I just got finished creating a few new species and planet types, as well as their description files.
My question has to do with the descriptions. Is there some sort of char max? When i view the descriptions from in-game it seems to have about the first five lines, then in the sixth line it switches to 2 lines before the last one and continues from there. Also, It doesn't seem to word-wrap.
I attempted to keep it as mundane as possible by using Notepad to write the .txt files. Could that have something to do with it? Would using some other text editor or an ANSI editor work better?

quote:Originally posted by Betrayal


I attempted to keep it as mundane as possible by using Notepad to write the .txt files. Could that have something to do with it? Would using some other text editor or an ANSI editor work better?


I appreciate your attempts to "keep it simple" and knowing that most guys turn off their color and animation in the game, it makes sense. However, it can be tricky creating text descriptions for the game using an "ansi" editor, much less using a standard text editor.

I've made numerous description files. I will give you the benefit of what I know. You should get "The Draw" if you are serious about making ansi files.

The first thing you need to understand is that general deployed ships and planets description files are 16 lines, and the alien deployed ships, planets, and descriptions that you view at the Librarium are limited to 23 lines. Everyone knows this because it says so in the editor. However, most people don't realize there is a line "length" limit, and the twars game doesn't word wrap these files (at least not well). What the exact length of the line is I've never counted, however, luckily if you leave one space to the left of your artwork (in the Draw) and one or even two spaces to the right, you will be ok).

If you make your art work lines run all the way to the limit, what happens is what you are experiencing with the description getting scrambled.

I will give you an example.

Here is a simple ansi file I created for my Monopoly Madness file:




This is what it looks like in text only (with color off it looks the same just with no blue background and instead of white text you see grey text and lines).



If I were to have stretched this ansi file to the full line length like so:



Here's what it would have looks like in text only!



The bottom line here is that you gotta use an ansi editor!

The trick is to make your ansi, save it as an ansi, then take that same ansi artwork and fill in the background with blue, then fill in all text as white (using the ansi editor of course). Then save this ansi again, save it as an ansi, but give it a TEXT file extension!

After you do this, however, it still won't look right. You have to open this text file up with like note pad or word pad and remove some characters in the top line.

Here's an example:



I saved this file by dragging my cursor across the image, then saving as an ansi file. (when you do make sure you select "Clear" screen, then just hit return for the next two options).

After I saved it, I then dragged my cursor across the image again and using the draw "fill" features filled the background in with blue. Then dragged cursor over it again and used the fill feature to fill all the text in as white. I then dragged my cursor over the drawing one more time, and used the save feature to save it as an ANSI, but when I typed in the name of the file I typed in Horse.txt. It then said "saved 15 lines" which lets me know I did it right. If it says "saved 1 line," you know you blew it and you gotta try again, this time stay away from the left and right margin edges. Keep in mind when you are saving it with an .ans extension it won't hurt it to save as "1 line," but it's CRUCIAL that when you save this ansi file with a .txt extension that it says "saved 16 lines" or "saved 23 lines" for however many lines your drawing uses).

Then I used note pad to open up the Horse.txt file, and I eliminated 4 characters on the first line. This is what the file looks like opened up.

[?7h Horseman Ship Category # 8 
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿

I elminated the first FOUR characters. If I don't they show up when you view it in the game and scramble your image!

Here's what the top line looked like after I fixed it
 Horseman Ship


It came out looking like this! (This is what it looks like with color on and animation off, as I said before if you turn color off the image still looks the same, it just has no color!




I know this all seems confusing but if you try this following these instructions to the letter you will be making champion descriptions, even if all you are doing is writing TEXT with no artwork thrown in.


I'm going to write a little booklet on making these ansi's and it will be available on the Hyper Scream Perma Corp web site, http://www.Hyperscream.com

WOW...thank you.
I was expecting, "Yes, you screwed up."
I appreciate the detail, and it really helps.
I actually saved this offline so I can refernce it when I need to,

No problem. Another tip for you. In the draw, if you are just going to create a short text description and list the items the ship or planet has (stats) that are not already listed, I recommend you create a color box and place the text within the box. This is very easy to do with The Draw version 4.63 http://timetrap.sytes.net/TheDraw.zip

Just right click, select the foreground color that you want the box to be and if you want a thick line select the background color. Place your curser where you want the box to start, then hit alt M.

Now use your arrow keys to draw the box. Once the box is finished hit ALT M again to end the draw sequence. Now you can type your text. If you want to change text colors on any part of your drawing simply drag your cursor across the text to be changed then hit F then F again, the color is changed.

Also, to draw pictures, whenever you right click, under the color bars you will see the character sets. You can put your cursor where you want the drawing to commence, then right click, select a character then left click, this places the character where you want it to be.

It really is that simple to use the Draw!

With practice you too will make Ansi files that everyone goes "ooooh!" about

yeah, back in the day i used to make 1+ minute animated ANSI sigs for BBSs....ahhh, good 'ol 1990.

heh then you probably could teach me a thing or two, kewl!