]
For a tutorial about all the parts of a Challenge Maze, and how CutScenes fit in with all the other parts, please visit the Quick Start Maze Section.
CutScenes give a Maze Maker a chance to extend the presentation of images, animation, sounds, and text. There are other chances that a Maze Maker has to present images, animations, sounds, and text but those chances are each a chance to show one image, show one animation, play one sound, or write one piece of text. When writing a CutScene there is no hard limit for how many images, sounds, animations, or pieces of text can be used. A Maze Maker can keep adding to CutScene entries to show very long sequences of visuals and/or text and/or sounds. These scenes can be presented in rooms with or without challenges and challengers. They can be presented at the beginning and ends of mazes. They can help instruct a player about how to solve a challenge or about how to find their way through the a maze. They can do anything that can be done by presenting images, animation, sounds, and text. Each CutScene entry is made of 1 or 2 main parts. These parts are the 'instruction' and the 'parameters'.
All CutScene entries have an instruction. The instruction informs the Challenge Maze Software about what it will do next. Instructions like SOUND prepare the Challenge Maze Software to play a sound. Instructions like CHALLENGER-TOP-IMAGE prepare the Challenge Maze Software to show an image. Instructions like GAME-TOP-ANIM prepare the Challenge Maze Software to show an animation. Instructions like CHALKBOARD prepare the Challenge Maze Software to show text. Instructions like WAIT prepare the Challenge Maze Software to wait before it tries to process any other instructions or take any other game actions. When adding multiple instructions to a CutScene entry, the instructions should be joined by a '|'.
CHALLENGER-CLEAR|CHALKBOARD-ERASE
Many CutScene entries have parameters for each instruction. The parameters tell the Challenge Maze Software about how to do the instruction. Parameters tell which files or text to use and how long to show or play the files or text. Accordingly, writing parameters means writing an amount of time, or writing a path to a file, or writing a piece of text. To learn general information about paths in the Challenge Maze Software please visit the Data Folder Section. Parameters should be joined to the appropriate instruction with a '~'.
SOUND~Audio Sounds\Victory.wav
In this example the part written as 'Audio Sounds\Victory.wav' is the parameter and is the path to the sound file that will be played.
WAIT~3
In this example the part written as '3' is the parameter and is the number of seconds that the Challenge Maze Software will wait. Please also consider this final example with 2 instructions.
CHALKBOARD~A 10-sided object is often called a decahedron.|WAIT~1.5
In this example the part written as 'A 10-sided object is often called a decahedron' is a parameter and is this text that will be displayed on the ChalkBoard. The display of that text will then be followed by a 1.5 second wait before the Challenge Maze Software tries to process any other instructions or take any other game actions.
CutScenes are entered into textfiles as a one line entry. One long line that 'wraps' back onto the other side of the screen in the normal 'word wrapping' that occurs automatically in some text editing programs is still considered to be one line. In the Challenge Maze Software, a line is considered to be complete at the end-of-line (EOL) character that is added when a person hits the ENTER or RETURN key to make a new line. Accordingly, a CutScene entry can extend all the way to an EOL character.
Since a CutScene is often used to show several pieces of text and/or multiple images and animations, an instruction that tells the Challenge Maze Software to wait can be useful. Otherwise, if there were no such instruction, two successive pieces of text being written to the ChalkBoard would mean that the first piece would be erased so quickly (so that the second piece could be written) that the player player would not have time to read it. The same thing may happen with images if multiple images are shown one after another. As with text and images, if SOUND instructions are written one after another, the first sound will be too quickly overridden by the next sound. It is for these reasons and others that there there is a WAIT instruction included in the choices a Maze Maker has to build CutScenes. This instruction tells the Challenge Maze Software to wait and how long to wait before processing any further instructions or taking any further actions.
This instruction takes one parameter, the number of seconds to wait.
WAIT~0.5
Playing sounds does not make the Challenge Maze Software wait. During this time the Challenge Maze Software will continue to process instructions. Sounds will continue playing until the end of the sound file unless another instruction tells the Challenge Maze Software to play a sound file before the first one is done. If you would like to show an animation with sound, you can write a 'CutScene' that will do this by writing the instruction to play the sound first and then follow that with the instruction to show an animation. The same thing would happen if you wrote an instruction to play a sound and then wrote instructions to show images or text. The images or text would show while the sound was playing.
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the file.
SOUND~Challengers\Spirit Wizard\Spirit Wizard Wrong.wav
When processing a CutScene with a ChalkBoard instruction the Challenge Maze Software will display the text and leave it there until another ChalkBoard instruction removes or replaces it. Once the Challenge Maze Software displays the text it will continue processing further instructions.
This instruction takes one parameter, the text to display.
CHALKBOARD~Welcome to the Challenge Maze of Redemption!
This instruction takes no parameters, but can be affected by the TIME - ChalkBoard Erase Entry.
CHALKBOARD-ERASE
Animations cause the Challenge Maze Software to wait in between each frame. This makes the Challenge Maze Software wait until the end of the animation before processing any new instructions. Animations frames are presented on the Image Stack. To make an animation's first frame visible when a player first enters a room, it is necessary to write the first instruction of the CutScene as an IMAGE instruction with the path to animation's first frame image file. IMAGE instructions can be found in the next section. Animation instructions that end in 'DIRECTION' allow for animations to be played that compensate for the direction the player is facing by automatically choosing between three folders. Instructions for making animations to use in CutScenes and at other places in the Challenge Maze Software visit the Animations Section.
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the animation folder.
GAME-TOP-ANIM~Lighting\Torches\Flare Up
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the animation folder.
SCENE-TOP-ANIM~Passages\Portal\Divulge\Left
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the animation folder.
CHALLENGER-TOP-ANIM~Challengers\Spirit Wizard\Flash Spell
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the animation folder.
CHALLENGER-ANIM~Challengers\Red Slime\Wrong
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the animation folder.
ROOM-TOP-ANIM~Challengers\Spirit Wizard\Flash Spell Background Effects
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the animation folder.
CHALLENGER-ANIM~Picture Visual\Room Glowing
This instruction takes two parameters. The first is the path to the folder that holds the 3 animation folders. Those three folder names should begin with the name of the folder that holds them, and then have a space followed by 'Back', 'Left', or 'Right'. Some examples of animation folder named like this would be 'Open Left', or 'Divulge Back'. The second parameter is the desired cardinal direction (North, South, East, or West) of the animation.
GAME-TOP-ANIM-DIRECTION~Passages\Portal\Open~West
This instruction takes two parameters. The first is the path to the folder that holds the 3 animation folders. Those three folder names should begin with the name of the folder that holds them, and then have a space followed by 'Back', 'Left', or 'Right'. Some examples of animation folder named like this would be 'Open Left', or 'Divulge Back'. The second parameter is the desired cardinal direction (North, South, East, or West) of the animation.
SCENE-TOP-ANIM-DIRECTION~Passages\Portal\Divulge~North
This instruction takes two parameters. The first is the path to the folder that holds the 3 animation folders. Those three folder names should begin with the name of the folder that holds them, and then have a space followed by 'Back', 'Left', or 'Right'. Some examples of animation folder named like this would be 'Open Left', or 'Divulge Back'. The second parameter is the desired cardinal direction (North, South, East, or West) of the animation.
CHALLENGER-TOP-ANIM-DIRECTION~Passages\Wood Door\Divulge~South
This instruction takes two parameters. The first is the path to the folder that holds the 3 animation folders. Those three folder names should begin with the name of the folder that holds them, and then have a space followed by 'Back', 'Left', or 'Right'. Some examples of animation folder named like this would be 'Open Left', or 'Divulge Back'. The second parameter is the desired cardinal direction (North, South, East, or West) of the animation.
CHALLENGER-ANIM-DIRECTION~Passages\Wood Door\Open~East
This instruction takes two parameters. The first is the path to the folder that holds the 3 animation folders. Those three folder names should begin with the name of the folder that holds them, and then have a space followed by 'Back', 'Left', or 'Right'. Some examples of animation folder named like this would be 'Open Left', or 'Divulge Back'. The second parameter is the desired cardinal direction (North, South, East, or West) of the animation.
ROOM-TOP-ANIM-DIRECTION~Passages\Portal\Divulge~South
This instruction takes two parameters. The first is the path to the folder that holds the 3 animation folders. Those three folder names should begin with the name of the folder that holds them, and then have a space followed by 'Back', 'Left', or 'Right'. Some examples of animation folder named like this would be 'Open Left', or 'Divulge Back'. The second parameter is the desired cardinal direction (North, South, East, or West) of the animation.
CHALLENGER-ANIM-DIRECTION~Passages\Wood Door\Open~North
When processing a CutScene with an image instruction, the Challenge Maze Software will present the image on the instructed location in the Image Stack and leave it there until another instruction or action replaces it. Once the image is presented the Challenge Maze Software will continue processing further instructions.
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the image file.
GAME-TOP-IMAGE~Pictures Visual\Map.png
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the image file.
SCENE-TOP-IMAGE~Pictures Visual\Bar Graph Display.png
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the image file.
CHALLENGER-TOP-IMAGE~Challengers\Blue Slime\Psychic Wave.png
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the image file.
CHALLENGER-IMAGE~Challengers\Spirit Wizard\Spirit Wizard.png
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the image file.
ROOM-TOP-IMAGE~Pictures Visual\Temporary Room Accessories.png
This instruction takes one parameter, the path to the image file.
ROOM-IMAGE~Pictures Visual\Temporary Room Background.png
If you make a CutScene that uses SCENE-TOP or GAME-TOP and do not clear the images or animations from SCENE-TOP or GAME-TOP, they will stay there even when a player changes rooms.
This instruction takes no parameters.
GAME-TOP-CLEAR
This instruction takes no parameters.
SCENE-TOP-CLEAR
This instruction takes no parameters.
CHALLENGER-TOP-CLEAR
This instruction takes no parameters.
CHALLENGER-CLEAR
This instruction takes no parameters.
ROOM-TOP-CLEAR
This instruction takes no parameters.
ROOM-CLEAR
