While you work on your levels, you would want to run your level file in action to verify the behavior.
The editor has the support of level testing via different run-time engines. You may use any of the supported engines and optionally change their settings by a special sub-menu.
!> Important: Depending on the configure pack used, a different engine may use as the default run time. Also, it may prevent the choose any other runtime engine than the default for level testing.
To start a level testing, open the Test menu, select the Test level menu item, or press the F5 key on your keyboard. Alternatively, you can use a menu of each supported engine to run a level test on a different runtime engine instead of the default.
For some cases, you may want to Test a saved file: you will run testing of a level file from the state on a disk. This option doesn't support an Editor integration.
You may want to Start Game if you desire to change your game control setup or run an episode playing.
If needed, you can tune your Testing options to select playable characters, count players, enable some cheating or debug features, set a specific state of playable characters, etc.
For Windows-only engines, Editor has support for an IPC bridge that can work on Wine. When Editor works on a non-Windows operating system, you will find an extra menu item in the menus of LunaTester and SMBX-38A, which allows you to configure Wine usage and even choose a different Wine installation (see Wine Settings).
It's a dialogue of generic settings that allows you to configure some features: choose 1 or 2 players game, select playable characters and their states, add vehicles/mounts, etc.
There are some extra settings:
- God Mode - Makes your playable character being invincible to dangerous NPCs and surfaces.
- Unlimited Flight - Gives an ability for your playable character to fly up by using the "Alt-Jump" key (Moondust Engine only).
- Bulldozer mode - Allows your playable character to destroy any nearest objects by Alt-Run key (Moondust Engine only).
- Walk Anywhere - Allows your playable character to walk on a world map out of paths (Moondust Engine only).
- Debug info - Enables printing of various to debug information on the screen (Moondust Engine only).
- Show frame speed - Enables printing of FPS count at the left-top corner (SMBX-38A and TheXTech only).
- Physics debug - Enables drawing of hitboxes of all objects include invisible (Moondust Engine only).
!> Be careful: the Engine part is under construction. It has many features that are weren't implemented yet.
It's an own run-time engine of the Moondust Project. This engine has full integration with Editor and supports all main features. You can run testing of new-made or unsaved files on the fly. While the test work, you can select any of the elements on the Editor's tile set box or item search browser and place them into the running game window directly.
We recommend reading the manual written in the Engine.Readme.txt file included with Moondust Engine.
Menu options:
- Test level/world - Start the direct testing of currently loaded level data even file is unsaved.
- Test saved level/world - Starts testing of current opened level by opening it from a disk.
- Start Game - Start a game by using a currently loaded configuration package.
It's the full C++ port of SMBX Engine 1.3, created from the source code published on February 2, 2020. It's the accurate replica of the vanilla SMBX engine with the full Editor integration support and some other Moondust standard extras. You can run testing of new-made or unsaved files on the fly. While the test is running, you can select any of the elements on the Editor's tile set box or item search browser and place them into the running game window directly. You can pick-up elements by mouse click on elements inside of the running game. Use a middle mouse button to turn on the eraser to remove elements around.
Menu options:
- Test level - Start a direct testing of currently loaded level data even file is unsaved.
- Test level in battle mode - Start a level testing in battle mode.
- Test saved level - Starts a testing of currently opened level by opening it from a disk.
- Graphics type - Select a graphical sub-system for use.
- Default - Graphical sub-system will be automatically detected.
- Software rendering - Use a software rendering without acceleration. Use this if hardware acceleration does not work, or it works incorrectly and glitchy. May work slow on some systems.
- Accelerated - Use a hardware-accelerated rendering sub-system. Used by default.
- Accelerated with V-Sync - Use a hardware-accelerated rendering sub-system with using of vertical synchronization to make a smoother rendering. May slow-down the game process, suggested to switch the monitor refresh rate into 75 hz if possible.
- Enable magic hand - Allows to use a mouse to pick-up elements from a working game directly. As well as placing new elements taken in tile sets and item browsers.
- Enabme max FPS - disables limit on FPS count and turns on the free rendering. In some cases may look like Fast-Forwarding of a video cassette.
- Enable grab all - Allows playable character to grab any NPC without exceptions.
- Change the path to TheXTech - Allows you to select the executable path to make testing work. You may choice a different assembly of TheXTech to use for some moment.
- Start Game - Start a normal game with using of a currently loaded configuration package.
It's a bridge proxy which allows you to use LunaLua equipped vanilla SMBX to run level tests on it.
Pre-requirements:
- LunaLua 0.7.3.1 or newer is required. If you have to use SMBX2 packages, you need to have an SMBX 2.0 Beta 3 or higher.
- Windows 7 or higher, or Wine (3.0 and higher is recommended) with installed DirectX 9 or 11, MSVC2015 runtime, quartz, dsound, and VB6RUN.
- Video drivers installed in your system, otherwise, game will not work or at least will lag.
You can run testing of new-made or unsaved files on the fly.
Menu options:
- Test level - Start a direct testing of currently loaded level data even file is unsaved.
- Test saved level/world - Starts a testing of currently opened level or world map by opening it from a disk.
- Reset checkpoints - Resets state of checkpoints in a condition that background instance is running.
- Disable OpenGL - Enforce using of software render.
- Keep running in background - Game will keep running in background even you will close window to allow quick running of a game.
- Terminate running process - Kills the working background process. Use this in a condition when the game does not respond a long time.
- Change the path to LunaTester - Allows you to select the path to LunaLua-SMBX or SMBX2 data directory to make LunaTester work. You may choice a different assembly of LunaLua-SMBX to use for some moment.
- Wine settings... - (non-Windows operating systems only) Allows you to configure settings of Wine or choose a different Wine installation (for example, import from a PlayOnLinux / PlayOnMac tool chain).
- Start Game - Start a normal game of LunaLua-SMBX or SMBX2.
It's a bridge proxy which allows you to use SMBX-38A engine to run level tests on it.
Pre-requirements:
- Windows XP or higher, or Wine (3.0 and higher is recommended) with installed DirectX 9, quartz, dsound, and VB6RUN.
- Video drivers installed in your system, otherwise, game will not work.
- SMBX-38A v1.4.3 and higher.
Menu options:
- Test level - Start a direct testing of currently loaded level data even file is unsaved.
- Test level in battle mode - Start a level testing in battle mode.
- Test saved level/world - Starts a testing of currently opened level or world map by opening it from a disk.
- Reset checkpoints - Resets state of checkpoints left after the last test playing.
- Enable magic hand - Allows to use a mouse to pick-up elements from a working game directly. As well as placing new elements taken in tile sets and item browsers.
- Don't auto-suspend game - Makes game never suspend when game window is unfocused.
- Change the path to SMBX-38A - Allows you to select the path to SMBX-38A executable to make the testing work. You may choice a different assembly of SMBx-38A to use for some moment.
- Wine settings... - (non-Windows operating systems only) Allows you to configure settings of Wine or choose a different Wine installation (for example, import from a PlayOnLinux / PlayOnMac toolchain).
- Start Game - Start a normal game of SMBX-38A
This dialogue allows you to configure a work of Wine on non-Windows operating system to make a proper work of LunaTester and SMBX-38A engines.
Location of Wine
Here you should to choose which Wine installation to use: installed into your operating system, or select a different one (for example, one of builds installed into your PlayOnLinux/PlayOnMac toolchain).
Enable Wine debug printing into "WineDebug" console - allows you to get all Wine debug output messages into Editor's development console which you can open in Help -> Show development console menu.
Specify a custom environment (PlayOnLinux/Mac) - allows you to configure some default locations used by Wine (for example, a home prefix where are your c_drive and registry data stored).
Import setup from PlayOnLinux/PlayOnMac - a help tool which allows you to select an existing PlayOnLinux/Mac profile and import Wine paths and settings from it to use in Editor to run level tests and episode playing.
Test - a helpful utility which allows you to verify the work of selected Wine tool-chain.