Making maps

A map is painted square by square, in the game or in Odyssey Server Admin. Both edit the same map, so use whichever suits you: the game shows the map as players see it, and the admin app works from anywhere, with the server running or not in the game.

Saving a map takes the EditMaps right, which a world's Associate Map Editor, Editor and Senior Editor roles have to start with, as well as its Server Owner. Working in the admin app from another computer also takes UseAdminApp. See staff, roles and rights.

Opening a map#

• In the game, stand on the map and type /god editmap. The editor opens over the game, which carries on around you.
• In the admin app, open Maps under World and pick the map by its number or name.

The game's editor sends the map with Upload, and Revert throws away what you have done since. The admin app's has Save and Revert. If somebody else saved the map after you opened it, your save is refused rather than overwriting theirs: revert, or open it again, to see their changes first.

Layers#

Each square has six layers of tiles, drawn bottom to top:

Each layer holds one tile or one animation. Background 2 is a layer of its own, like the others; it is not the second frame of Background 1.

A square also has two attributes, which decide what stepping on it does: a wall, a warp, a door, a light and so on. The editors explain each attribute's values beside them.

The palette#

The palette shows a sheet of tiles seven across, as the original game's did. Pick the sheet from the list above it: the game's own, followed by any your server has added. Click a tile to paint with it.

Switch the palette from Tiles to Animations to paint with an animation instead.

In the game's editor, the Recent row keeps the last tiles you used, and Bookmarks keep the ones you come back to: Alt-click a bookmark to save the tile you have picked, and click it to pick it again.

Painting#

In the game: choose a layer, pick a tile, and click or drag on the map. Right-click clears a square's tile on that layer.

In the admin app: choose Paint, the layer under Paints or erases, and a tile, then click or drag. Erase clears; Select shows everything on one square and lets you change it.

Both have:

• Box fill, to drag out a rectangle and fill every square in it at once.
• Clear layer, to empty one layer of the whole map.
• Copy and Paste, to copy a map's squares onto another map.

The admin app also has Undo and Redo.

Attributes#

Choose an attribute layer, pick the attribute and fill in its values, then paint it on. Choosing an attribute layer shows the map's attributes; Display Attributes in the game, Show attributes in the admin app, shows them at other times.

On an attribute layer, the square under the pointer shows its attribute and values. In the game, Alt-click a square to take its attribute and values into the editor, to paint more of the same.

With Light Source picked in the game, the map is drawn as dark as players see it, with its lights and the one you are placing, so you can judge a light before uploading.

Animations#

An animation is a tile that changes as it is shown: water, a torch, a flickering sign. It is a list of frames, each a tile and how long it shows in milliseconds. Every animation runs on the server's clock, so every square showing it is on the same frame, for every player.

The game comes with animations of its own. To make one:

1. On the palette's Animations page, press New animation. In the game, the Animations tab beside the map editor has the same.
2. Pick tiles from the sheet beside it. Each one you click is added as the next frame.
3. Set how long each frame shows. The preview plays it as you go.
4. Give it a Name, which makes its key (server:shallow-water), and a Label, which is what the palettes call it.
5. Press Save. Every player sees it at once.

Save and add another in the admin app keeps the sheet open for the next one, for when you are making several.

A saved animation's name cannot be changed, since maps hold it. Saving under a name that already exists asks first, and then replaces it on every map that uses it. To change one of the game's own animations, open it and press Copy as a new animation.

An animation can be deleted only once no map uses it.

A map's own animations#

A map converted from the original Odyssey keeps the animations it had, as the map's own, listed as This map's animation 1, 2 and so on. Change one and press Use on this map, or press Save as a named animation to make it one of the server's, which other maps can use too. Either way, save or upload the map to keep it.

The map's properties#

Properties, beside Upload in the game and a tab of its own in the admin app, holds what belongs to the map as a whole:

• Its name, and whether it is Friendly, Indoors or Always dark, and who may fight there.
• Its Exits: the map each edge leads to.
• Where a player removed from the map is put.
• Its darkness, music, weather and Tint, a colour laid over the whole map that night darkens and lights thin out.
• Its NPC, and its list of monsters, which can be as long as you like. Each line is one monster on the map.