Map-editor tutorial

Content:
1. Editor overview
2. Basic movement
3. Entity selection / tool usage
4. Tools
5. Checkpoints
6. Keyboard shortcuts
7. Map export

1. Editor overview
Name Description
1. New map button
2. Load button Loads a previously saved map (“.ecmap” files)
3. Save button Saves the map which is currently viewed in the editor (saves in the “.ecmap” file format).
4. Export button Saves the current map in the playable “.cmap” map format so that it can be loaded into the game as a custom map. (More on that later.)
5. Map-name input field Text field in which you can insert your map name (Note: You need to set a map name in order to be able to export the map in the playable “.cmap” format.)
6. Record run button Starts a run which records your time and calculates all medals (platin, gold, silver and bronze) for this map. Necessary to do before the map export. (More on that later.)
7. Toolbar Contains all editor tools.
8. Entity creation tool Allows you to create (and place) new entities in the scene.
9. Transform tool Moves entities around in the scene.
10. Rotation tool Rotate entities on the z-axis.
11. Scale tool Scale entities.
12. Recolor tool Change the color of blocks in the scene.
13. Random tool Allows you to place blocks with random parameters in the scene. Useful for creating background scenery.
14. Tool options bar Tools have different options from which you can choose. Those options will be displayed in this bar.
15. Sun position button Allows you to change the sun position. Look with the camera into the sky at the position in which you want to place the sun and press the button in order to reposition the sun.
16. Grid toggle button Enables/disables the grid to which the coordinate- and scaling values snap.
17. Checkpoint path button Allows you to change the checkpoint order in which the player has to finish the course. (More on that later.)
18. Sphere counter Displays the current number of sphere objects placed on the map.
19. Recorded time area Displays the platin time which was recorded by the player and the gold, silver, bronze times which were calculated by the editor. Will be only displayed if no entities are selected.
20. Bronze time offset input field Allows you to alter the bronze time of the map. (Silver and gold times will be calculated automatically. More on that later.)
21. Attribute field area Displays attributes of selected entities (which can be altered). If no entities are selected then it will display the recorded medal times and the bronze time offset input field.

2. Basic Movement

In order to look around with the camera, press and hold the middle mouse button (mouse wheel) and move the cursor.
You can move the camera around with the W, A, S, D keys.
In order to increase the movement speed of the camera, press and hold the Shift key while pressing the movement keys.

3. Entity selection / tool usage

We will go through a little example in order to showcase how to select entities and use tools. First click with the left mouse button on the “New Entity” button in the left tool bar. Then click with the left mouse button anywhere in the scene to create a white block at the selected position.
Now select the entity by clicking on it with the right mouse button. Selected entities will be highlighted in the color red.
You can still use the left mouse button to create new blocks without deselecting the currently selected entity.
In order to deselect entities, simply click with the right mouse button anywhere in the scene. If you click on another entity with the right mouse button, you will deselect the old entity and select the new one. This way only one entity can be selected at a time. In order to select multiple entities, press and hold the Shift key and click with the right mouse button on the entities you want to select. Alternatively you can also press and hold both the Shift and the left mouse button at the same time and just hover over the entities in order to select them.
You can delete selected entities by pressing the Delete or Backspace key on your keyboard. Generally speaking: You select / deselect entities with the right mouse button and you use tools with the left mouse button. Maybe you noticed that if you select an entity, additional data shows up on the right side of the editor window. These are the attributes of the selected entity.
This is a brief rundown of the attributes:
Name Description
x The x coordinate of the selected entity
y The x coordinate of the selected entity
z The x coordinate of the selected entity
sx The scale on the local x axis of the selected entity
sy The scale on the local x axis of the selected entity
sz The scale on the local x axis of the selected entity
rz The rotation on the z axis of the selected entity

You can manually edit those values by clicking on the desired field and replacing the value.

Note: If you select multiple entities, only the values of the first selected entity will be shown in the attribute fields. But if you edit a value in those fields while multiple entities are selected, the change will affect all selected entities. Also, depending on the type of tool you have selected, there may be different data displayed in the attribute field.

4. Tools

Creation tool

The creation tool allows you to create new entities in the scene. This includes blocks (different blocktypes) the player startpoint, checkpoints, etc... If you activate this tool (by pressing on this button) the tool options bar will display all entity types which you can place in the scene.
The white block is selected automatically for you. Now hover with your mouse over the 3D scene and place a white block in the scene by pressing the left mouse button.

Note: Currently there can only be one player startpoint and one red block in the scene. If you try to place another entity of one of this types in the scene, the old entity will be automatically deleted.

Transformaton tool

The transformation tool does allow you to move entities around all three axis in the scene. Note that the tool options bar at the top changes if you select this tool.
You drag the entities around the X and Y axis by default. You can change that by pressing the buttons in the top bar. By pressing the blue “Z” button, you can drag the blocks on the z-axis.

Duplicating / copying entities
You can copy/duplicate entities by holding the Control key on your keyboard while draging entities around the scene. If you hold Control while letting go from the left mouse button, you will copy the entity instead of changing the position of the original.

Rotation tool

The rotation tools allows you to rotate entities on the z-axis.
If you have more than one entity selected, there are two different ways in which you can rotate them. At the top bar you can see a button which displays two yellow blocks and has “LOCAL” written under it.
If you press this button you are switching between the local and global coordinate mode.

If you switched to the local coordinate mode and you rotate your entities, they will be rotated around their own individual origin point:
If you switched to global, you will rotate the entities around their shared middle point on the xy axis:


Note: You can only rotate entities on the z-axis. It is not possible to rotate them on the x and y axis due to the way the game was designed.

Scale tool

This tool allows you to rezise your entities on all three axis. If you don't select any specific axis in the top tool bar you will rezise your entities on all three axes at the same time.
By selecting an axis in the top tool bar you can scale them on only one axis at a time.
You can also switch between local and global coordinate mode. By switching to “global” the scale tool will also factor in the spacing between entities and scale it up accordingly.

Recoloring tool

This tool allows you to change the color of blocks. Note that each color represents a different blocktype in the game.
Notice how the top tool bar changes and displays all colors from which you can choose.
In order to change the block type to a different color, select your color in the top bar and click on the desired block in the scene with the left mouse button.
Note: You can't color a block red if there is already a red block in the scene. (Only one block with the color red can exist on the map.)

Random block tool

This tool allows you to generate random blocks in the scene. Useful for quick and efficient placing of blocks for the surrounding scenery. Press the left mouse button in the scenery in order to create a random block at the mouseposition.
The game will generate a block with different scales on the x, y and z-axis and a random rotation on the z-axis. There is also a small chance that the generated block will be colored either in blue, green or yellow.
Note that you can change the scaling parameters on the right side of the editor window in the attribute bar.

Name Description
Xf The minimal scaling value on the x-axis.
Yf The minimal scaling value on the y-axis.
Zf The minimal scaling value on the z-axis.
Xt The maximal scaling value on the x-axis.
Yt The maximal scaling value on the y-axis.
Zt The maximal scaling value on the z-axis.
rz The rotation on the z axis of the selected entity

5. Checkpoints

With the new entity tool you can place checkpoints in the scene. Notice how the checkpoints are numbered in the editor. This is the order in which the player has to pass the checkpoints before being able to head for the finish/goal.
The game will automatically number the checkpoints sequentially for you. If you want to change the checkpoint order afterwards, you can do that very easily. First select all checkpoints in the order you want them to be numbered. I selected them in clockwise order starting from the right checkpoint.
Now press the “set checkpoint path” button on the upper half of the editor window. This will change the checkpoint order to your selection order.
Notice how the order (and the path) changed after you pressed the button.

Checkpoints are displayed with a player cone which is placed on top of the checkpoint. The cone shows you the player spawnpoint as well as the direction in which the player will be facing after he respawns on this particular checkpoint.
You can change the respawn direction by rotating the block with the rotation tool.

6. Keyboard shortcuts
Key Description
F Transformation tool
R Rotation tool
T Scale tool
G Random block tool
E Creation tool
C Set checkpoint path
Q Switch between local- and global coordinate system
[DEL] Deletes selected entities
[Backspace] Deletes selected entities
[Space] Map preview cam
1 X-axis (for the transformation- and scaling tool)
2 Y-axis (for the transformation- and scaling tool)
3 Z-axis (for the transformation- and scaling tool)
4 X&Y-axis (for the transformation- and scaling tool)

7. Map export

There are a few things that you have to do/be aware of before exporting a map in the playable “.cmap“ format.
Setting a mapname
Make sure to name your map before exporting. Your map has to have a name in order to be exported. You can set the mapname in the textfield on the top of the screen:
Setting the camera preview
By pressing the Space bar on keyboard you switch to the map-preview camera. This camera will be used as a preview in the map selection. The 3D point/cross in the map-preview is the 3D coordinate to which the camera will be pointed at and rotate around it. You can control the camera in the same ways as the normal editor view. The mouse wheel can adjust the height of the 3D point.
If you are happy with your camera position, press Enter on our keyboard in order to confirm your camera placement. If you want to cancel your current camera position, press the Escape key on your keyboard.
Checkpoints, spawnpoint and the goal
In order to make a map playable you have to have a player spawnpoint and a goal defined in the scene. Without the spawnpoint and a goal (red block) you can't export it to the playable “.cmap“ format.
The spawnpoint and the goal (red block) is mandatory. The checkpoints are optional.
Recording a run
After you finished your map, the only thing left is to set the medal times. This can be done by pressing the “Record run“ button on the top of the editor window.
Pressing this button will start a race against the time. Get to the goal as fast as possible.
After you finished the run you will be brought back to the editor screen.

On the right side you will now see the medal times which were set for this game. Your own time determines the “platinum” medal time. The gold, silver and bronze times will be calculated with a formula by the editor.
Here is a quick overview over this information:

Fieldname Description
P Platin time (set by the author/you)
G Gold time
S Silver time
B Bronze time


Note: Those medal times only show up if you don't have any entities selected and if you aren't using the random block tool. Depending on your map it may be that the gold, silver and bronze times aren't optimally set. (They can be either too easy or way too hard to achieve.) It is recommended to playtest the map and run to the goal slower (as you would expect from someone who plays on the map a first time or doesn't have that much game experience) to see how much time is needed to finish the map and get the bronze, silver or even gold time. Depending on that information you can adjust the “bronze time offset“ value. This value determines how much time is needed for the bronze time on this map. The offset value is a multiplier. It takes the platin time, multiplies the offset-value with the platin time and uses the calculated result as the bronze time. The gold and silver times will be scaled accordingly between the bronze and the platin time.
You can see that I reduced the offset value from 1.4 to 1.25 which results in lower times for the bronze, silver and gold medals. This step requires a bit of playtesting in order to make sure that the medal times are balanced.
Export
Once all that is done you can now export your map in the playable “.cmap“ format. In order to do this simply click on the “Export“ button at the top of the editor window.

NOTE: The map can not be modified once it was exported! For saving the editable version of the map please use the "Save" button on the top left of the editor window!
If everything is set up correctly you will be given two export options:
Option Description
Save to disk Saves/Export the map as a standalone .cmap file.
Upload to workshop Uploads map to the workshop and generates a steam-leaderboard for this map-upload.
A) Save local
Clicking on "Save local" will open a file-browser window in which you select the filename and save-location of your custom map. In this case we navigated to a "maps" directory on the desktop:
This will save the map in the ".cmap" format which then can be shared with other players.


In order to load a custom map into the game you need to copy the .cmap file into the local appdata directory of the game (AppData/local/Celaria/custom_maps).
You will then be able to find the map in the custom maps menu in the game:
B) Upload to workshop
This option allows you to upload your map to the Steam-workshop. This will automatically create a Steam-page on the workshop with a preview-image generated by the game. The map will also recieve a steam-leaderboard.
NOTE: You may be promted to accept the "Steam Workshop Legal Agreement" on the Steam-page before being able to release the map to the public.

Once the upload progress is complete you will get the option to open the workshop-page of the uploaded map.
Other players can download the map by simply subscribing to it on the steam-workshop. Subscribed maps will be automatically downloaded and accessible in the custom maps menu.