Playing Online
First of all
The very first thing you should do is READ THE RULES!!!
How to play online
Playing online works exactly like playing offline, except that you can see other players, up- or download levels and replays, and see various stats while playing. In order to use the online features, there are a lot of new keys for you to configure.
When you first time enter the game, there might be a battle running. Simply download the level, go to the external levels through the menu and find the level, that is being played.
Default key mapping for Belma
F1 = Show/hide other players F2 = Observe next player F3 = Observe previous player F4 = Download current battle level F5 = Show/Hide players online list F6 = Show/Hide battle standings/results F7 = Show all finished times since key was pressed F8 = Clear finished times list F9 = Write a chat line - The layout is US, get used to it F10 = Hide yourself - Won't work in a lev which is being battled F11 = Upload / Download winning replay of battle F12 = Reconnect to the server
Additional commands which don't have default mapping in Belma are:
- Show/hide chat
- Show/hide battle status line
- Show/hide battle leader in battle status line
Default key mapping in Elma Online
Elma Online uses two option keys to fit all keys to F-keys by default. You can set the option keys to left or right SHIFT, left or right CTRL, or ALT.
Preliminary key mapping:
F1 = Show/Hide others
OPT1 + F1 = Show/Hide yourself from others
F2 = Observe next player (When chatting, write PM to next player in list)
OPT1 + F2 = Observe previous player (When chatting, write PM to previous player in list)
OPT2 + F2 = Cancel observing
F3 = Show battle queue
F4 = Download battle level
OPT1 + F4 = Download cup level
OPT2 + F4 = Download any level (type level filename without the .lev extension)
F5 = Show players online
OPT1 + F5 = Show best times
OPT2 + F5 = Show best multi times
F6 = Show battle standings/results
OPT1 + F6 = Show cup standings/results
OPT2 + F6 = Show 24h tt standings/results
F7 = Show finished times
OPT1 + F7 = Show finished multi times
OPT2 + F7 = Clear finished times
F8 = Send/Accept multiplayer invitation
OPT1 + F8 = Cancel multiplayer invitation
OPT2 + F8 = Change active cup
F9 = Type chat line
OPT1 + F9 = Show/Hide chat
OPT2 + F9 = Show/Hide last apple time
F10 = Show/Hide battle/cup status line
OPT1 + F10 = Show/Hide leader and your position
OPT2 + F10 = Show/Hide speedometer
F11 = Download winning replay of last battle
OPT1 + F11 = Download winning replay of last cup
OPT2 + F11 = Show/hide onewheel status
F12 = (Re)connect to server
OPT1 + F12 = Disconnect from server
OPT2 + F12 = Refresh palette
How to make your own shirt (BMP)
If you acquired Belma from zworqy's elma site, you should have a BMP.zip among the other files. This is the shirt collection of most of the users in Belma. Extract it in the bmp folder and you will recognize other players better. Since it is not updated regularly, you must manually download the latest ones.
The following is a walkthrough for beginners on how to make a shirt picture, if you know what you are doing you can of course do it any way you want.
- Open Microsoft Paint
- Open a BMP
- Either: Load an existing working BMP (that already has the right colors in the game, e.g. milagros.bmp)
- Or: Create a new one with the dimensions 149 x 101 pixels
- Rotate 90° counter-clockwise, if you want it to be easier to see what the shirt will look like in the game
- Make the background
- Note that all pixels with the same color as the top left corner pixel will be transparent
- It may be any shape, no need to use the usual shape of the shirt
- Put something unique on it: letter, image, logo, etc
- Customize
- It is useful to use advanced programs like Adobe Photoshop for better results
- You can also use special fonts from pages like dafont.com
- Rotate 90° clockwise if you rotated it before
- Correct your BMP
- If you created or edited your shirt with another program, you might have wrong palette. Then, follow these steps:
- Copy your BMP
- Open working BMP
- Paste there
- There are mainly two different LGRs used as the default one (the original default.lgr and highq.lgr) and it's a good idea to have a look at the shirt with both LGRs as they have a different color palette.
- Save as type "256 Color Bitmap (*.bmp,*.dib)"
- Use the exact same name as on Elma Online (case sensitive, no accents or special symbols)
- Publish on Upload Page
- Advertise to everybody on Elma Online, on forums, #ballelma (mIRC) and anywhere else you want
- Shirts are not yet uploaded and distributed automatically in the game. If you edit one and nobody has this version, it will not be seen by other players.