tedit v0.9

Instruction manual and guide to all things Tasty Static level editor

Tasty Static is a clone of the classic DOS game Skyroads, a jumpy platformy racing game. In the game the player controls a hovercraft by using the up and down arrows to accelerate and decelerate, left and right to steer, and spacebar to jump. The player cannot change direction mid-jump and the slower the player is moving forward the slower the player moves from side to side. If the player hits anything while moving at too high a speed, they explode and have to restart at the beginning of the track. If they fall off the track or their charge meter runs all the way down, they have to restart as well. Along the way, the player may encounter special platforms that have strange effects on the hovercraft. The goal is to make it to the winning tunnel at the end of each track in one piece :]

tedit is the level editor for Tasty Static. It's not very user-friendly and could probably be streamlined a lot more than it is, but that's why it's only version 0.8 and not some pretty number like 1.0 or 1.5 or 2.0. tedit contains tools for making bastard levels that will make players want to tear their hair out. It's suggested you save a lot in case the editor crashes, which shouldn't happen but is always a possibility

Controlling the camera

Hold right mouse button down or use the arrow keys to pan the camera along the X and Z axes
Scroll the scroll wheel to go up and down on the Y axis
Hold the scroll wheel button down or hold ALT to change the camera angle
Press the ~ key to return the camera to the origin (the rotating arrow)

Creating objects

Z creates a flat platform
X creates a tunnel
C creates a block tunnel (a tunnel with a flat top)
B creates a road complete decal (STYLE GUIDELINE: only place this at the mouth of a road-completion tunnel)
N creates a zoomy arrow decal
V duplicates whatever is the current selection

Manipulating objects

Left click on an object to select it. Hold shift while left-clicking to select multiple things
Use WASDRF or left click and drag to pan objects along the X, Y, and Z axes
Hold T or G while using WASDRF to stretch/shrink selected objects in respective directions. The faces of an object that will stretch while holding these keys will become illuminated.
- You can only stretch tunnels along the Z axis
- To change the radius of a block tunnel's hole, hold T and use the A and D keys.
- You are not prevented from shrinking an object too much, but doing so may make the object behave strangely in-game and even be unselectable in the editor! Be careful!!!
Hold CTRL and left click on an object to snap all selected objects to that height
Press backspace to reset selected objects to their position and size when they were selected
Hold CTRL and press backspace to delete selected objects.
Holding CTRL while stretching, shrinking, or moving objects stretches, shrinks, or moves them more (faster)
Holding SHIFT while stretching, shrinking, or moving objects stretches, shrinks, or moves them less (more precisely)
Holding ALT while stretching, shrinking, or moving objects aligns them to the editor grid.
Right clicking selected objects opens a popup menu that lets you
- Flip objects vertically for reverse gravity or creating half-pipes for normal gravity
- Give objects special properties:
  - No effect no special properties
  - Accelerate forcibly accelerates the player while in contact
  - Decelerate forcibly decelerates the player while in contact
  - Sticky keeps the player from changing direction while in contact
  - Explodey causes the player to explode on contact
  - Recharge refills the player's charge meter to maximum
  - Road complete causes the player to win the level. This is traditionally placed at the end of a tunnel
  - Bouncy causes the player to jump on contact
  - Reverse gravity reverses the direction of gravity
  - Reverse direction causes the player to turn around

The Track menu

The gravity submenu changes how high the gravity on this level is
Charge specifies how fast the player's charge meter goes down. When the charge meter runs out, the player looses control of the ship and explodes. The charge meter can be refilled with recharge platforms.
Lower fall threshold specifies the Y value, represented by a red grid, where the player will die after they fall off the track.
Upper fall threshold specifies the Y value, represented by a red grid, where the player will die after they fall off the track in reverse gravity.

The Mode menu

Use the first three items to change between testing modes (explained in the next section) and the editor
Check Show Color Editor to display the color editor window (explained in the Color Editor section)
Check Show motion trails to record motion trails during testing (explained in the next section)
Check Show grid to toggle display of the alignment grid and fall threshold grids

Testing

Press tab to toggle testing from the origin (rotating arrow)
Hold CTRL and press tab to toggle testing from the current camera position
Press Q while testing to quickly reverse direction
When you come back out of testing mode, motion trails will be displayed tracing the ship's path. The trail's color is based on the speed of the ship at that moment. Blue is slowest, red is fastest. Use this feature to precisely align objects for jumps and maneuvers, or to move certain platforms just out of reach

The color editor

Check Show Color Editor in the mode menu to display the Color Editor window. You can use this window to change the appearance of track objects.

Right click palette items to change that palette item's color.
Select objects to change their color. A foldout appears on the left side of the color window representing the faces of the selected objects.
Left click and drag palette items onto the foldout to color respective vertices and faces of objects. Drag a color onto corner boxes to color that corner or drag to the center of a face to color all four corners.
Click Copy to copy the color style of the selected objects to memory, and
Click Paste to paste the copied color style onto selected objects
Click Set As Default to make the current color style the default style applied to new objects of that type, when they are created