SABLE

The Goal

Survive as long as you can! Destroy as much as you can!

Running the game (Windows)

Simply execute "sable". The executable must be in the same directory as the "textures" and "models" subdirectories. (This is where it usually is, but make sure your working directories are set properly.)

Compiling and running the game (Linux)

make && make install should work. To edit the installation directories, edit the Makefile.

If you do not have root access, running ./sable from the Sable root directory should work as well.

If you have problems compiling, see the "Compiling" section at the end of this document.

Configuring the game

The game defaults to a 640x480 window, with no gamma correction. To modify these, you may pass in command line arguments:

sable -r 1024x768 -f -g 1.2

This sets the resolution to 1024x768 (-r 1024x768), fullscreen (-f), with a gamma correction of 1.2 (-g 1.2). All arguments are optional.

Controls

In game:

Arrow keys (or numeric keypad): Move
Space, Enter, Shift, Alt, or Control: Fire (hold down for autofire)

R:       Toggle Pylon Radar
P:       Pause

In menus:

Arrow keys (or numeric keypad): Move
Enter: Select

Joysticks will be automatically set up if present.

Compiling

The following libraries are required:

SDL 1.2 (tested on 1.2.6)
http://www.libsdl.org/

SDL_image 1.2 (tested on 1.2.3)
http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/

SDL_mixer 1.2 (tested on 1.2.5)
http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/

OpenGL 1.2
http://www.opengl.org/

Later versions of these libraries should all work as well.

The supplied Makefile should work fine under Linux and OS X. Under BSD, you may need to change the name of the "sdl-config" utility.

Credits

Michael C. Martin: Design, programming, 3D modeling

James Lawless:     3D Modeling
Chris Page:        Dev-C++ build system
Dan Uznanski:      Macintosh build system

David Cuthbert: Additional Bugfixes

Sound effects were downloaded from a1freesoundeffects.com.

Customizing the content

Much of Sable's content is replacable or customizable.

Text and buttons are represented as PNG files in the textures/ directory. Redefining these is straightforward -- though be aware that Sable interprets these as 8x8 blocks of 8x8 pixels.

Sound effects are stored as .WAV files in the sfx/ directory. Relevant files are:

pl_fire.wav:Player weapons sound effect expl_s.wav:Small explosion (shot hitting a pylon) expl_m.wav:Medium explosion (enemy exploding) expl_l.wav:Large explosion (player or pylon exploding)

Sable doesn't have a soundtrack, but it's capable of playing one if you provide .MOD, .XM, or .IT files in the music/ directory. These files would be named:

   menu.mod:Main      menu theme
   game.mod:Gameplay      theme

gameover.mod:Game over tune

SDL_mixer autodetects a file's actual type, so even if a song is not a .mod file, it should still play right when renamed.

The models are represented in a stripped-down version of the SVAF format. Details of the spec are at http://svaf.sf.net/. Sable 1.0's SVAF renderer only understands PNTS, NRML, MTRL, and the geometry chunks.