Interior testing - various guides

How to generate a mission for an interior (.dif) file manually - rewritten

Firstly I'm assuming you have at least some basic knowledge of how to run a 'command-line style' command in Windows (it's not hard at all).

1. Ensure you have your interior in your <game-root>/marble/data/interiors/ directory
2. Open 'Run...' - it should be on the Start menu for XP users, for Windows 7 just search it in the Start menu.
3. Type WITH the quotes:
Code:<yourGame'sPath>/marbleblast.exe -test <fileNameOfInterior>.dif
if you bought your game from RealArcade
or
Code:<yourGame'sPath>/MarbleBlastGold.exe -test <fileNameOfInterior.dif>
if you bought your game from GarageGames

(note there's just a change in the name of the executable for different versions of the game)

where:
<yourGame'sPath> for most people should be something like C:/Program Files/MarbleBlast, just look in that place to check what the name of the folder exactly is

<fileNameOfInterior> contains the file name of your interior (no references from a directory etc, just the raw file name without the extension)

Here are some examples:
Code:C:/Program Files/MarbleBlast/MarbleBlastGold.exe -test railshaft.dif
Code:C:/Program Files (x86)/MarbleBlast Platinum/marbleblast.exe -test platinuuum.dif (note the Program Files (x86) for 64-bit Windows users)

If it doesn't work, you probably have the name of a directory (folder) wrong, or something doesn't exist, or you don't have read permissions on a folder, or some other sort of standard reason like these.

PM me if you have problems.

I just figured out how to make these word on mac. Instead of typing Marble Blast Gold\marbleblastgold.exe -test (interiorName).dif type...


TYPE IN THE FOLLOWING INTO TERMINAL. Terminal is located in Macintosh HD-Applications-Utilities-Terminal, or just search for it in finder and select search computer.

Hi all, just made a quick program which lets you test interors with a GUI interface.
Just something to ease the pain from the delayed Mac build.
(On that note the installer is going well, and waiting upon 1.12 build completion).

Thanks to PF for posting the Terminal command.



Also note, that path is saved when the application quits, helpful for those whos MarbleBlast game resides in a different directory.

Get it here:
philsempire.com/?view=downloads

reposted from Phil'sEmpire

Hi everyone,

I’ve written a fairly simple application for Windows which should help simplify and take some of the tediousness out of exporting, moving and testing MarbleBlast levels. You can download it here as a .zip file. MarbleBlastMap2Dif (an official tool by GarageGames) is included as part of the .zip file for those who don’t have it.

When you run the app for the first time, you’ll need to set up where your main level-building directories are located. A screenshot can be seen below - I don’t think it should be that overwhelming to understand this interface at first.

[img][/img]


Once you’ve correctly set everything up, simply select a .map file from a generated list filtered to show only .map files (based on the directory you define) and the app will take care of automatically exporting the map, placing it in the game’s marble/data/interiors/ directory and then runing the game to do an interior test.

There are several benefits to using this application as opposed to manually doing each step when exporting and running your map. See below for a full list:


Features
Ability to list a selected directory containing .map files - the app will report if no .map files exist
Ability to either use your game’s interiors directory for where Map2Dif will search for textures (this removes the need to make a copy of your game’s textures!), or you can use a directory of your choice.
Handles exporting the .map file, moving the exported .dif file (handled by a command-line option in Map2Dif and testing the resulting level in-game.
If you feel that something has went wrong or if you’re not sure, you’re able to view the program output of Map2Dif by clicking the “Command Line Output” button. Popup errors such as the common ‘Vislink cannot be coplanar with a node’ error will pop up as normal after attempting to export.
Application settings are automatically saved at the end of each session (thanks to a neat feature present in the .NET Framework that was very easy to implement!)
Although very very minor, Map2Dif has a weird tendency to force the mouse to the bottom-right of the screen. This program will attempt to reset the position of the mouse back to its original position after exporting the map.



Changelog
1.1:simpler user interface
now searches .map files within directories automatically
type to search for maps; the maps list will automatically update as you type
multiple interior directories, the ability to select which map directory your exported .dif file will go into (useful for MBG/MBP maps inside MBP)
(optional) export the map through each of the listed ‘interiors’ directories you have, and it will save the exported .dif file into the interiors folder that exports with no error


1.0:Initial release.


Requirements
.NET Framework 2.0 or higher
A full version of MarbleBlast (interior testing not supported in demo)
MarbleBlastMap2Dif (bundled with the app)



Final Notes

Let me know (email: phil [at] philsempire [dot] com) if you experience any sort of problem, or if you can recommend anything I should change in the interface or code to make it easier for the user.

I hope you’ll all find this to be a useful tool during your level building

- Phil

sorry for the bump, but what should i do if my mbp(does it work with that?) is in D drive?

replace C with D, yes it will work

Code:marbleblast.exe -test testinterior.dif

^place that code into a batch file inside the Marble Blast folder, in the same folder as 'marbleblast.exe', and you can use that instead. (make sure to change 'marbleblast.exe' if you have a different copy of MB where the executable name is different)

I find it's much easier this way, as you don't need to type the directory in every time and you can just change the name 'testinterior' to test any interior you want.

This only works for Windows (obviously), and I don't know if there's a similar way to do this in Macintosh.