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Atari MapMaker was tool created especially for Ridiculous Reality game, but I decided to publish it so I added some more functionalities and improved stability so now it is free tool that can be used by anybody on any project.
1. Map setup
By default map size is 4x4 screens of 32x20 chars.
You can change these settings in New Map tab in toolbox. Note that actual mapdata will be deleted! In case you want to preserve data, do Export first (see following points), then create new map and perform data Import.
2. Font load
Click button Load Font on Colors tab and load prepared font file created using Atari FontMaker, G2F or other tool...
3. Map editing
Click button Show font on Colors tab and FontCharPicker popup window will appear. Select single char or region of chars using mouse. Your selection will appear in Clipboard area of toolbar. Then move cursor to editor window and paste contents of clipboard on desired position by clicking left mouse button.
Perform right doubleclick to release selected region (clear clipboard).
Press and hold right mouse button to scroll the map.
You can perform copy-to-clipboard operation also in editor window same way as in FontCharPicker window.
4. Color changes
Double click on color item inside color list to change it - AtariColorPicker window will pop up.
5. Additional edit options
You can change zoom by moving slider. You can also turn on and off visibility of grid and screen borders. These controls are at the top of Colors tab.
6. Save & Load map
Use button Load Map or Save Map on Load/Save/Export tab to Load or Save map. Map file contains all map data, colors and font.
7. Data operations (export/import)
These options are available on Load/Save/Export tab:
a) Export
Select range of screens to export using four up/down controls.
Exported file contains continuous data, line after line. Data line width (in chars) will be displayed after successfull export.
Control Extra chars in line (suffix) lets you add multiple empty spaces at the end of each exported line. (This option is helps you to align data to LMS addresses in displaylist in case you plan to scroll map vertically)
b) Import
Select starting screen for import using two up/down controls. Also set dataline width to let editor know width of imported map.
c) Column export
Select which screens to export using four up/down controls.
Exported file contains data ordered in columns (instead of rows) - useful for horizontal scrolling (like Crownland, Hobgoblin or any horizontal shooter that renders data during gameplay, instead of scrolling gigantic videoram).
d) Column import
Select starting screen where to import the column based datafile using two up/down controls.
