Connecting your game
The first time you open the studio, it asks where the game is. This is done once, and takes a minute or two.
Find your game
The studio looks for the game by itself: in Windows' list of installed programs, in GOG's and Steam's own records, and in the usual folders. If it finds it, the folder is already filled in. If not:
- Browse... opens a folder picker (in the desktop app). Choose the folder that has
IGI.exein it. - Or type the folder, for example
C:\Program Files (x86)\Project IGI. - Look again searches once more, if you have just installed the game.
Press Use this folder. The studio checks that it is really the game before it goes on.
Which copy of the game?
Use the copy you play. The studio writes your missions into it, so that is where you will find them. It never writes anything into the fourteen original missions of that copy.
What happens next
Two things are made, and the screen shows each step as it goes.
1. A reference copy of the levels. Before it writes a single byte into your game, the studio copies the parts of the levels that missions are built from into its own folder, then checks every copied file against the one it came from. It is about 160 MB. Every mission you ever build starts from this copy, so a mission you make next year starts from the same level as one you make today, and nothing that happens to the game folder later can change that.
2. The level data. The studio reads each level to draw it on its map: the objects, the walkways the guards use, every model's size and name, the height of the ground on a one metre grid, what the ground is made of, the buildings seen from above, and the missions' names and covers. The ground heights take the longest.
Nothing is written to your game while this runs. It only reads.
Connected
When it is done, the screen says which build of the game you have. The studio works with any build: it builds your missions from your own copy, whatever it is. Press Open the studio to go to the mission library.
Missions the game already has
If the game already carries missions made with the studio (from another computer, or from before you reinstalled), the screen lists them. Each mission the studio puts into the game carries a complete copy of itself, so Bring them back restores them, plan and all.
A mission that is already in the studio is never overwritten by the copy in the game.
Changing the game folder later
Open Settings (top right), Game. Type the folder, or Browse… to it: the studio checks it as you go (IGI.exe, the fourteen missions, which build it is). Connect this game then does for that copy what the first run did: a reference copy of its levels, and its level data, before anything is written into it.
Your missions stay yours when you switch. Each one shows as in the game only in the copy of the game it was applied to; applied to the new one, it gets a slot there of its own. Checks and setup takes the reference copy again, builds the level data again, or checks that the original missions are still as the game shipped them. See Your data for what each of these does.
Next: make your first mission.