A Beginner's Guide to Level Design

[Alex Walz]

A Beginner's Guide to Level Design

The Dawn of Fantasy Scenario Design Editor is an incredibly powerful tool that will ship with the game, available to all players. The Editor will allow players to craft their own playable scenarios with all the power of the Lua scripting language. This Editor is the very same tool that the developers used to create all of Dawn of Fantasy’s maps, including the 3D World Map, showing that there is no limit to creativity in this incredible utility.

With the introduction of the Scenario Design Editor to the Dawn of Fantasy Beta later today, fans will have the opportunity to be among the first to get their hands on such a powerful tool! And with our new guide on Level Design, now's the perfect opportunity to see if you have what it takes to design for Dawn of Fantasy.

This 13-page guide takes new designers through creating a scenario, interpreting the interface, crafting mountains, forging rivers, blending terrain, placing units, editing effects without scripting or modding, creating custom bridges, and adjusting the scenario's lighting! Also included are a number of special tricks from the level designers to speed up your process, including access to Dawn of Fantasy's Template Library!

Download the Guide and Get Started Now!

[Konstantin Fomenko]

We have noticed that through the screenshots design contest most of you completely overlooked the Environmental properties - for settings the light and atmosphere. Alex`s guide above does cover the basics, but I wanted to add a quick list of properties that we typically use in DoF. Try the following:

Step 1: Click on a View tab, and go to Environmental properties.
Step 2: Set the values like I show on the picture attached.

Disclaimer: There is a known bug with camera controls locking up after adjusting environmental settings. Reverie will dedicate time to looking into this properly in the near future; but for now, we recommend saving the map right before adjusting lighting.

[Eaglecrys]

everyonce in awhile it seems my camera controls lock into the corner of the map and it just sticks there ><

[Alex Walz]

Yes, we apologize for that. That's a known bug, but we haven't had the time to look into it properly.

I added a disclaimer to Kon's post; but for the time being, we recommend just saving the map right before adjusting environmental settings - just in case. DOF also makes a automatic backup by saving a .dofbak that you can rename .dofscn if you need to revert. But this backup may not be as current, so still save often.

[Konstantin Fomenko]

To avoid the bug with camera locking up - just do this.

1) After you created a new map do NOT adjust Environmental settings.
2) Instead save the map, and load it again. Now you can adjust Environmental settings without the lockup.

[Brian Shingles]

Originally Posted by Eaglecrys

everyonce in awhile it seems my camera controls lock into the corner of the map and it just sticks there ><

I've had that before when changing the Environmental Settings. I think it is from the View Target Bounds values all getting set to 0 (even if you haven't changed them).

Open up Environmental Settings and change the View Target Bounds East and South values to match the map max co-ordinates (i.e. if map created was 64 x 64 tiles, max co-ordinates will be 2047 x 2047)

[Eaglecrys]

I have been saving alot now almost after every major feature I add in that has helped tons. I adjusted the target bounds and that did help as well thanks TONS for the advice lol no more two steps forward and one step back

[Eaglecrys]

I wanted to try and put in snow or lava but it wont let me edit the terrain pallet. Gives me this error.

Parameter not valid.

See the end of this message for details on invoking
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
System.ArgumentException: Parameter is not valid.
at System.Drawing.Bitmap..ctor(Int32 width, Int32 height, Int32 stride, PixelFormat format, IntPtr scan0)
at Editor.EditPalette.textureTree_AfterSelect(Object sender, TreeViewEventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.OnAfterSelect(TreeVi ewEventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.TvnSelected(NMTREEVI EW* nmtv)
at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.WmNotify(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.O nMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.W ndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.239 (RTMGDR.030319-2300)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v4.0.30319/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
Editor
Assembly Version: 1.0.4332.22649
Win32 Version:
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Reverie%20World%20Studios/Dawn%20Of%20Fantasy/Editor.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.235 built by: RTMGDR
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.1 built by: RTMRel
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
System
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.236 built by: RTMGDR
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Configuration
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.1 (RTMRel.030319-0100)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.233 built by: RTMGDR
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------
CustomControls
Assembly Version: 1.0.4265.6076
Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Reverie%20World%20Studios/Dawn%20Of%20Fantasy/CustomControls.DLL
----------------------------------------
ScintillaNET
Assembly Version: 1.0.4265.6078
Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Reverie%20World%20Studios/Dawn%20Of%20Fantasy/ScintillaNET.DLL
----------------------------------------
System.Deployment
Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.1 (RTMRel.030319-0100)
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Deployment/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Deployment.dll
----------------------------------------
sd5iswg3
Assembly Version: 1.0.4265.6078
Win32 Version: 4.0.30319.236 built by: RTMGDR
CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.Net/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:





When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.