Terrain Editor Reference

The program is divided into four major parts. First of all is the Startup Window which is displayed when you execute the program (and that's the only time you see it). It's main purpose is to select the theater files that are going to be opened.

From there, you can only go to Terrain Editor Main Window where you should be doing your main work (tiling or using various tools). Here you can access the other two parts of the program. The BIN Editor, which allows you to edit the texture.bin file and add/delete/modify tiles and sets, and the MAP Editor, which allows you to edit the theater.map file, and specifically the terrain technical information and the palette which is used to render vertex coloring inside Falcon.

Starting the program after the splash screen, you will come across the window that is displayed below.

Changing the value of this checkbox, you can enable or disable the automatic search for an update at the program start. Your preference is saved in the ini file, so the program remembers your last choice. If it was set to “on”, the program will try to contact the update server, get the latest version and perform an upgrade if needed. If it is set to “off” nothing will happen during the program startup. With the Open Update file you can open an update package that you downloaded (if auto update is not working) so it can be applied manually.

Every time you change the value from “off” to “on”, the program will make an attempt to auto update. This can be useful for “on demand” update checks, just leave it normally to “off”, then whenever you want to check for an update, just set it to “on” and to “off” again, after it is done checking.

The main file selector tool is this combo box. When the program starts, the windows registry is read and searched for any Falcon 4.0 OF entries. If a valid Falcon 4.0 OF setup is found, the theater names that are installed are populating the combo box.

You can select in which Falcon installation, the theater you want to open belongs to. The theaters list will be updated automatically.

The first combo box entry is always the Manual option. When this is selected, the Browse button is activated and you can manually open a TDF (Theater Definition file). Each TDF contains information for all required folders, but a starting point is needed, because all folder information in this file are relative to falcon base folder. The program will go up one folder at a time (until reaching the drive root folder) and try to locate the theater.lst file to mark the base folder. If this file is not found, you will be asked to define this base folder. In order to open manually some files on your hard disk, you must have a valid Falcon 4 OF folder structure, with all the required files. That is done because, each part of this program opens different files from different folders. The folders that you must define here are the following:

• Terrain Folder: This folder must contain these subfolders:
  • terrain: Required for theater.l2, theater.o2 and theater.map files.
  • texture: Required for texture.bin
  • texture\texture: Required for DDS files.
• Object Folder: Required for falcon4.ct, falcon4.fcd, falcon4.ocd and Koreaobj.hdr.
• Campaign Folder: Required for <tname>.idx, <tname>.wch, default.idx and default.wch.

Depending on what the combo box selection is, these textboxes will contain the folder or files that are going to be opened. No action can be done on them, they are read only and provided only for cross checking that the path you have selected (or what is read from registry and from theaters.lst file from Falcon's folder) is correct. These textboxes can be selected though and their content can be copied.

When you click inside a textbox (you give it the focus), it's contents will be automatically selected for easier copy function.

Depending on what the combo box selection is, you will see the type of the theater you chose. The types are FreeFalcon, OpenFalcon and Allied Force. Along an icon of the theater type will be displayed.

The purpose of this button is really obvious. It opens your default web browser to this manual's web address, in order to access the documentation.

The address of the online documentation is dynamic. Every time the program connects to the internet, along with the current version, it receives the most current web address for the documentation. This address is saved in the configuration file for future use from the “Online Doc” buttons.

This is the button that allows you to continue with the program and load all the files previously specified. This button will take you to Terrain Editor Main Window, where you can access the other two interfaces.