained by the "?" buttons.

2f. Saving/Loading

Well, now that you can make good maps, you should learn how to save and load them. Fairly simple, click on the save button near the New map button to save, just find where you want to save it and click save. To load maps, press the open button, a folder icon, and find the maps you want to load.

That's all for today, but there's more on the way. Lesson 3 contains Connectors, mobs, mob inventories, and map properties.