ok,

i'm starting a new topic for the demo editor. the 'map editor' topic has mostly stuff about rob's progress on his editor. this new topic is for info on how to use the editor built into the demo game.

first off, you HAVE to have the demo game to use the editor. it is NOT in the full game. you can download the demo from www.totalwar.com (EA's official shogun site).
the bloody thing is just under 100 megs in size, so prepare for a bit of a long d/l.

unip the demo and run the setup file in a folder COMPLETELY separate from the full-blown version of the game! you do NOT want to overwrite STW with the demo or vice-versa.

once the demo is installed, run it, pick 'tutorial' and pick ANY of the 4 tutorials to work with. as soon as the tutorial loads, click off the voice explanations by hitting ok or whatever it is and immediately hit the 'j' key. this freezes the game and puts you into edit mode.

by hitting the 'j' key you can cycle thru the various editing 'modes'. i think there are about 5 or 6 modes you can cycle thru. each mode allows you to do different things with the map. there is raise/lower terrain mode, a change texture mode, a 'models' mode, a 'tree bit' mode, an odd 'spline' mode, and maybe one other, which i'm forgetting right now.

the raise/lower terrain mode is pretty straight forward. put the cursor over an area and the right mouse makes the terrain go one way and the left mouse makes it go the other. if you lower the terrain all the way you end up with completely flat terrain that looks somewhat like water. i'm not yet sure if it is or not, but that's sort of what it looks like. after raising or lowering terrain you can hit the backspace key to somewhat smooth it out...i'm still looking for a button combo to make terrain completely flat at a given height, like a bulldozer, but havent found it yet. tosalnu's cntrl click method of raising or lowering the entire terrain DOES work. thanks tosalnu :)

the change texture mode is a bit goofy, but it does work. tosalnu said there are 127 settings, but in fact there are 256. you cycle thru these textures just as he said, by using the - = keys and turn the texture 90 degrees by using the [ ] keys. the goofy part is that as you cycle thru the textures the textures already on the map begin to change, especially if you go over texture # 127. and again, an oddity, as you go past # 127 the number reading on your cursor wont change to # 128 but rather will go to 0 and start counting from there again. however, if you look in the text file that show texture settings (i think it's a .cfg file), you'll notice that the range of texture numbers goes all the way to 255, so there are actually 256 diff textures.

to change a texture just click on any map 'tile' or square. the last number showing on your cursor is the number of the texture of the tile your cursor is over at that moment, but not necessarily of the one you clicked. once you click a tile you use the - = keys to cycle thru the various textures. as you do so the texture of the tile you clicked will change. to rotate that tile simply use the [ ] keys to rotate it 90 degrees.

now here is where tosalnu and i seem to have found different things. he says in his post that some textures seem to have models attached. i didnt find that at all. i found some very odd textures but NO models attached to any of them...or trees. i'm not sure of why this is and i'm NOT saying tosalnu reported incorrectly. there may actually be diff demos out, a u.s. version, euro version, i dont know. i have the u.s. version. there may actually be dated demos as well. maybe tosalnu's is older than mine. again, i dont know.

i found that textures 3-8 were all green grass types with no trees at all. tosalnu said some of those on his had trees. i found no monastary or castles or houses where he found them, but i did find the roads. at texture 42 thru about 50 i found rocky ground. at about 54 - 58 i found more green.
so beware that there may be diffs in the demos and act accordingly.

in models mode you use the RIGHT mouse button to place the various models. when first placed they come up in 'white highlight'. while still 'white' you can rotate them by using the [ ] keys. to change which model comes up when you right-click, cycle by using the - = keys. if you add a second model, the first one becomes un-highlighted and is 'set'. once set it shld save with the map just fine. if you change modes with the j key, the model will also become 'set'. things like castles are made by using several diff models arranged in that manner. to erase a model, click on it so that it's highlighted again (it's now the active model again) and hit the backspace key. poof, it's gone. if there is a way to minutely adjust the position of a highlighted model i havent found it yet, which is too bad because it's quite a trick to line up walls EXACTLY with some of the other models in order to make things like castles.

you CANNOT erase trees that come up with a given map within the editor. to erase trees that come with a given map you have to edit a text file called TREESUV.txt. i just experimented with this today and found i could erase all trees that came with a map by simply erasing all text in that file. now, this is different than the trees you CAN edit within the editor. by again hitting the 'j' key you can go into 'tree bit' mode. to place a tree simply left-click on the map and voila, a tree. to change that tree's size or type use the - = and [ ] keys. watch the numbers on your cursor as you do so and watch the tree to get the size and type of tree that you want. use the backspace key to erase the last tree placed. if you keep hitting the backspace key it will keep erasing any trees you placed while in the editor.

the 'spline' mode is a very weird mode and i'm not sure i completely understand it yet. you'll recognize you're in spline mode because your screen will change to an almost split screen with the lower half being a light blue or whiteish color...at least mine is. there will also be one to three flashing trees and the upper half of the screen will show whatever part of the remaining map you were on. apparently this mode is for altering the 'splines' of the tiles. the splines are those little 'edges' you can see on a map on any given tile. the flashing trees correspond to your right and left mouse buttons. by moving the splines of a tile you thereby alter the tile shape and can therefore change the shape of the tile from being a square to something not quite so square. again, i dont have this one down yet, but by clicking with the right or left mouse, you apparently set the flashing trees to a position which when you click and drag, the spline will attempt to alter itself to. thus you can 'drag' a spline over another tile. it's pretty weird and i'd stay away from this one for a while till more is found out about it...except for experimenting to find out more about how it works.

to save your map hit the 's' key and change the name of the map to something other than what it was. we dont want 13 different tutmap3 maps out there.

the 't' key is also an active key and apparently has something to do with the ai speech. t = talk, i guess. i havent played with this one yet but i'm guessing you can add your own voice/sound to the game.

the demo tutorials rely on 2 types of files for the scenario setups. the .bdf and the .adf. .bdf means: battle description file and .adf means: army description file. each tutorial will have one .bdf and two .adf's. two armies, two .adf's. the bdf and adf are text files and can be altered to change the scenario. i'm going to guess that to remove the units from a map you want to edit you would simply remove or erase the .adf to erase the units from the map. erasing the .bdf i'm not sure yet. havent studied that part yet.

ok, this post has gotten quite long enough. please post anything you know about the demo editor in this topic. if we can compile a full list of the edtior's features then we can all make better maps quicker. thanks.

Kraellin