Voxel Designer

See

Voxode — This level looks very complicated, but you can make this too!

The Voxel Designer or VOXDE is the in-game level designer for Voxatron. It allows the player to create levels that can be uploaded to the BBS.

Full documentation of the shortcuts can be found in the vox.txt read-me file that is distributed with the game.

Main screen[]

The main screen has everything you need to make basic Voxatron levels. We'll go in depth on the screen elements.

Item selector[]

The item selector holds all of the player's level objects to make a level, organized into four tabs.

Rooms holds the rooms the player has created.
Objects holds level structures such as trees, bridges, stairs, and walls.
Actors holds enemies, as well as the player's starting point.
Items holds items and power-ups the player can pick up.

Toolbar[]

The toolbar has the six basic tools used to work with a level. It also has an icon of the currently-selected object on the far left.

Place Objects places a copy of the chosen object into the level.
Sample selects a color or object to be used later. This can also be done by right-clicking.
Paste pastes the contents of the clipboard. The player should be careful not to carelessly use the paste shortcut (Ctrl+V) as it will replace the contents of the entire room.
Select selects objects. Holding Ctrl while selecting will select all objects of a group. Holding Shift will de-select objects. Selections can be used to group items together.
Camera allows the player to adjust the camera to change the view. The player can hold down the left mouse button to turn the camera and right mouse button to zoom the camera in or out. Holding Alt or C allows the player to control the camera without clicking the button.
Pan moves the camera without rotating or zooming. This can also be achieved by holding down the space bar.

View[]

The view bar offers advanced options to enable easier level designing for the player.

Perspective/Orthagonal

Sets the camera view to perspective (3D) or orthagonal (flat).

Room cage

Sets the visibility of the room cage on or off. The room cage is the boundaries of the room.

Shadows

Sets the objects to have either normal shadows or straight-down shadows to better align objects.

Dark edges

Shows/hides dark edges, allowing the player to see the borders more clearly.

Deep select

With deep select off, the player will only marquee-select foreground objects. With deep select on, the player will marquee-select everything including objects not in the foreground.

Select items

With this on, objects cannot be selected.

Reset camera

Clicking this will instantly reset the camera.

Grid snap

This will snap all level objects to a 4x4 grid. This means less freedom, but easier alignment.

Clipping pane

This limits where you can place level objects.

Level view

This shows the portion of the level that is currently being viewed. This can be dragged to move the camera.

Tips and tricks[]

Here are a few useful things you might not know about the level editor:

Placing the actor that looks like the player in the room sets where the player will appear when the room is loaded. Placing a powerup or other item inside the player actor will cause them to immediately and unavoidably pick it up. This can be used to force the player to switch weapons or start with a bonus multiplier or just award health without leaving it laying around.
To make a room appear to be entered from a different direction, for instance when going 'backwards' from an alternate path, make a copy of the room and change the player actor. Select the room you want to copy in the rooms list, press Ctrl+C to copy, make a new room and make sure it's open in the room editor, press Ctrl+V to paste it. Note that all items and enemies will be spawned every time the player enters the room, so it's usually better not to leave free points laying around or remove them from the new copy.
Copying and pasting works in the Voxel Designer, too! You can use this to move items between the six pages of editable prop objects, and even copy actors and items and paste them into the object editor as statues. Placing statues of health packs in places where a player would really need them is a very evil thing to do!
There are six "voxel object banks" available to keep your level props and objects in. The first has a few default objects in it, but you can save or load entire pages to/from it by simply opening the page of objects you wish to save, hitting the "Save Level" button, and naming the file something that ends in .vob or .vob.png ... The resulting image will contain all of the objects in that page of objects, but will not be a playable level. Similarly, loading a set of props will replace the currently selected page.
Naming the first room "_dojo" makes the Sword of Fortune permanent, even if you take damage, and also makes the game start with one.
When using _dojo, grabbing another weapon power-up will still change your weapon, and when it runs out of ammo the player will be reverted to the normal pea shooter. However, picking up another Sword of Fortune will be permanent again. This can be useful for transitioning between shooting and sword-fighting.
Item 9, the door / "rainbow squid thing" object, has two modes: When used with "door mode" set to "off", setting the room to go to as a room that doesn't exist (-1 is handy for this) or the same room, it normally ends the game. However, when door mode is "on", the game does not end and the door item is instead "picked up". This can be used to trigger events, such as invisible items that appear when the player is standing directly on top of them.
Using multiple player spawn actors will teleport the player to each one as it is activated. This can be used in conjunction with events such as the invisible door objects outlined above or a timer after monsters have been defeated, to move players to an otherwise difficult to reach place, such as another room in the same area, or on top of a high pillar, without reloading the map.

Character Creation[]

Starting from V0.1.5 of Voxatron, character specification on different levels is added. It is specified when the 6th vob;s name of the first item is: _char. In this case, the vob is used as the player's character models for the duration of the level. In this case, the frames should be roughly the same size as the usual robot character.

There are 6 body frames, 5 feet frames, and 1 sword & armour frame:

0. netrual

1. shoot (right)

2. shoot (left)

3. sword: neutral

4. sword: swipe 1 (always right handed)

5. sword: swipe 2

6-10 feet // animated in pingpong sequence: 6,7,8,9,10,9,8,7

11. is a frame of only the sword and armour used when the player is hit.

All frames should be 16 voxels high.