Basic NILE Information - Welcome to NILE
 

What is Nile?
 

The NovaLogic Interactive Level Editor (Nile) is an advanced tool for creating and editing game missions for NovaLogic. Nile allows you to rapidly layout and prototype a mission with two dimensional and three dimensional edit modes. Nile is extremely powerful because you can see what you mission will look like, without having to open the game. Nile includes full support for manipulating objects, scripting events, examining playback information, generating AI navigation information, tiling, string management, and much more.

Navigating the windows
 

Nile has two main windows. The object data window and the view window. With the object data window you can see what objects you have in the world, information about them, and change modes (more on that later!). The object window is dockable and can be moved and resized to suit your needs. The view window contains one or more 'cameras' into the world. Each camera can be manipulated independently of the others. The cameras can display in numerous 2D or 3D modes. All the toolbars are draggable and can be attached to any side of the main window frame. All of the toolbar windows can also be selectively shown or hidden by toggling them in the 'Tools' menu item.

A quick walk through
 

1 - Follow these steps to create your first mission:
2 - Select 'Mission | Terrain Variables...'
3 - Pick a terrain and environment file from the lists and press 'Ok'
4 - In a moment you will see the view render the current terrain.
5 - Select the 'Object Palette' tab.
6 - Pick an object to place in the world from the tree control.
7 - After you pick and object as you drag the mouse over the camera view you will see a representation of where this object will be placed.
8 - When you are happy with its location, press the left mouse button to place the object.
9 - Choose a player, start marker from the object palette and place it in the world.
10 - With the Object Palette tab selected you are in object placement mode. Each click of the mouse button will place another instance of the selected object in the world. To exit this mode, press the 'Objects' tab.
11 - Save your mission to the game directory.
12 - Exit Nile and run the game.
13 - Your mission should appear in the single player mission list.

Mission Menu
 

The Mission menu item contains all the items to define your mission. They are:

Briefing - You can enter short and long briefings in these edit boxes. These are the briefings accessible via in game keys. Note, these are not the briefings displayed on load screens.

Level Properties - This dialog allows you to enter information for the Mission name, and Designer. It also allows you to select the game type. The default game type is Single Player.

String Table Editor - Strings used by your level are automatically collected in the String table resource editor. These strings are editable via this dialog box.

Terrain Variables - This is where you can pick the terrain and environment files used by your mission. You can alter and override some settings from the environment file like water level, fog attributes, and time of day.

Waypoint Lists - You can construct waypoint lists via this dialog. A waypoint list is simply a collection of waypoint markers, arranged into a sequence.

Camera Settings
 

Each view represents a camera. The cameras are moveable and support many options. To move a camera, two techniques can be used. Even at the same time! The first technique involves the use of the space bar. Holding down the space bar (in any mode) puts the mouse into a special movement mode. In a 2D view pressing the left mouse button while holding the space bar will allow you to pan the camera rapidly. In a 3D mode, the left mouse button allows you to orient the camera. The right mouse button allows you to pan the camera. The mouse wheel works in either view as a method to zoom the camera in.

Cursor Modes
 

Editing in NILE is mode based. Within a given mode, mouse and keyboard input is interpreted as input to that mode. The cursor shape will reflect the current operation mode of Nile. Nile supports the following modes:

Select (Arrow)

Movement (Quad Arrow)

Rotate (Circular Arrow + Axis Letter)

Select Box (2D only) (Crosshair + Plus/Minus)

Magnify (2D only) (Magnifying glass + Plus/Minus)

Pan (2D only) (Hand)


These modes can be activated in one of two ways. You can click on the toolbar image corresponding to the desired mode. Or you may press the short cut key that correspondes to the desired mode. The default shortcut keys are 1 through 6.

The modes may be modified by pressing CTRL or SHIFT keys. The actions of the modes and their modified versions are as follows:



Select
> Magnify (SHIFT)
> Pan (CTRL)

Movement
> Vertical movement (SHIFT)

Rotate Y
> Rotate Z (SHIFT)
> Rotate X (CTRL)

Select
> De-Select (SHIFT)

Magnify
> Zoom out (SHIFT)

Pan
> Magnify (SHIFT)

The Grid
 

The grid is available in 2D only. By pressing the grid toolbar button or selecting Grid|Size... from the context menu. Sizes are whole numbers only. If zero is entered for either axis the grid will be disabled. You can choose to snap to grid coordinates by selecting the Snap button from the toolbar or from the context menu. Object center points will snap to the nearest grid coordinate as you move them.

Tile Mode
 

By selecting the Tile Palette you will automatically be placed into tile mode. The Tile Palette lets you select your tile image file. You can zoom in on the images by pressing the zoom button. The insert button will put you into tile insert mode. In this mode you can drop new tiles onto the map. If you aren't in insert mode, you can select tiles by clicking on them. Then use the toolbars to rotate, raise/lower, and flip the selected tiles. Note that the tile toolbar is disabled if you are not it tile mode.

Toolbars
 

Some additional actions available on the toolbars, but not described elsewhere:

Center View - This button appears as a cube with arrows along side. When pressed it will move the active camera to the center point of a select object or group of selected objects.

Camera Tie - This button appears as a necktie. This button opens a dialog that allows you to tie cameras together. Click in the spaces between cameras to toggle a tie between two cameras. A checkmark indicates that the cameras are tied together. An X indicates they are not. If two cameras are tied together the cameras will move to the location of the camera whose button that appears pressed.

Default Tool - This button appears as a hammer. Pressing this button will launch the tool that you have designated as the default tool. You can edit the tool settings via the Tool menu.

Extensions
 

Nile supports the concept of plugin extensions. Any extensions added to Nile will appear in the Extensions menu item. Extensions should have their own help.

Updating Nile
 

There are two ways to make sure that you have the latest version of Nile. From the Help menu you can select Update. This will close Nile and run the update utility. Or you can run the update utility directly. If you choose to run the update utility by hand, then please close Nile before doing so. Failure to close Nile may result in the update failing