Creating your first room
Lets get started with creating your first room. We will start out by launching the toolkit's editor. Browse to the folder that you un-packed the .zip file downloaded from
HERE.
You may watch a video walking you through this document
HEREThere should be a file called MudDesigner.Editor.exe. Double-click that file to start the editor.
You should see the editor with the default game scripts setup for it as shown below.

The game engine was created to support three types of environments.
- Realms
- Zones
- Rooms
Rooms are the locations that players actually occupy. Players can move freely around the world by traversing the various Rooms that you create.
Zones act as a collector. As you create Rooms, they must be placed within a Zone. This allows you to break your world up into different categories or locations with Rooms. This kind of segregation allows you to easily maintain your game world without having to browse through thousands of rooms.
As mentioned already, all Rooms must be placed within a Zone. Luckily, the editor handles this for you. Prior to creating your first Room, we will create our first Zone to store our Rooms within.
Realms act in the exact same manor as Zones do, with the exception that instead of holding Rooms, they hold Zones. This adds another layer of segregation for your world. You can use Realms for a very large portion of your game world, containing Zones which contain Rooms. Think of it like this.
Realm -> Zone ->Rooms
California -> San Diego -> Bedroom
California -> San Diego-> Closet
California -> San Diego-> City Street
New York -> Brooklyn -> Store
As you can see, the California and New York States are Realms in the game world, with San Diego and Brooklyn being a Zone within their respective Realms. Hopefully this was clear and helps your create a very large world that can easily be managed.
So before we can create our first Zone, we must create a Realm. We do that by using the Menu bar and selecting
World and then
Environments and finally selecting
Realms.
The Realm editor should now be presented to you.

Now, create your first Realm by clicking the
"Create Realm" button. You will now see a new Realm created and added to the list. It should be called
New Realm1. The new Realm is also automatically selected for you, with its properties displayed on the right for you to edit.

For our example, lets rename the Realm to "California" and then close the Realm Editor.
Next we need to access the
World->Environments menu again, this time selecting the
Zones option.
You should now be presented with the Zone Editor as shown below.

This editor looks almost identical to the Realm Editor with one exception. There is now a
"Change Realm" button. This allows you to change an existing Zone's Realm. If you create a Zone in California and later decide you want to move it (including all of its Rooms) into the New York Realm, you can.
So, just like we did with our Realm, lets click the
"Create Zone" button and edit the
New Zone1 name to
San Diego like below.

Also, notice that right above the list of Zones created, it tells you what Realm the Zones are currently in. In our example, the list says that it is showing you Zones within the California Realm. If you would like to change the Realm and view Zones from a different Realm, you can close the Zone Editor, open the Realm editor and select a different Realm.
Note: This process will be simplified in a update within the near futureNow that we have our Realm and Zone setup, we are ready to create our first room!
After you have closed the Zone editor, go to the
World->Environments menu again and select
Rooms.
The Room Editor should now be presented to you, with the
California realm selected and the
San Diego Zone selected for you automatically. The editor knows that those were the last locations you were editing, so it assumes this is what you are wanting to create a Room within.

There are several things you will want to take note of with this editor. First, there is the
"Current Room: None Loaded" text label along the top. This will tell you which Room you are editing, once you create one or load one.
The next thing to note is that beneath the
Current Room label, is the current path that your room is going to be created (or was created) within.
Beneath that, you have your control buttons. This area gives you the ability to create a new room, load an existing room, delete an existing room, change a loaded rooms zone and then close the editor.
The North/South/East/West/Up/Down buttons are used in the next section of the documentation for linking rooms together.
Also, note that in parentheses in the
Current Room label, it says
"(DefaultRoom)". This is not of any concern for this documentation at the moment. That is simply letting you know which Room script you are using. You can create your own Room scripts and change the engine settings to use your Room script if you wish. That will be covered in a different document.
So lets create our first Room by selecting the
"Create Room" button. This will insert a new Room within the
Available Rooms within Zone list and also tell you the name of the Room in the
Current Room label.
So lets name this Room
Bedroom by clicking the
"Room Properties" tab on the far right of the editor.
Next, change the
"Description" property to say
"This is your bedroom!".

Once you are done, close the Room Editor.
Lastly, lets use the menu bar again, but this time selecting the File & then
Save option. This will make sure your new world is fully saved.
You have reached the end of this document! At this point you have created a Realm, provided it with a Zone and then populated the world with a Room.