Aqua IV 0.11
Documentation Editor Engine API
Documentation /Editor / Getting started

Export and share

While you work, a map is a folder in Documents\W4 Maps: map.toml, the terrain, the objects, assets/ with your models, scripts/, shaders/, activity.log. To give it to someone, make one file of it.

Export

Export in the top bar writes <map>.a4m: one encrypted file with everything inside, terrain, objects, script, imports, shaders. The engine plays it directly; nothing has to be unpacked. Send the file, drop it in a shared folder, keep it as a backup.

The engine zip from the downloads is all a player needs: w4-engine.exe, then Play a map, Browse, choose the file. Or drop the .a4m onto the engine window. Or run it from a command line:

w4-engine "C:\maps\First steps.w4m"

Open an exported map in the editor

The welcome screen's Open takes a map folder or a .a4m file. The editor works on the folder form; an exported file is read in place. To keep editing a map you only have as .a4m, open it and the editor unpacks it beside the file.

Versions and old maps

Every map records the format it was saved with and the version of the editor that saved it, in map.toml:

[w4]
format = 2
editor = "0.11"

When a newer W4 opens an older map, it migrates it one step per format, saves it in the current format at once and tells you in a toast; the Activity panel lists what was filled in. The engine migrates in memory when a game starts and never writes the file. A map saved by a newer W4 than yours is refused with the version that made it, so nothing is silently damaged.

w4-engine --info "First steps.w4m"

prints the map's format and the editor that saved it.

Never lose work

  • The editor saves by itself, and a crash or a power cut never leaves a half-written file (how).
  • A crash still writes the unsaved changes, and the next start says so.
  • Every change is in History and can be jumped back to; every notice is in Activity and in the map's activity.log.
  • Keep a copy of the folder or the .a4m for good measure. Local versions of a map (checkpoints you can restore) are prepared in the map format and come to the editor later.