Instant Action map making

[GSH]

IA has the enemy (AI-controlled) team on team 5. Versions 1.0 - latest (1.3.6.2)

MPI has the enemy (AI-controlled) team on team 6. Versions 1.2 - latest (1.3.6.2)

Teams over 5/6 can be used if desired, but would almost certainly require DLL support.

-- GSH

[Ded10c]

ssuser, if you have a custom map file directly under addon iy detects that as an SP map and if it has assets in/on it that are not in the search list when using the tock cfg , it may notice. not 100% sure, but easy enough to experiment with it.

Not sure what you mean, but if you try to load a map with non-existent objects in it, you'll crash.

[ssuser]

Got a few more questions:

First, on the map I have just made, when the recycler deploys, it appears high in the air before it morphs into a building on the ground. When I built this map I depressed the terrain to negative values for the ground level, it is the only thing I can think of that would cause this effect, so is depressing the terrain a no-no? (Scavs deploying did not do this, however.)

Having used all the pathpoints Red Devil listed, I find ALL units are spawning - I get 3 tanks, 3 scouts, 3 turrets, a scav, and recy - a small army, and they all spawn regardless of difficulty setting or units force setting under instant action options. Can I tweak this somehow, or should I just leave any unit pathpoints out of a map I don't want?

On the plus side, bz2 no longer complains about missing points, though it does ask for a gtow1 and wants hold1 thru hold4 to be not capitalized.

Finally, is there a tutorial somewhere for manipulating the SKY settings and the TRN file? I guess the sky must be tweaked mainly thru the console, if you want to add sprites and such. The only ref I have seen was to a tut on bzuniverse, but we all know where that went. Current editor has some default settings you can import, but this is limited, I would like to try adding in some new planetary bodies, if nothing else. BTW, can you direct copy a sky file from another map and use it, or would this cause problems?

Another lesson I can impart to budding mapmakers - tweak your sky first, BEFORE you detail color your terrain. Grrrrrr.

[Ded10c]

I know terrain below 0 is not the best idea, but I'm not sure if that's why.

As for tutorials, try http://zeroangel.overminddl1.com/featur ... /index.php

[General BlackDragon]

Yea, don't make the ground below 0. Build up from there. Winter can rise the map up from where it was. and there's a commandline to rise everything on the map by X amount.

[Mortarion]

Yes, a SKY file can be copied from one map to another as long as the filename of the .skymatches the filename of the .bzn

eg COOLSKY.SKY will not work with COOLMAP.BZN

why do the sky before terrain? because of sun (ambient)color? IIRC there are colours you can use for suns that will only slightly change the colour of your terrain if it changes it at all, but this is probably specific to the colours you're using.

if you get winter and L3DT you can colour entire maps with shadows (painted on to avoid having to turn up lighting settings), terrain details like the darkening of sheer cliff faces, etc with the press of a few buttons. I think this is how Greenheart coloured all of his maps, though i have never spoken to him about any of them, results from experimentation with the two programs leads me to believe he used the same technique that ive utilised with a few maps ive made, released and unreleased.

[General BlackDragon]

L3DT is awesome

[Red Spot]

Finally, is there a tutorial somewhere for manipulating the SKY settings and the TRN file? I guess the sky must be tweaked mainly thru the console, if you want to add sprites and such. The only ref I have seen was to a tut on bzuniverse, but we all know where that went. Current editor has some default settings you can import, but this is limited, I would like to try adding in some new planetary bodies, if nothing else. BTW, can you direct copy a sky file from another map and use it, or would this cause problems?

Another lesson I can impart to budding mapmakers - tweak your sky first, BEFORE you detail color your terrain. Grrrrrr.

You can also edit a lot of stuff through the .inf file, most maps dont do so though. If you take a good look at the different .inf's you'll see what I mean.
Using that method you can make a sky, remove it and apply it again. Saving your map under a different name allows the same though, as you can always copy the sky from one version to an other version by renaming it.

[ssuser]

Ok, some of this helps, I did look at the zeroangel tutorials before, but missed the tips section, I see there is some console info there about adding sprites, this may help, though I did not see a specific command about how to locate them where you want in the sky. Also, there is only a blurb in the TRN tutorial about how TRN files can be very complex, well, no s*#!, how about some more info then?

From looking at some maps, I see there seems to be some sky and environment info in their TRN files, but in that case, why the SKY data too? For example, on one of my test maps I looked at isdf09 "Rumble in the Jungle" and that seem to have specs on rainfall and such in the TRN. I wanted the mire storm sky, so imported that from the editor, and added rain via the editor as well. This all saved successfully, but my test map TRN file was not updated at all, just the SKY file.

I guess I am going to have to dissect some more IA maps to see what I can figure out, I am interested also in how the greenheart maps spawn those vicious assault towers and such, the first time I ran into one of those was... a revelation. Those Mega Statues are a bit over the top, IMHO. Maybe I should add ibmega2 to my constructor, I'll never have to worry about base defense again.

On a more serious note, is there a method to limit the armory to launch only a specified number of a certain powerup? For example, the satchel charge works this way for the pilot, IIRC the odf variable that controls this is localAmmo. If you use a weapon configured like this in a tank you can't dispense more than one from said tank, either. The reason I ask is that I am playing around with some Armory launched bombs a la BZ1, and I would like to limit the number that can be launched per game. The bomb I am working with is called a Daisy Cutter, and does some limited damage over 300 meters, it does only a small fraction of the damage the wrecker from the bomber does, but over a much wider area. I would like to limit these to a limit of 2 per game, they are meant to be a softener before the main attack on a very hardened base. As they are now you can launch as many as you want, which makes the game way too easy once you control enough pools, even at 100 scrap per bomb.

[Red Devil]

i believe that the trn file is only used for initial map creation and the [dll] section can be added and read by the dll during map launch. haven't really played with it that much other than that.

there is an odf way to limit the existence of units that are in the world at any one time, but to limit the total built for the game would probably have to be done via dll.

and, yes, those megas are a bit much..

[General BlackDragon]

You would need DLL to limit the total number of launchable one's per game.