[v2.11.3] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

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Re: [v2.10] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by troublesomekeen »

Thank you, Fleexy! After all this time, I'm a beginner again!
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Re: [v2.10] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Nisaba »

thanks for the update! I'm gonna test things out as soon as possible. I'm really exited about it...

BTW, if you could, please update the Abiathar-thread on K:M as well: https://keenmodding.org/viewtopic.php?f ... 804#p19248
out now (link) : Image
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Re: [v2.11] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Fleexy »

UPDATE
v2.11: clipboards palette and various improvements

You can now store a palette of copied blocks, similar to the single-tile mini-palettes introduced in v2.4. To store the current clipboard, press Ctrl+Alt+Up and select a slot, using the mouse or the numeric keypad. To retrieve a clipboard slot into the active clipboard, press Ctrl+Alt+Down and select a filled slot. There are menu items under Edit to call up the clipboards palette in either mode. Copied blocks are persisted in the project file. Extensions now have access to the current clipboard through a new API property, $Abiathar.Clipboard in PSThar.

The simultaneous tileset is now zoomable. You can zoom the simultaneous tileset! Rejoice. (Abiathar has existed for four years and I only got around to this now, sorry about that.) To adjust the tileset zoom level, mouse over the tileset and press the plus or minus button on your keyboard. The maximum tileset zoom is 32 pixels per tile, since anything larger would cover pretty much the entire level, defeating the purpose of a simultaneous tileset. Unfortunately, the zoom slider had to go; there wasn't a good way to make sense of it with two potentially different zoom levels. The zoom level label is pretty helpful and is adapted to this, though!

The cut mode of the Copier (engaged when right-clicking or right-dragging) now only deletes active planes instead of both active and locked ones. It still copies locked planes, though.

If you want to keep the selected tile crosshairs always visible on the tile palette (even when copying), you can enable the new "show selected tile crosshairs regardless of current tool" on the Tools tab of the Configuration window.

Simultaneous Tileset now stays enabled after opening a different project in the same Abiathar run. (It going away on subsequent project loads was a bug introduced in v2.10.)

The project-saved-with-newer-version warning now appears on top of the splash screen (instead of getting covered up by it) when dragging an ADEPS file onto Abiathar.

Nisaba is now listed as a contributor in Help | About. Thanks, Nisaba!

You might have received e-mails from various software vendors informing you that their auto-updater is broken and that you need to manually download the newest version to keep getting updates. This seems to be caused by a strange .NET Framework SSL/TLS protocol default combined with recent tightenings-up of web transport security by at least one major hosting provider. Abiathar is also affected -- previous versions will not be able to auto-update. v2.11 should be able to detect all future versions, but to get v2.11, you'll need to download a ZIP:

Download Abiathar v2.11

Happy modding!
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Re: [v2.11] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by 55Aavenue »

Abiathar continues to be awesome! I like the idea of being able to store multiple clipboard pallets a lot. Cool update!
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Re: [v2.11.1] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Fleexy »

UPDATE
v2.11.1: improvements to various things

The Level Inspector will now warn you if it determines that you've probably used the wrong sort of switch (foreground/bridge vs. infoplane/goplat) for the target. It will also warn you if you forget to put a link on a switch.

As suggested by Nisaba, the Resource Accountant can now tell you how many of each kind of item (e.g. "1000 Points" or "5 Ammo") are in the level. To avoid cluttering up the normal results window, this behavior is opt-in: check "Resource Accountant: count items by item type" on the Tools tab of the Configuration window to enable it.

The vertical lines in the selected tile crosshairs now scroll with the tileset instead of sticking at the top.

Levellass discovered that CK5Patch's %egadict implementation is wrong - it puts the modified dictionary at an incorrect memory location. Abiathar now generates a %patchfile command instead for compressed Keen 5 graphics.

Abiathar v2.11 will automatically detect this update. If you still have v2.10 or older, you'll need to download this ZIP. Happy modding!
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Re: [v2.11.1] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Scilicet »

I'm having trouble. I click the new project option per the directions, and Abiathar crashes. I have the most recent version and unzipped it into its own folder in program files. What did I do wrong?
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Re: [v2.11.1] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Fleexy »

When Abiathar first opens the New Project Wizard, it generates the default configurations and tries to save those to disk in order to save time on subsequent runs. I suspect that it's unable to write to its own directory in Program Files (since that generally requires administrative permissions) and therefore crashes when it tries to save the file. I usually keep copies of Abiathar in my mod folders and run from there - maybe try that? If it still crashes there, it should at least be able to save an error log.
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Re:

Post by Snortimer »

Fleexy wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2014 0:12Finally, the colors in general have been changed ever so slightly to be exactly what the game renders. Thanks, Wikipedia article on EGA, for lying to me about the palette and forcing me to figure it out myself with MS Paint.
So what are the correct values? Is the Wikipedia article still incorrect?
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Re: [v2.11.1] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Fleexy »

The Wikipedia table appears to be unchanged. I believe its 55 bytes should be replaced with 54, AA with A8, and FF with FC. Unfortunately I don't remember where I got the standard values from, so it's possible I've misunderstood something.
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Re: [v2.11.1] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by K1n9_Duk3 »

No, the hex values 55, AA and FF should be correct. The values commonly used when exporting bitmaps with KeenGraph and other tools (54, A8 and FC) are actually incorrect, as in they don't match the color values you'll find in DOSBox screenshots taken from the Keen games.

I think the origin of this mistake might be linked to the fact that the RGB entries for VGA palettes are limited to 6 bits on original VGA cards, so if you convert these values from 8-bit to the 6-bit format (divide the hex numbers by 4), the resulting 6-bit value for both FF and FC is 3F. Which means the colors would be identical when using them in a 6-bit VGA palette context, but they are not identical when editing the image with modern tools.

It's possible that somebody at some point grabbed the 6-bit VGA palette for the 16-color EGA video mode used in the Keen games and simply multiplied the 6-bit value by 4 to convert it to 8-bit (instead of converting it correctly).

But unless you mix both versions in the same image, it doesn't really matter which version of the colors you use. I don't think anybody could tell the difference between FFFFFF (full white) and FCFCFC ("false" EGA white) anyway.
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Re: [v2.11.2] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Fleexy »

Wow, it's been almost two years since the last update! I've been pretty absent other than checking reviewing new posts to prevent spam, oops. At least a few months back, Nisaba (I think) asked for a feature, which I implemented and then didn't publicly release for a long time, so I figure I should do that now.

UPDATE
v2.11.2: additional tile properties customizability

While all foreground tiles' side properties are binary solid-or-nothing in the original games, a full byte is allocated for each side and some mods may want to take advantage of that to put extra information there. If you enable the new "Tile Property Modifier: show dropdowns for side properties" setting on the Tools tab of the Configuration window, the Solid checkboxes on the left and right will be replaced with dropdowns in which you can select a defined property or enter a custom one (screenshot). Custom entries for the side properties options can be set in the Side list of the TilePropertyValues section of an ADEPS file or template. Existing nonstandard side properties will be preserved even if the option to show dropdowns for them is disabled. If there are any custom extensions relying on the extension API functions that didn't know about nonstandard side properties, those functions still exist but are marked obsolete and will clobber such properties.

The colors of the "active" color bars in the selected tile bays can now be customized with the "active plane" settings on the Colors tab of the Configuration. The color of the bold "active" text can be customized with the "active state label" color setting.

Some bits of UI text have been tweaked, mostly to reduce advertisement of the ever-strange VeriMaps feature.

Abiathar will now warn before opening an ADEPS file that has a configuration section from an extension that is not loaded. This should prevent accidentally destroying extension-specific project information by opening and saving the project without the extension loaded.

Version 2.10 and newer will automatically detect this update. You can also download a ZIP. Happy modding!
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Re: [v2.11.3] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Fleexy »

I've started graduate school! Unfortunately that means I've been extra MIA here. I'll try to make more of an effort to check in periodically and see what's going on. Nisaba requested a feature and K1n9_Duk3 brought some issues to my attention, so I have some changes to release.

UPDATE
v2.11.3: more bugfixes and flexibility

Abiathar no longer rejects level sets containing levels with dimensions larger than 255. This allows opening e.g. Levellass's Valentine Bash. In theory Abiathar can handle dimensions up to 0xFFFF now, but for the standard level format is does enforce a maximum area of 0x7FFF tiles so that the maps can actually be saved. This is a high-priority fix, so even though there is some more work I want to do (specifically with the Level Inspector) I'm releasing the update now.

Since Abiathar's audio management system is pretty much a glorified archiver, it usually shouldn't need to actually parse IMF songs. It now avoids triggering the parsing whenever possible, which means that non-IMFs can be stored in IMF chunks. This is useful for custom song formats. Since the FleexCore2 GalaxyAudio API changed (to be more like NextGenGraphics), the ImfPreview extension needed to change to accommodate that, and there's a new ImfPreview version. Song names are now stored in the ADEPS file rather than in IMF tag blocks since not all formats allow extra data after the song. Existing names in IMF files will be migrated when the audio features are next used.

The New Level dialog now correctly respects your decision to not overwrite an existing level with the same ID.

The grid on the simultaneous tileset now respects the simultaneous tileset's zoom level.

You can get the update via the auto-updater or download a ZIP. Happy modding!
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Re: [v2.11.3] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by DarkAle »

Wow! Thanks Fleexy. I'll use it for my Keen 14 levels
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Re: [v2.11.3] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by boundish91 »

I'm struggling a little bit with tile properties. I have tile i want to make keen able to stand on so i set it to flat in the tile properties editor , but it doesn't work in game, he just falls through as if were a background tile.

What I'm doing wrong? :p
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Re: [v2.11.3] Abiathar: The superior Keen Galaxy editor

Post by Fleexy »

Welcome to Abiathar!

How do you have tile properties set up in your project? You can check by clicking through Edit | Project Settings to the Tileinfo Source step. (Caution! Back up your project/levels before changing the project settings. Click Cancel once done if you don't need to make any changes.) To mod the standard Keen Galaxy games, you should "create or load a separate tileinfo file." If you originally set up the project to "always load the original game tileinfo" and then changed that setting, you will need to File | Generate Patches again to have the customized tileinfo actually patched in.

It might also be good to double-check that you're placing the tile whose properties you modified. If you enable View | Tile Properties, you will see pink or purple lines over the solid edges of tiles.
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