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                          BriefEd V1.01
                 For Windows 3.1 & Windows 95
         Readme File (C) Copyright 1998 Micah J. Lieske
                           July 1998
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This file contains basic operating instructions for BriefEd

Descent and Descent II are trademarks of Interplay Productions.
Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corp.

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Contents
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License
Introduction
Requirements for using briefings and BriefEd
Using BriefEd
-Stuff you should know
-Scenes and Pages
-Editing a briefing
-Specifying a background in Descent 2
-Getting the Briefings to work
A List of scenes for Descent 1
The Sample Briefings
What's New
The End is here

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License
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   This program is distributed as FREEWARE and is provided as is
without warranty expressed or implied. You may freely distribute
this program but you may NOT sell it or bundle it with any other
software without my prior consent.

   In plain speak. If it doesn't work right, you can't sue me. You
can give copies of the program to people (in fact you're encouraged
to do so), but you can't sell copies to people unless you get my
permission.

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Introduction
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   Before I go any farther, I would like to thank Mike Rosack of
the Action Games forum on CompuServe for helping me with the
briefing codes, and for Beta testing BriefEd (Before it even had a
name too). Wouldn't have found half the bugs without him.

-What is this BriefEd thingy
   BriefEd is a tool for writing and editing briefing files for
Descent 1 and Descent 2. BriefEd allows you to edit and create
briefings without having to know exaclty what all those funny
little codes are.


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Requirements for using briefings and BriefEd
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-Briefings

For Descent 1:
    Requires any version of Descent 1
For Descent 2:
    Requires version 1.2 or higher
Of course a level wouldn't hurt either. :)

-BriefEd

BriefEd requires Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 to run.

BriefEd also requires VBRun300.DLL, and CMDIALOG.VBX. You probably
already have both of these files, but just in case you don't, you
can get them on my Web Page. (Address given at end of Readme file)

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Using BriefEd
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When you start BriefEd you have 3 options
    Start a New Briefing
    Open an existing Briefing
    Exit

-Stuff you should know

   Before you start creating a briefing you should have a little
background. A Descent briefing consists of text and special codes.
The text is what is displayed for your briefing, like "Hi Mom!". The
special codes control how the current page looks, and how the text
is displayed. The special codes control everything from what PCX is
displayed for background (Descent 2 only) to text color.

-Scenes and Pages

   Briefings are broken up into scenes and pages. For Descent 1 and
Descent 2 these have slightly different meanings. 

   In Descent 1 scenes are basically the different bitmapped screens
available to display text on. Each level has at least one scene to
it, and several have more. You must use all available scenes for a
given level or Descent will crash. For Example, there are 5 scenes
for the first level, so you must provide 5 scenes worth of briefing.
   Pages are for displaying more than one screen of text on a scene.
That way you can have a lot of information in a few scenes. 
   In Descent 1 the scene number determines the background PCX
that's displayed. In Descent 2, however, there is a code (Actually
a combination of 2) that specifies which PCX is displayed as a
background. You can use this code more than one time per scene
allowing you to change background for every page if you want. This
eliminates the need for multiple scenes for each level so in Descent
2 scenes now correspond to the level that they are displayed for.
Scene 1 for Level 1, Scene 2 for Level 2... You can also skip scenes
if you want, (1,2,4,7...) The last scene number is used for your
ending. If you have a two level mission, scene three would be your
ending. In Descent 1 endings are a separate briefing.

-Editing a briefing

   Editing of briefings is fairly straight forward. To edit a code,
place the cursor on it and select Edit Code, or just double click
on it. To place a new code, just place the cursor where you want the
new code, and select Insert Code. It's that simple.

-Specifying a background in Descent 2

   Select Insert Code, then Background. A window will come up with a
selection of PCXs to choose from. These will work on anybody's copy
of Descent 2. 
   Now if you want, you can type in the name of a PCX that you will
put in your HOG file, but there is something you need to consider
first. Descent 2 can handle low resolution (320x200) and high
resolution (640x480) modes. In low resolution mode, Descent 2 takes
the name you give it, and loads that file from your HOG. In high
resolution mode though, descent takes the name you give it and adds
a "B" to the end, and then looks for THAT file in your HOG. So if
you type "TEST.PCX" and Descent 2 is in high res mode, Descent 2 will
will actually look for "TESTB.PCX". The solution? Include both
versions of the PCX file.  Make your original image for high res mode,
and save it with the trialing "B", and then have your image editor
resize the image to 320x200 and save that one without the trailing "B".
The other solution is to just include the high resolution PCX files,
and ignore the low resolution PCX files (That's what they did with
the Vertigo Series) though I don't care too much for this solution
anymore.

-Getting the Briefings to work

In Descent 1
 Briefings:

   Add the entry Briefing=[name] to your .MSN file. Where name is
   the name of your briefing minus the extension. EX: Briefing=brief

 Endings: (Just a briefing shown at the end instead of the
 beginning)
   Add the entry Ending=[name] to your .MSN file. Where name is the
   name of your ending minus the extension. EX: Briefing=debrief 

You can also use Hoggle to create the MSN for you.

In Descent 2
  Make sure you have Descent 2 version 1.2 or higher
  Add your TXB file to the HOG, making sure it has the same file
name as your HOG. EX: Tarchan.HOG would have Tarchan.txb. That's it.

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A List of scenes for Descent 1
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These are the scenes available for Descent 1, and the levels to
which they are displayed. I also listed the PCX that descent loads
for that scene. If you would like a different Background, just
include a PCX of the same name in your HOG, and Descent will display
your image rather than it's own.

Briefings:

Level  Sequence  Background Picture
-----------------------------------
 1      1        brief01.pcx 
        2        brief02.pcx
        3        brief03.pcx
        4        brief02.pcx
        5        moon01.pcx
 2      6        moon01.pcx
 3      7        moon01.pcx
 4      8        venus01.pcx
 5      9        venus01.pcx
 6     10        brief03.pcx
       11        merc01.pcx
 7     12        merc01.pcx
 8     13        brief03.pcx
       14        mars01.pcx
 9     15        mars01.pcx
10     16        brief03.pcx
       17        mars01.pcx
11     18        jup01.pcx
12     19        jup01.pcx
13     20        brief03.pcx
       21        jup01.pcx
14     22        jup01.pcx
15     23        saturn01.pcx
16     24        brief03.pcx
       25        saturn01.pcx
17     26        brief03.pcx
       27        saturn01.pcx
18     28        uranus01.pcx
19     29        uranus01.pcx
20     30        uranus01.pcx
21     31        uranus01.pcx
22     32        neptun01.pcx
23     33        neptun01.pcx
24     34        neptun01.pcx
25     35        pluto01.pcx
26     36        pluto01.pcx
27     37        pluto01.pcx

Endings:

Scene  Background Picture
-------------------------
1      End02.PCX
2      End01.pcx
3      End03.pcx

Just in case you think that's a typo, the order is 2,1,3.

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The Sample Briefings
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Brief.txb is a Descent 1 briefing. This is taken from my level
Tethys Experiemental.

Debrief.txb is a Descent 1 ending. It has been taken from the same
level.

Tethys Experimental can be gotten off my web site, or in the Action
Games forum on CompuServe (Tethys.zip). It demonstrates briefings
and endings with custom PCX's. The level has some neat rooms to 
look at too. 

Demo.txb is a Descent 2 briefing put together just for 
demonstrating how a Descent 2 briefing looks and acts.

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What's New
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These are the changes made to Version 1.01

- Save Bug fixed.  Saving your work in the middle of a session would
  cause your briefing to be corrupt.

- New splash screen.  Much nicer than the old text only screen.

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The End is here
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You can get the latest version of BriefEd on my Web Site:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/MicahJon/

While you're there, check out Hoggle if you don't already have it.

If you have any questions, comments, corrections, bug reports, or
suggestions, please E-Mail me at the address given below.

E-Mail address:
MicahJon@Compuserve.com