Level Editor

This is a screen shot of the editor screen. You get to this screen by clicking on Edit Levels on the main menu. All of the levelsets in Brickout have been created with this same editor, so you have the same capabilities for creating levels as we do.

This is the brick editing area.You place bricks in this grid to make your designs. Bricks can be placed by hovering your mouse over an empty square and pressing the left mouse button. You can remove bricks by hovering the mouse pointer over the brick you want to remove and pressing the right mouse button.

This is the control panel, for creating your own level sets. Here you have all the control you will need to create any designs you wish.The status bar at the bottom of the screen displays a brief message about each function. Simply put your mouse over a control in the editor, and you'll get a description of the button and it's keyboard shortcut.

Above, you'll see the buttons which control the way the board is displayed, and how the board's powerups are edited. The Grid button simply toggles the background grid on and off, so that you can preview the final look of your board.
The Visible button sets whether you can see which bricks are special by placing an overlay over invisible, 2-hit, and 3-hit bricks.
The Classic button toggles classic mode, so that you can test your level in classic mode.
The Eyedropper tools lets you copy the color and texture settings from a brick you've created in the grid above. This can be useful if you have shaded the bricks on your board with many different colors. Click on the Eyedropper tool, and then hover your mosue pointer over the briuck you want to copy. Click the left mouse button, and that brick's color and texture information will be moved over to the editor
The Powerup icon turns on powerup-editing mode. You are now able to place powerups on the playfield instead of bricks. The powerups will show up as small overlays.
The Test button lets you playtest the board you are editing. Brickout will load the new board and you can test it from there. When you're done testing, press escape to return to the editor. Clicking Test automatically saves the progress you've made on your board.

The Powerup editor screen

This is the brick editor. You can use the Brick Types button to toggle through the different tyoes of bricks.
You can use the plus and minus keys next to the Brick and Powerup boxes to select new bricks or powerups. If you are making a board specifically for classic mode, you want to choose Brick # 90, since it was designed for that purpose. Other bricks will work in classic mode, but they will not have the proper color range in some cases.

You can set the color of each brick using this interface. Each brick is unique, and may have different color limitations. You can imagine the brick's color as a set of 3 color filters---Red, Green, and Blue. Reducing the red component will begin to filter out all of the red color in the brick texture. You'll find that some bricks don't have a huge color range, while bricks that are almost white can be colored very nicely.

This control panel lets you save changes to your level, and create level sets.
Save Level saves the current level. Be sure to save a level before moving on to another level, as your changes won't be saved otherwise.
Clear Level clears the current level completely, leaving you with a blank editing grid. A window will pop up to ask for your permission before the level is cleared.
Delete All deletes all of the levels you have created in the User Data folder. This function is useful for cleaning up levels once you create a levelset. A warning will appear before all the levels are deleted permanently.
Create Level Set will create a complete level package, using the levels you have generated in the editor. You can have up to 25 levels in each level set. You will be asked for 4 pieces of information when you create a level set:

The name of the set. This will be the name that is visible in the level selector on the main menu

A brief description of the level, in 80 characters or less. If this is a set built for classic mode, mention it here.

Your name. This can be your real name or your internet handle. This is just here so that you get credit for your creation, especially if you submit your levelset to our website.

An 8 character name for the levelset. You can name the level anything you wish.

Once this information is entered, Brickout will cycle through all of the levels in the editor and create a levelset. This levelset is then deposited in the Level_Sets directory, and will be immediately available from the Load Level button on the main menu. If you want to email this level set to us for inclusion on our website, attach the levelset .bls file to an email and send it to:
delsydsoftware@gmail.com
Once we've taken a look at the levelset, we'll put it up on our website for other people to enjoy for free.