Doc/script_course/lecture3.html

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   3 <title>IVAN script lecture 3</title>
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   6
   7 <h2>holybanana's IVAN script course, lecture III</h2>
   8 <h4>Overview of the structure of IVAN and its script and graphics files</h4>
   9
  10 <p>The <i>world map</i> of IVAN is hard-coded. In the world map there are
  11 <i>dungeons</i>, currently Attnam, New Attnam, UT and GC. In dungeons there
  12 is a number of <i>levels</i>. Levels consist of <i>squares</i>. Some, but not all squares
  13 belong to a <i>room</i>. The <i>entities</i> which
  14 can occur in a square of a level of IVAN include <i>objects</i> and <i>characters</i>.
  15 Objects are things that can be made of <i>materials</i>. <i>Terrains</i> and <i>items</i>
  16 are objects. There is always a <i>ground terrain</i> in a square. There may
  17 also be an <i>over terrain</i> over it, for instance a wall or a throne.
  18 Characters are made up from special items called <i>bodyparts</i>.
  19 Every character belongs to a <i>team</i>.
  20 The content of dungeons and levels and the properties of the aforementioned
  21 entities are mostly defined by the script. There are special entities, for
  22 instance webs, which are hard-coded, and many entities have special
  23 properties which are too difficult to be defined by the simple language
  24 of the script, so they are hard-coded, too.</p>
  25
  26 <p>We will now fully list the things that can be defined in the script and the
  27 files where their data is located.</p>
  28
  29 <p>dungeons: dungeon.dat<br>
  30 levels: dungeon.dat<br>
  31 rooms: dungeon.dat<br>
  32 squares: dungeon.dat<br>
  33 teams: dungeon.dat<br>
  34 materials: material.dat<br>
  35 ground terrains: glterra.dat<br>
  36 over terrains: olterra.dat<br>
  37 items: item.dat<br>
  38 characters: char.dat</p>
  39
  40 <p>The names glterra.dat and olterra.dat come from the class names ground level terrain
  41 and over level terrain. In the game there are also ground world map terrains
  42 and over world map terrains, but their properties cannot be defined in the script.</p>
  43
  44 <p>Note that characters are divided further to <i>humanoids</i>
  45 and <i>nonhumanoids</i>. The former have seven bodyparts, the latter
  46 only one, the torso. You currently have to look at the source code
  47 to know which characters are humanoids and which nonhumanoids, if you
  48 don't remember it from the game. We apologize for the inconvenience
  49 and will correct this.</p>
  50
  51 <p>There is also define.dat which contains definitions of the form
  52 #define DEFINITION expression. If DEFINITION is encountered when parsing
  53 the script, the value of expression is substituted for it. So
  54 since the file contains a line #define WAR_LADY 3 every string WAR_LADY in the
  55 script is really just number 3, the config number of mistress warladies.
  56 The syntax is chosen so that the same definition can be used in
  57 the source code, too. In the file Main/Include/confdef.h there is
  58 the same line #define WAR_LADY 3, and this is a valid C++ macro definition.
  59 So WAR_LADY may be used both in the script and the code and has the
  60 same meaning.</p>
  61
  62 <p>In <a href="lecture1.html">lecture I</a> we noted that the graphics
  63 of ground terrains must be chosen from GLTerra.pcx. We now list
  64 the graphics files associated with each type of entities.</p>
  65
  66 <p>ground terrains: GLTerra.pcx<br>
  67 over terrains: OLTerra.pcx<br>
  68 items: Item.pcx<br>
  69 humanoids: Humanoid.pcx<br>
  70 nonhumanoids: Char.pcx</p>
  71
  72 <p>That is, the BitmapPos database value of ground terrains, over
  73 terrains and items means the location of the upper left corner
  74 of the 16x16 or 32x32 picture of the entity in the respective file above.
  75 For humanoids and nonhumanoids the same holds for the database
  76 values TorsoBitmapPos, HeadBitmapPos, etc. More information about
  77 the graphics files may be found in the
  78 <a href="http://ivan.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/ivan/ivan/Doc/Data/Graphics.txt?revision=1.2">graphics documentation</a>.</p>
  79
  80 <p>Exercise: randomly generated orc slaughterers may carry potions
  81 of troll blood. Find out in which file this detail is defined. Present the line.
  82 Then find out where it is defined that the orc general and
  83 the orc officers in the orc room of GC have some more expensive potions
  84 in their inventory. Present the lines.</p>
  85
  86 <hr>
  87
  88 <p>
  89 <a href="lecture2.html">Previous lecture</a>
  90 <a href="lecture4.html">Next lecture</a>
  91 <a href="index.html">Back to main</a>
  92 </p>
  93
  94 <hr>
  95
  96 <p>Last modified August 30 2006.</p>
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