Layer View

Jazz Creation Station Help Layer View | | Index |

What does this view do?

| The layer view is your main editing window. You copy tiles from the Tiles View into the layer view by use of blocks. In the layer view you can duplicate and flip these blocks, combining design elements tiles into a large map, a Layer. There are a maximum of 8 layers per level. The layer with the lowest number (1) is closest to the viewer. The layer with the highest number (8) is farthest away.

The Layer Toolbar

| Zoom In Press this button to zoom in on the layer your are currently editing. If you are already showing the layer at its maximum zoom setting (100%), pressing this button won't have effect.
| Zoom Out Press this button to zoom out of the layer you are currently editing. You can zoom out to 12.5% of the original layer size. To return to a normal size, press the Zoom In button repeatedly.
| Layer Properties Press this button to bring up the layer properties dialog for the currently selected layer. The layer properties allow you to change various aspects of the current layer.

Search & Replace Events
Press this button to show the search and replace events dialog. This tool can be used to search for certain events and replace them with others. You can do things like replacing all 'dragon' events with 'dragon' events that only appear if you play that game with the 'hard' difficulty setting.

| Layer Selection These buttons help you switch from one layer to the other quickly. If you press one of the layer buttons, you will switch to that layer.
| Delete Layer If you press this button, the current layer will be deleted.

Show or hide Masks
Press this button to toggle showing the tile masks in the layer view. When the button is pressed, the tiles' mask is shown in the layer view. The tiles mask determines where collision is done with the level. You can't walk where the mask is set, you can walk somewhere if the mask is empty.

Show or hide Events
Press this button to toggle showing the events in the layer view. When the button is pressed down (as in the example picture of the layer toolbar), the event names are overlaid on top of the tiles in the layer view. When the button is not pressed down, you won't see the overlaid events.

| Help button Press this button to display the help you are reading now.

Keys in the Layer view

| Put block to current cursor position. First grab a block and put the mouse cursor on the position you would like to have your block. Press Space to put the block to the layer. This key has the same effect as pressing the left mouse button.

| Flip the current block in the x-direction. First grab a block with any of the block-grabbing keys or tools, then press F to make a mirror-image of it. Pressing F again will return the block to its original state

| Toggle ilumination for tile under cursor. Tiles that have an event associated can be set to illuminate the surroundings when a level is played with an ambient light value smaller than 100%. Only tiles with an event that spawn an object in the game can illuminate the surrounding; the tile will not illuminate the surroundings, the object spawned by the event will have this property.

| Start or stop grabbing a block at the current mouse position. The first time you press B the tile under the mouse cursor is marked as the start tile of the block. Move the mouse around to highlight the block that you want, press B again to stop grabbing the block.

| Select layer. Pressing one of the numeric keys '1' through '8' will select that layer in the layer view. It's a fast way to switch between different layers.

| Change the event of the tile under the mouse cursor. First position the mouse over a tile, then press the E key to bring up a dialog with events. The event that you will be put to the layer at the mouse position. After you have selected an for a tile, that event will become the active event. You can use the Shift+E key to copy this event to other tiles in this layer.

| Put the active event to the tile under the cursor. This key also associates an event with the tile under the cursor, but it doesn't use the event selection dialog, it uses the active event instead. You can set the active event using the E or Control+E keys.

| Grab event under mouse cursor and make it the active event. First position the mouse over a tile with an event on it and press Control+E to grab that event as the active event. You can then use Shift+E to copy this event to other tiles.

| Create a 1-by-1 block containing an empty tile.

| Create a 1-by-1 block containing the tile that the mouse is positioned over. First position the mouse on top of a tile in the layer view, then press the Enter key to create a 1-by-1 block containing that tile.

Mouse Controls

You can use the left mouse button to put (draw) blocks in the layer view. If you press down the left mouse button, the block will put to the layer at the current position.

By default, the block will be put translucent - that is, empty tiles will not be copied to the layer. If you hold down the shift key while putting a block the block will be put opaque - the empty tiles will also be copied.

You can always see a translucent copy of the block active so that you can see what the layer will look like after you have put the block on the layer. If you hold down the left mouse button and then move around the layer view, you will put multiple copies of the same block on the layer view.
The right mouse button brings up the layer popup menu.