DCME
DCME, or Drake Continuum Map Editor, is an open source map editor created in Visual Basic 6 initially by Drake7707, and then Samapico also got involved in the project. Notable features are the addition of the so-called "special tiles" to the tile palette, easy placement of styled text on the map, and a tool for representing a bitmap image as tiles.
DCME is in constant development. The automatic updates feature provides users with updates regularly.
Download the latest version here
Contents
Main features
- LVZ support
- Extended LVL support
- Wall tiles
- Quick map testing
- Non-rectangular selections with possibility of transparency
- Automatic updates
- Various drawing tools
- Tileset editor and tile editor
- Tile-text
LVZ support
DCME 3.0 and above allow users to create LVZ packages. It is possible to add any kind of files, define images, add map objects and screenobjects. Map objects can be placed on the map using most of the standard mapping tools (pencil, line, etc.). The LVZ tool also allows user to move the objects and change their properties.
Extended LVL support
DCME 2.0 fully supports eLVL features as map attributes and regions.
Custom Chunks
DCME uses some custom data chunks that are not defined in the standard ELVL Format.
Region Color (rCOL)
rCOL is a region subchunk used to store the defined region color, instead of assigning a new random color every time the map is loaded. Its size will always be 4 bytes. It is saved as an unsigned 32bits integer. (Version 2.0.1 and up)
Map ID (DCID)
DCID is a chunk that represents a hash code generated by DCME to identify the map in a unique way. It is used for the autosave feature and might be used for more things in the future. Its size should always be 8 bytes. It is a 8 hexadecimal characters string made up from the Volume ID of drive C and the current time. (Version 2.1 and up)
Walltiles (DCWT)
DCWT is a chunk in which are stored walltiles data.One chunk for each walltiles set will be saved. The size of this chunk is 16 bytes. Each byte is the value of a tile within the set. (Version 3.1.10 and up)
Texttiles (DCTT)
DCTT is a chunk that defines the 'text tiles' of the tileset. This chunk requires 2 bytes per character definition. For each pair of bytes, the first byte indicates the ASCII value of the character, the second byte is the value of the tile associated to it.
Bookmarks (DCBM)
DCBM is a customized bookmark for the map. A single DCBM chunk can hold many bookmarks (DCME uses up to 10 bookmarks). Each bookmark is stored kind of like tile data. 12bits unsigned for x, 12bits unsigned for y, then 8bits unsigned that designates the bookmark ID. So each bookmark takes 4 bytes, so the size specified in the header should always be multiples of 4. (Version 2.2 and up)
LVZ File (DCLV)
DCLV chunks specify the paths of the lvz files associated with the map. It is written as a non null-terminated string. Its length can be known with the header of the chunk. Typically, the path specified is relative to the level file and will most likely contain only the name of the lvz file, since DCME (3.1.10) saves lvz files in the same folder as the map file.
Automatic updates
DCME uses the msInet control to collect the update information from a text file. This file contains the list of changes made, and the list of files that need to be downloaded. Update files are self-extracting archives that automatically starts the extracted DCME.exe after extraction. If an update is available and downloaded by the user, DCME can complete the update process automatically by renaming the running DCME.exe, and starting the downloaded archive, which starts the new version automatically.
Tile-text
Tile-text allows the user to assign tiles to characters. Using the Tile-text tool, it is possible to type text on the map just like in a textbox, but each character is converted to the tile associated with it.
