Building ExploreNet Worlds
Lesson 5
Bushes, Boulders and Foreground Props
J. Michael Moshell, Charles E. Hughes, Joel Rosenthal
Copyright (c) 1995 - All Rights Reserved
University of Central Florida
Document MMC95.5
4 December 95

Today, you'll learn how to make scenery props. Of course, you learned how to make props in the last lesson; but those eggs you made were movable, ordinary objects. We'd like to have some objects that we can hide behind. And we'd like to be able to "anchor" some of them, so nobody can move your favorite tree or a rock that's important to your plans.

Read the instructions, then do each instruction where you see **. You can check the instructions off with your pencil if you'd like, as you do each step.

PART1: Props and Prop Files

Step 1: Draw a Boulder

We need a rock big enough for your dino to hide behind.
If you're using Paint Shop Pro (PSP):

** Go to the FILE menu of PSP and select OPEN.
** Go into EXPLORE.NET/UNIVERSE/SCENES and open Pathway.BMP.

** Now use OPEN again; go to the EXPLORE.NET/UNIVERSE/OBJECTS directory and open one of the poses of your personal dinosaur. It will appear in front of the pathway scene, in its own window.

We want to have the scene and dino where we can see them, so as to draw a boulder that fits into the scene and which is big enough for your dino to hide.

** Go to the FILE menu of Paint Shop Pro and select NEW.
** Set your new drawing's size to 150 x 150.

** If this isn't big enough for your dino, use IMAGE:RESIZE and make it bigger. The first number is the picture's width, the second is its height.

Now you can see a little window in front of the big one. We'll draw our boulder in the little window.

** Use the COLORS menu; LOAD PALETTE. Go to EXPLORE.NET/UNIVERSE and load up the 'XNET.PAL' palette.

In the SELECT menu bar, double click on the foreground color square (it's the one on the top.) This opens up the palette.

** Select the background black colo (upper left corner); close the palette window with OK, and use the paint can to pour a solid black background for your boulder-making.

** Use the marker pen, with a round brush of size 7 or 8, to make a nice big boulder. It should be bigger on the bottom than the top, so that it doesn't look like it'll fall over. Make it big enough to cover your dinosaur. Make some marks on the boulder with a few different rock-ish colors, so it isn't just one big blob of one color.

** Now save the object in the EXPLORE.NET/UNIVERSE/OBJECTS directory, with the name BOULDER1.PRP.

Make sure you select FILE SUB-FORMAT as WINDOWS RGB ENCODED. Otherwise ExploreNet cannot read the file!

Step 2: Hook the Boulder into your World.

Each scene in a world that has props, must have a "prop file". This is a list of the stuff in that scene. We're going to put our eggs into the second scene in the dinosaur world, which is called PATHWAY.

** Use the File Manager to locate the file named EXPLORE.NET\UNIVERSE\SCENES\PATHWAY.PRP. Try double-clicking on it.

If double-click doesn't open up the NOTEPAD editor, then you need to pull down your FILE menu and select ASSOCIATE. Then select NotePad. From now on, any file with the extension ".prp" will always open NotePad.

In this file are already listed several props. We're going to add one.

** Right after the last line, type a new line like this:

boulder 1 400 700 700

This means "Boulder has one pose, and it should be located 400 units from the left side and 700 units from the top of the screen.

** SAVE the file. Now - DON'T exit from NotePad; we'll need it later. Just use CTRL-ESC to switch back to the File Manager for the next step.

Step 3: Test the Boulder

** Start up ExploreNet, if you remember how. (Find its icon and click on it! Or, use File Manager and look in EXPLORE.NET\CODE and double click on EXPLORE.EXE.)

** From the green screen, click NO NETWORK.

This will automatically load up whatever's in UNIVERSE, which is your Dino World. When the world loads up, take your personal dinosaur, go to the Pathway scene (where the boulder should be.) Try to go behind your boulder.

Notice that you can't click right on the boulder, because the little P-sign ("prop") appears. You can click close to it, and use the arrow keys to sneak behind it.

Can you pick up the boulder? Try it!

No, you can't. This is because when you click right on the boulder, the menu only has one thing in it:

Step 4: For ADVANCED WORLD-BUILDERS: Making the Boulder Movable

One problem with this old boulder is that we might want to pick it up and move it. To make this change, we have to have a behavior file for the boulder. Let's grab the Kettle's behavior file and modify it.

** QUIT from ExploreNet, back to the green screen.

** CTRL-ESC to get back to the File Manager.

** Find EXPLORE.NET/UNIVERSE/OBJECTS/Kettle.beh and double click on it.

This should open up NotePad. If it doesn't, you need to Associate Notepad with the file extension ".beh" (behavior.) Pull down the FILE menu and choose ASSOCIATE, then select Notepad. Now close that window with OK and try to double click on Kettle.beh again.

The Kettle's behavior file starts with a "comment" - the lines that begin with ":" are ignored by the computer.

** Change the comments to refer to the Boulder instead of the Kettle.

Leave the rest of the file alone. It says that the boulder can be a "possession" and a "follower". These are explained below.

** SAVE AS Boulder.beh

** Use CTRL-ESC to get back to ExploreNet.

** Restart ExploreNet by clicking "No Network" on the green screen.

Now if you go to the pathway scene, you should be able to pick up the boulder and put it somewhere else. Try it!

In the Boulder.beh file, it says that the boulder has two properties:

possession follower

These mean that the boulder can be picked up, or it can follow someone. But that someone must be a "Leader". In the next lesson we'll look at how to make yourself into a leader or give yourself other magical powers.

Step 5: For SUPER-ADVANCED FOLKS: Making the Boulder into Scenery

But what if you want the opposite effect? You want that boulder to be in one place forever, and you don't want the P-symbol to appear whenever you try walking behind your boulder.

We will change the boulder from a 'prop' into a 'drop'. This is stage terminology for one of those curtain-like things that hangs down to make cheap scenery. We describe our "drops" using "drp" files instead of "prp" files.

Before we do this surgery, the scene PATHWAY.SCN has this file:

PATHWAY.PRP -- which lists the eggs, lantern and boulder.

After we change things, we'll have these files:

PATHWAY.PRP -- which lists the eggs and lantern.
PATHWAY.DRP -- which just lists the boulder.

Here we go!

** Use the File Manager; double click on the file named EXPLORE.NET/UNIVERSE/SCENES/PATHWAY.PRP

** Now just delete the lines which refer to anything but the boulder.

** Then save this file as PATHWAY.DRP.

** Again, open PATHWAY.PRP

** Now delete the boulder line.

** Save this file as PATHWAY.PRP.

We've pushed the information into two files. Let's see if we succeeded.

** Use CTRL-ESC to get back to ExploreNet.

** Restart ExploreNet by clicking "No Network" on the green screen.

If we didn't succeed, some file must be messed up. Go back and check your work.

NOTE: ExploreNet Version 3.3N sometimes puts DRPs in funny places- the boulder may not wind up in the same place as "scenery" as it did as a "prop". We're workin' on it! If this happens, just go back to using it as a Prop (without its being a Possession, if you don't want it to be movable.)

The disadvantage of this technique is that you can't "scan" a boulder with the mouse cursor to see if it has any props behind it. This makes it possible to lose a prop (such as the eggs) and never be able to get them back again. So, we gotta fix the .DRP stuff as soon as possible.

ASSIGNMENT: You should be well on your way to having a world in which you can hide your eggs, and which has several interesting scenes. You can put foreground objects ("drops") in each scene - trees, boulders, bushes, anything you would like to hide behind.

We plan to LINK ALL THE PIECES into our first Networked world, this weekend. So whatever you have ready by Friday, is gonna be your part of the world. If you don't like the way your dino looks, fix it now!

We plan to DEMONSTRATE our WORLD long-distance, to the students at Coral Springs Middle School in Wednesday 13 December. This means we'll have a DRESS REHEARSAL on Monday, 11 December. GET READY! -- End of Lesson 5 --

You can also move right onward to Lesson 6 , return to the Table of Contents or you can return to the ExploreNet Home Page.