Creating your first dream

This tutorial is designed to talk you through the basics of building your first dream.
The tutorial covers multiple sections, listed to the left, all specifically designed to explain
The different aspects of dream building and how to use dragonspeak to implement certain effects.




What is a dream?

A dream is a collection of shapes of all different sizes, you create your dream to express your imagination.
Dreams are very flexible and you can create virtually anything you set your mind to. You are not limited to what you
can use in the dream as you can add patches to your dream to allow you to change the environment even further allowing
you a much larger collection of images that you can use. Combined with patches and your imagination the possibilities are endless.

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First Steps: How to open DreamEd.exe

There are three ways for you to open the Dreameditor, I shall explain the most common way through furcadia.

While you have furcadia open select the "C-Tab" at the lower left corner of the screen, the appearance and layout should change slightly and
you should be seeing something similar to the image below.

Do you see that? Good.
Press the 'Dream Editor' button to open your dream editor program. You should see a new screen open up covered by grass.
This is the default.map file that we can now use to edit the dream and create something special from your imagination.
For the moment though I will explain to you how to create a very basic dream to help you grasp the concept...
So now we move onto,

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The Dream Editor Screen - What is what?
Skip To 'Placing the Shapes'

This is a typical new dreameditor screen; you should be looking at a screen like this now.
I'll explain what each section does; refer to this later in the guide if you ever get stuck.

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Placing The Shapes

So at this point you should be ready to start building your dream by placing objects around.
I will show you how to place your first few shapes and then set you a small challenge to try to match a design.

Ok lets begin. First off press once on any of the floor tiles at the bottom of the screen.
You can then press on the preview image to bring up a wide selection of floors for you to choose from.

Select the pure black tile (Object 161) and cover the visible "red lines" all the way around the map.
Your map should appear with a black outline and grass in the centre.

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Tip: Start at the corner of the limit (2 spaces southwest from the white box) and hold down your spacebar key.
Move around the map using the directional keys to quickly create an outline texture around the map.
You can now use the Paint Bucket tool to fill the rest of the outlaying area of the map quickly and easily.

See the image below for a completed example


Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and select the wall from the bottom of the screen.
Starting at the fourth square up from the corner place 5 walls heading to the northeast
Then build 5 more walls heading to the southeast joining the previous wall.

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You should have something looking like the image below.


If you've done this correctly you can now place down floors. Place the default wooden floor (again at the bottom of the screen)
in the "centre" of the walls. From the white-texture on the image above place the floors starting there down 5 spaces southwest
5 Spaces northwest, 5 spaces northeast and finally 4 spaces southeast. Now use the Paint Bucket tool to fill in the remainder of the floor.

We will now use a little trick to create invisible walls.
Cover the visible area around the wooden floor with black tiles. This is generally up to 5 spaces away from the tip of the floor.
Select the wall again and place the walls to appear "under" these floors. See below for an example.

Be sure to finish off the walls so they appear below the flooring. Notice how the wall also covers black tiles.
These black tiles are unwalkable meaning a furre cannot walk into these new walls.
The outlining black tiles also create a "line of sight" that a furre cannot see or hear from.

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Now these walls just appear to stick out like a thumb so we need to hide them but in such a way they still create the illusion of a wall been there.
This time we need an object. Select any of the Items at the bottom of the screen and press it's preview image.
On the third row just below one of the switches is a black tile. Select this item and begin to place it so it "covers" over the newly placed walls.


Problem. Part of the black shape is not covering the wall but this is easily solvable.
Select the wall tile as before but this time open up the rest of the walls by clicking the image.
Select the same wall from the bottom row; this is object 15. Place this wall at the two joining-corners and watch as the walls become totally covered.


Well done!

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Pulling it together - use your new skills

Now lets try pulling together your skills.
Use the techniques above and try to turn this empty space into a room.
Perphaps a staircase and other things.

See below for an example.

One problem you will encounter if duplicating the example above is two of the objects will be appear "into" the wall,
To fix this use the previous trick and use Wall Object 15 instead.

Obviously this is only a simple example; but try to duplicate the above example for use in the next stage.
You will be working with much larger dreams later when you begin your own.
Moving on to...

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"Creating that second floor"

Before we can explain how to move from one place to another we need to build up the second floor itself.
Use your skills once again and build a second room somewhere on the map.
Build this however you wish but use object type 297 to symbolise a stairway heading down.
Use a un-walkable floor on behind the actual object position to prevent furres from walking "on top" of the staircase.

See below for an example of a second and first floor.
In the example i have cleared all the grass from the map.
After creating a second floor you can do this but otherwise it is advised to leave it be as a guideline for the "line of sight"


Notice that the two rooms are clearly far enough array to not be seen by any other furres.
Nor can furres in this room hear or see furres in the other room.

To link these two rooms together you need dragonspeak.

~Up
(0:7) When somebody moves into position (#,#), <- When the triggering furre moves into the staircase heading upwards from the first floor
(5:15) move the triggering furre to (#,#), or to someplace nearby if it's occupied. <- Move the furre to the "second floor" just in front of the staircase heading down.
~Down
(0:7) When somebody moves into position (#,#), <- When the triggering furre moves into the staircase heading downwards from the second floor
(5:15) move the triggering furre to (#,#), or to someplace nearby if it's occupied. <- Move the furre to the "first floor" just in front of the staircase heading up.

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Adding Basic Effects

One of the most common effects added to dreams is animations.
I'll show you a simple animation code to create animated objects.

(0:100) When 1 seconds have passed, offset by 0,
(5:400) Cycle the three object types in this sequence one step forward: 37, 38, 39.

The above code creates an animation of the "ball" object 37, 38 and 39.
An animation is a small collection of images that change after a set period of time.

You can create your own code from the above example by changing around the object numbers.
If you plan to use only 2 objects then you can use

(0:100) When # seconds have passed, offset by #,
(5:6) swap object types # and #.

For 6 and more objects use the same code as above but with a twist.

(0:100) When # seconds have passed, offset by #,
(5:6) swap object types #{object 1} and #.
(5:6) swap object types #{object 1} and #.
(5:6) swap object types #{object 1} and #.
(5:6) swap object types #{object 1} and #.

Why the first object constantly? This prevents the code from auto-triggering straight to the last object.

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You should now have all the knowledge you need to go out there and start creating your own dream.
Check at the tutorials index page for additional tutorials or for further assistance you could always ask for a Pixel or Mason in furcadia.
The masons can help you with dream building questions while the Pixels help with Patches.

You can also download this sample dream here
http://www.mysticallands.com/tutorials/sample.zip

Be sure to check out the Downloads Page for additional downloadable files.
Please note that some files may be more advanced then the one here, however they do all include full instructions on how to use them.

Back Home

http://www.mysticallands.com/tutorials/

This page was created by mysticsentry, as a guide on how to create your own dream.

Release The Furre Within - Furcadia!