Layout Editor Text Creator with Kianne

Discussion in 'Norrathian Homeshow' started by kianne, Aug 5, 2018.

  1. kianne Well-Known Member

    Ok guys i have just finished this tutorial on how to use Jesdyr's layout editor with the Text Creator seen's as there was no tutorials already up so hope you enjoy this
    please let me know in the comment below and/or Preferably on my channel if this is of any help to you on eq2.. so that i can keep bringing you more as i go..
    LUV Kianne xx
    ...



  2. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    So, hang on, those aren't just suggestions of Jes's, they're literally the only books we can use?? What about if you need different colors, or, like you were finding out, couldn't find the silly things? :-/

    Which version is this? Something pretty recent, I'm guessing; the last I knew, he was still tearing his hair out over the text writer bit... ;->

    Uwk
  3. kianne Well-Known Member

    yep only books you can use... i did another video on how to swap out the books but i haven't put it up yet... no u cant use any other one.. if you want a diff colour u will need to hand place them... I answered all your questions in the video :)

    thanks for watching though... i have put up 2 more ... tiling and replacing and moving and rotating in a group they are on my channel.. hope they are of some help!!
    Kianne

    Dragoneyes left this message on my video..

    /Quote Kianne - Dragoneyes here - just did two quests ("Scrawlings in the Dark" and "The Trials of Sir Morgan") - I can now buy endless copies of the book "The Trials of Sir Morgan" at the FP mage tower, so I'd guess it's available at the Concordium tower in Q as well - hope this is helpful.


    And Faeonara sent me this .....
    you get the book Trails of Sir Morgan after you do the quest( Scrawlings in the Dark ).It begins with Rikkantus in Antonica ..once you do that part you will get the Trials of Sir Morgan quests to do .. Once you have the book as a reward I believe you can buy multiples of it from Sage".." I just completed the quest ... At the end you are given the book and then it shows up on the sage , It is not trade though. Quest took me maybe an hour tops ..Important to note that you need to mentor down to get the updates maybe but thats no biggie"
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  4. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    True; the books I use currently for my TARDISes (the white POLICE BOX writing on the overhead black signs), using the design I stole outright from Jexi, can be bought for like 1c from the sages once you've done the quest for one of the Varsoon books...Volume 1, I think it was. The problem I've found with using books now is that the scale factor, even at 0.5, is off for a human- or Time Lord-sized TARDIS (especially if any House Actors are right next to it), and I'll have to find something that can scale down smaller. :(

    But if you're not having to worry about that, if scale isn't an issue, this looks like a cool, fast way to do the writing! Thanks for the video! :)

    Uwk
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  5. Cyrrena Well-Known Member

    Watched the video, loved it, actually understood it. Now I just have to figure out the rest of the editor.

    If you do not mind me asking, where are you from in the UK, my spousal unit is from Morley, Leeds, West Yorkshire and said she is down south.

    I myself am from Dublin, so when my spousal unit says down south, it really means nothing to me, I only know that London is down south from West Yorkshire.
    kianne and Uwkete-of-Crushbone like this.
  6. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    Yeah, what I know of British geography, London is really, really far south; much further and you're running into the Channel. :D

    Question about the video, Kianne; I see you set up the WITH and WITHOUT files (which frankly, still not sure I understand the reason behind them, even after all this time [I mostly use both Sennen's OpenSource Editor and JesDyr's as fancier, faster versions of Notepad]), but did everything almost exclusively just with the WORKING file? :confused:

    Uwk
  7. elflover Well-Known Member

    With and without is saving a layout and then add/crate items and save layout. when you use difference thing in layout editor it shows only the items that are different from each saved layout in the same house, so you don't have to search for them especially if u have many of same items in the house.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  8. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    Ah, okay. Thanks! :)

    Uwk
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  9. kianne Well-Known Member

    im for Colchester in essex :) yepp im down south haha...well more south east :) and thanks for watchin the videos.. there are 2 more up now.....

    Uwke ... when you have placed the items you want in the room you then save the layout WITH them in it! then you pack them in the moving crate and save WITHOUT ( saving the layout now with out the items the) .. Layout editor deciphers whats different from the two saved layouts and displays those items on the layout editor screen for you to faff with, then when you have finished faffing you then SAVE ALL on the LE and the press your LOAD WORKING macro to put he items back in your house where you told them where you want them.. :D
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  10. Faeonara Well-Known Member

    To make myself understand in simple terms what this was all about think of the editor as a camera ..first take a picture WITH everything in house. Now PACK up items you want to work with and take a second picture WITHOUT the items in the house ..Open the editor and ask it to show the Difference between the two pictures and it gives you a file with all the items you packed away . You can then Save that list and Load it back in game ready for Working on . So Save with , Save without Run difference Save save the output file and put items back in the house by using Load working .
    Once you have completed all the steps above you can then continue to manipulate the items using the various buttons for movement, scale etc saving the changes and load working to see fifferences as you go . Just remember when you get it all perfect, you really must to go to the house menu on your door and save your picture perfect house by saving the new layout ( you can call this save whatever you want ). The last step is important cause if you mess something up later by accidently moving something or picking it up you can go to door and load that saved file again to put things back as they were .
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  11. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    Ah...so, WITH, WITHOUT, and WORKING are like "temp" files, essentially, and when you're done, you can then give it the "permanent" name it'll be known by, like Uwk_6Rm-NH (for New Halas 6 Room, for example)?

    Uwk
    Faeonara likes this.
  12. Faeonara Well-Known Member

    yes exactly :)
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  13. JesDyr Well-Known Member

    You ahve to use the specific books because they can all be slightly different shape/sizes. At the time I picked easy to obtain No Count books. Trials of Sir Morgan is part of a quest chain. After you completed that quest you use to be able to purchase unlimited copies from an NPC somewhere in Freeport/Qeynos. (http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/The_Trials_of_Sir_Morgan_(Quest))

    Originally I had a helper program "Eq2LayoutFontMaker.exe" to create the font files used for this tool. It wasn't easy to use and I am not sure I included it in the latest installers i am not sure what I did with the Jig layout either which is required to use it. I think Jezebelle was the only person who tried to use it, I might have an email with directions on it that I sent her someplace..With that, you could use any items you want to make the text, but since some books don't count against item count, they were the natural choice to use.


    The fonts are xml files in the assets folder of the layouteditor (like C:\Program Files (x86)\EQ2LayoutEditor\Assets\). If you wanted to try to use a different book for one of the fonts, you could make a copy of that font's XML file and manually change the ItemIDs and item names in the files using "find and replace".

    You would need to change the Name and description of the font.(and sample image if you want which should be a 200x65 jpg)

    (sample from Basic 1)
    <Name>Basic 1 (Black)</Name>
    <SampleImage>Font_Jesder1.jpg</SampleImage>
    <Height>0.82</Height>
    <Width>0.5</Width>
    <Description>Black text using "The Trials of Sir Morgan". Supports Letters and Numbers</Description>

    The XML contains an element for each character and each has a list of items used to make that letter. To change the book used, you would need to replace the red text with the itemid and name of the new book.

    <Letter value="0" itemcount="5" width="0.54000002">
    <item>1758499238,The Trials of Sir Morgan,0.10718910,0.22743722,-0.01117587,-179.99998474,0.00000000,30,0.9</item>
    <item>1758499238,The Trials of Sir Morgan,0.21818910,-0.00256278,-0.01117587,-179.99998474,0.00000000,-30,0.9</item>
    <item>1758499238,The Trials of Sir Morgan,0.19818910,0.05343722,-0.01117587,-179.99998474,0.00000000,30,0.9</item>
    <item>1758499238,The Trials of Sir Morgan,0.41818910,0.34243722,-0.01117587,-179.99998474,0.00000000,-30,0.9</item>
    <item>1758499238,The Trials of Sir Morgan,-0.00181090,0.39843722,-0.01117587,-179.99998474,0.00000000,30,0.9</item>
    </Letter>

    The rest of the string is the position, orientation and scale information of each book relative to the starting location of that specific character.
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  14. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    Ah, brilliant! Thanks for the peek at the "guts" of it! :)

    And now I get it, the reasoning behind using certain volumes: they don't count (until like over 200 or so, and even I didn't need that much to copy Jexi's design)! :D

    Uwk
  15. Ocarinah Well-Known Member

    I still owe you a how to video that you requested so so so long ago. I will try to get that done before end of the year.
    kianne and Uwkete-of-Crushbone like this.
  16. Cyrrena Well-Known Member

    I need a JesDyr's Layout Editor for Dummies complete edition. I found a text copy of one of the basic how to videos and read that, then followed by watching the corresponding video, I was actually able to understand what was being done in the video after reading the text copy. It was like someone had transcribed the video. Not sure why I need to see it in writing as well, I guess its a cog fog thing and my mind wont process the information in the video until it sees it in writing.

    I guess I can start transcribing all the videos myself and then trying it that way.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  17. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    Nah, I know the feeling too, it just means we got our learning through, y'know, non-moving stuff, like books and chalkboards and such. ;->

    To this day, I much prefer reading an article vs. watching a video for anything, largely due to lousy servers. The videographers here all using YouTube (thanks for that, everyone! :D) at least means we're sure of reliable buffering and syncing and what-not, largely because showing (not really "broadcasting" any more, is it? What do they call it these days?) videos is pretty much all YouTube does for a living, and has to make sure everything's smooth there. ;)

    Also, I learn way better visually, rather than aurally; when I hear something, it's literally in one ear, out the other, with hardly anything retained. The few things I do retain from videos are the visual things, both the images and when folks do Examines on items. :)

    Uwk
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  18. Cyrrena Well-Known Member

    Me too Uwk, me too!!! Give me a chalkboard!
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