Level Editor
(Currently only available in the Mac Version)
MacBrickout's level editing features are only available in the registered version.
When you reach level 12 in the registered version, MacBrickout will tell you how to access the
SECRET menu. To enter the level editor, select "Level..." from the SECRET menu. A dialog box
will pop up. Choose the level you wish to edit from the popup menu and click on the "Edit..."
button. This will cause a TOOLS menu to appear. All of your level editing features can be
found in the TOOLS menu.
Click on one of the following links for information about:
the
Tools Menu
the Bonus Menu
Brick Attributes
Ball Attributes
Teleporter Attributes
Gate Attributes
Trigger Switch Attributes
Click on any object to select it. You can drag a rectangle around a whole group of objects to
select the entire group. Once an object or an entire group of objects is selected, you can drag
the selection to a new location on the screen. Shift-Click to add individual objects to (or
remove objects from) a group.
Select an object or a group of objects, then hit the delete key.
To quickly copy the attributes from one brick to another, click on the first brick then hold down
the option key. Now drag the cursor over some other bricks. The other bricks will instantly
inherit most of the attributes of the first brick! The musical brick and size attributes will not
be carried over.
Use the arrow keys to change the position of a selection of bricks or gates. This allows you to move
your selection in 1-pixel increments. If you hold the shift key down while using the arrow keys, you
can change the size of the selected items. Shift-up and shift-left reduces the size while shift-
down and shift-right increases the size.
Note: If you add or remove levels to the level group by dragging them into or out of
the group using the Finder, you will need to select "Arrange Levels" from the SECRET
menu to make MacBrickout aware of the changes.
Allows you to add a single brick to your level. The size of the brick will be the same size as
the last brick you selected. If no brick was previously selected, your new brick will default
to a size of 40 pixels wide by 20 pixels high.
Allows you to add an entire row of bricks to your level. The brick size is determined by the size
of the last brick you selected. MacBrickout will try to fit as many bricks as it can into the row.
This will show you (and allow you to edit) information about the particular object you selected.
You can edit the attributes of a whole group of bricks at once by selecting the entire group,
then choosing this function from the TOOLS menu. If the group contains unlike objects (for example,
10 bricks and a ball), this function will be disabled. For more information, see Object Attributes.
It's possible to place the bricks in different layers. Layer 1 is the bottommost layer. Layer 9
is on the top. This function allows you to select and edit single layers at a time.
This is an easy way to select every object in the playfield. A quick way to start fresh is to
select all then hit the delete key.
This centers your selection horizontally on the screen.
This allows you to quickly make copies of your selection and facilitates building levels quickly.
Allows you to place a ball in a level. The first ball you place will be the initial starting ball.
You must place at least one ball in each level.
Allows you to place a fruit in a level
Allows you to place a vegetable in a level
Allows you to place a teleporter in a level
Allows you to place a trigger switch in a level
Allows you to place a gate in a level
This will bring up a standard file dialog box containing a list of
items to choose. Backgrounds can be obtained from other levels as well as PICT files. The PICT
file's size can range from 8x8 pixels to 640x480 pixels.
back to top
Here is where you can add textures to a level (or remove them). Each level can hold roughly 300K
of textures (or approximately a full 640x480 screen). The maximum texture size is 64x64.
This function allows you to easily "paint" a large picture on a group of bricks. Here's what you do:
Create a picture using your favorite paint program. The picture should be in 16-bit color and
anything you want to come through as transparent should be bright white (255, 255, 255). Save it and
make this picture the background in a level you're editing. Next, lay a bunch of bricks over the picture.
When the picture is covered with bricks, select those bricks and select Apply Texture From Background from
the Tools menu. The background picture will be cut up into nice little brick-sized textures and will be
applied to those bricks. Now you can change the background to whatever you want and the bricks will retain
the picture you applied!
This is where you define how the border looks. The different faces of the border can be a single color or
a texture that was imported into the level via Texture Management. Applying a single color to each border
face is pretty straight forward. One thing worth mentioning is you can option-click a color to set it to the
last selected color. That way you don't have to edit each individual color to get them all to be the same.
Applying textures to the border needs some explaining. The widths and/or heights of the textures have to be
set to certain values. Here is a list of those values (in pixels):
| Name | Width | Height |
| Left Facing | 14 | 1-64 |
| Top-Left Corner | 14 | 20 |
| Top Facing | 1-64 | 20 |
| Top-Right Corner | 14 | 20 | | Right Facing | 14 | 1-64 | | Inner
Left | 18 | 1-64 |
| Inner Top * | 18 | 1-64 |
| Inner Right | 18 | 1-64 |
Note: You can use the same texture for the inner-right and inner-left walls. MacBrickout displays the
texture from left to right for the left wall and right to left for the right wall.
* The texture for the inner-top wall is tricky. You should draw the texture on its side so the width is
18 pixels and the height is 1 to 64 pixels. MacBrickout internally rotates this texture 90 degrees clockwise
before displaying it.
Draw the inner wall textures as if you were looking at them straight on. MacBrickout automatically adds the
3D parallax later (where the details of the texture scrunch together as they get further away from you).
Here are the textures used for the brick border in the game. MacBrickout only reads PICT files so you'll
have to convert them back to PICTS if you want to use them:
| Left Facing: |  | | Top Facing: |  | | Right
Facing: |  | Inner Left/Right:
(Same texture for both) |  |
| Inner Top: |  | | Top Left: |  | | Top
Right: |  |
This is the name that appears at the top of the screen (right under the score bar). It is not
required to specify a name.
Putting a checkmark here tells MacBrickout that this is a bonus level. A BONUS menu, containing
special options for bonus levels, will appear in the menu bar.
Check this item on levels where you know there will be a lot of balls on the screen. This
will reduce the effectiveness of the multiplier and balance the scoring more evenly with the other levels.
Here is where you save your masterpiece.
If you decide you want to keep the original level, select this item and your level will be
restored to its original condition before you started editing it.
back to top
Here is a description of the items found in the BONUS menu
Select this if you want the bonus level to end as soon as a ball touches a wall
Select this if you want to impose a time limit on the bonus level. The value you specify is in
seconds.
You can turn bubbles off for this bonus level.
Temporarily grant the player full range of their paddle for this level.
Allows you to lock the paddle to a specified Y (vertical) coordinate on the screen.
Select this if you want the level to end successfully if the user
manages to hit the ball once. This could be used in a bonus level
with a very fast moving ball aimed straight at the sand. The user would basically have one
chance to hit the ball.
In this mode, hitting a ball would end the bonus level unsuccessfully.
Here, you specify what the user wins if they successfully complete this level.
back to top
When you select "Attributes..." from the TOOLS menu (command-I for short), a different dialog
box will pop up depending on what type of object you selected. Here is a description of the
different dialog boxes:
This allows you to view and/or change the dimensions of a brick.
This is the number of hits it takes for the brick to disappear. The range is from 1 to 5
Here, you specify which layer the brick resides in.
These facilitate making gold or gray bricks. If a group of bricks is selected, these buttons
will only appear if you've checked both the "Color" checkbox and the "Num Hits / Layer" checkbox.
This is the color of the brick at the specified hit level. For instance, if you put 5 in the
Num Hits field so the brick must be hit 5 times, the brick will start off with color 5. If you
hit the brick, it will turn to Color 4. Hit it again and it will go to Color 3, etc.
To the right of the color boxes, you'll find the texture boxes. Click on a texture box to choose
a texture for that particular "hit" of the brick. Textures take presedence over colors so if you
want a color to show, you'll need to set the texture to "NO TEXTURE".
Here's a secret trick: If you hold down the option key while clicking on "NO TEXTURE", you'll
create a special "shadow brick". You won't be able to see the brick, just its shadow!
If the selected texture is smaller than the brick, it will tile until it fills the brick. If the
texture is larger than the brick, only the upper-left portion of the texture will be displayed.
You can add and remove textures from a level by using the Texture Manager.
These only show up if you have more than one brick selected. These allow you to specify what
attributes you want applied to the entire group.
Here you can select which capsules are allowed to fall from this brick (or group of bricks)
Turn this option on if you want the brick to be a special bonus brick. Enter the number of
bonus points (1 - 65535) this brick is worth in the field below. It is not necessary for the user
to destroy bonus bricks in order to complete the level. It's recommended that you place bonus bricks
in difficult to reach areas and that you identify them with custom textures.
This forces a brick to always drop a capsule. During the game, the capsule is chosen randomly
from the list of capsules you selected.
Click on All to check all of the capsule checkboxes. Click on None to uncheck all of the
capsule checkboxes.
In bonus levels with a time limit, you can configure the bricks to add 5 seconds to the timer
when they get knocked out by a ball.
This allows you to configure musical bricks. You can have as many musical bricks in a level
as you wish. The prize menus below allow you to set the prizes for the musical bricks. A
typical setup would be to configure a brick with a musicNum of 1 and no prizes. Configure
another brick with a musicNum of 2 and no prizes. Configure a 3rd brick with a musicNum of
3 and a fruit prize. In the game, the fruit will only appear if those three bricks are hit
consecutively and in order.
If you configure a musical brick to drop a ball prize, a field will appear allowing you to
enter a starting direction for that ball. 0 is straight up, 90 is directly to the right. Any
value from 0 to 359 is valid. Any value greater than 359 will be treated as a random angle.
The brick will not cast a shadow if you turn this off.
When this is checked, multiple-hit bricks will flash when hit. If you have a multiple-hit brick
that sequences through different textures each time it is hit, you may elect to turn this off.
Allows you to choose a sound for the selected brick(s).
back to top
This is the position of the ball on the screen. X is the horizontal position and Y is the
vertical position.
This is the starting direction of travel in degrees. 0 degrees is straight up, 90 degrees is
directly right, 180 degrees is straight down and 270 degrees is directly left.
This is the amount of random variance from the starting angle (in degrees) you wish to allow.
A good technique is to set a starting angle of 180 and an angle deviation of 45 degrees.
This is the starting speed of the ball in pixels per second. 390 is a good value to start with.
- Off, Speed Slow
Collision with bricks is turned off (until the ball hits the paddle). The
ball's speed is reduced until it hits the paddle. This is the
standard choice
- Off, Speed Normal
Same as above but the ball's speed is not reduced.
- On
The ball starts off as if it had already hit the paddle (speed normal, collision
with bricks turned on)
- On, Don't Kill Bricks
Collision with bricks is on, but the ball just bounces off of them without
destroying them. After making this selection, when you
leave this dialog box, the ball will have a large white rectangle around it.
As soon as the ball leaves this rectangle it will begin
destroying bricks. You can drag the edges of this "cage" rectangle
to conform to the edges of a rectangular brick cavity. That way,
the ball will bounce harmlessly in the brick cavity until the user knocks
one of the bricks out. As soon as the ball leaves that rectangle
(through the hole left by the missing brick), it will instantly become an
active ball and start destroying bricks.
This allows you to start levels off with any type of ball you wish. Normally, you would start a
level off with a green ball.
back to top
Allows you to specify which teleporter to go to.
Click on this checkbox and the teleporter will change the direction of any object coming out
of it. An Angle EditText field pops up. Enter any angle from 0 to 359. You can specify a
random angle by entering a value larger than 359.
This is where the teleporter resides on the screen.
If different than the starting position, the teleporter will oscillate back and forth between
the two points.
Speed (in pixels per second) that the teleporter travels between the two points. 150 is a
good value.
Check this checkbox to cause the teleporter to disappear when it reaches the end of its path.
This is useful if you wish to have a teleporter move across the screen at the beginning of a
level and disappear if the user takes too long to hit it.
back to top
The size (in pixels) of the gate in its fully closed position.
The size (in pixels) of the gate in its fully open position.
The channel number this gate receives on. Any trigger switch set to this channel will open
and close this gate.
The number of open or close requests needed to activate this gate. If you set this value
to 3, you would need three separate trigger switches broadcasting on this gate's channel in
order to activate this gate.
This determines which side of the gate remains stationary.
back to top
There is only one value here. This is the channel on which you wish to broadcast. Any gate on
this channel will activate when this trigger switch is hit.
back to
top
|
