Well, I'm going to give my first mod a try, and already have a few questions for you guys.

I've picked my map, and I've got my storyline ready to go (although I didn't write it in the Briefing yet), and I know my objectives... I've played around with adding Companies/Platoons/Teams/Actors and vehicles, and got stuff to happen (jeep charges at my insertion point), and I've picked a new insertion zone, and I'm getting the hang of everything...

Except, I of course want to go well beyond my limits, even on my very first mission. So, I'm working on the opening cinematic. Is this hard? I'm looking at "Plantation" mission from IT, getting ideas from that one, but haven't actually tried it yet. "Sounds easy", but I'll ask how hard it is anyways.

Second question: Based on what I've seen for opening cinematics from "Plantation", couldn't I also add a cinematic in the middle of my mission (I noticed settings that seemed to suspend the game...)?? Not sure what my thought process is there, but an idea that came to me while sleeping last night...

Third question: Around those same lines, couldn't I also add an extraction cinematic sequence when all's said and done? Give "closure" to the mission? Is this the same thing that happens after the last mission in each campaign?

Fourth: Again, looking at "Plantation" cinematics script, it appears you pick a gamemode with which to show the movie (Single Player). Can I choose two modes? I'd like it to show on Single Player, and at the beginning of Multi-player Co-Op... do I just enter two script lines, one for each game type?

Fifth: Enough of the cinematics... how do "zones" work? Do I create a "spawn zone" for enemy troops, and if so, is that better than just placing them directly on the map? Or do I still have to place them directly on the map? Can I overlay several teams on the same location, just have them come out at separate times? I'm picturing the player's platoon reaching an area, and then being ambushed. I wanted waves and waves (and waves) of enemies to come after them, similar to a "Defend" game... do I have to put all those freakin' actors on the map, or would having a "enemy spawn zone" help?

Sixth: To get started... I loaded the template for my map, but do I need all that stuff that comes with it? I noticed there are already a lot of zones, and sounds, and other things... are these helpful to have?? Or should I (first thing) delete the stuff I don't think I need, and bring the map down to the basics that I do want in there (some of the ambient sound stuff). Any ideas?

Seventh: What's the limitation on "action" in the game? While fooling around on "Caves" map, I added four teams of five enemy actors, three humvees, and two blackhawks, all within a four-square block... turned "Superman" on, and when I approached, my normally-awesome machine slowed to a near stand-still, while all the enemies opened fire (in vain), and it was like molasses taking aim and firing off some shots. Obviously this would be bad... but then I've seen games (like Defend) where wave after wave of enemies are charing your spot, and I didn't see lag in those games... was it the distance? Was it the extra vehicles? Was it something else?


That should be a great way to get me started!! Thanks to anyone who answers, and I hope my long post doesn't put anyone off from helping me...

Thanks!

ffs... When you said to me you'd left a "long" post in here, I didn't realise you meant quite this long!! Lol...

Okay, here goes...

1 - Yes, adding a cinematic is relatively easy. The IT campaign (IMHO) way over-complicates things, and you can do it more simply than they have. Have you got my sample mission pack? Coz I've got a few missions with a more simplified way of showing an intro movie. Basically, make the player platoon invincible (so they don't accidentally get killed while you're watching a film!) and start the cinematic mode. (Do all this in the startup scriptblock). Then, every x seconds (you choose) just move the camera position and target. The easiest way to set the camera position and target is by using effects, just as IT did. When you've finished, make the player platoon vulnerable again, end cinematic mode, and return the camera to the default viewpoint. The problem comes when you want to skip the intro movie. The way I do it is to set a fade to black response at the end of the cinematic, and only end the cinematic (using the steps outlined above) after the fade to black (use a new scriptblock with a fade to black trigger). Use another scriptblock that activates a fade to black if the player skips the intro. In this way, both trigger the end cinematic response. Then there's only one more problem - if you change you camera point every 5 seconds (say) and, for arguments sake, you skipped the movie two seconds in, when the next trigger fired (five seconds in) to move the camera, it still would. Which would then lkeave the camera in the wrong position. So, to get around this, you need to set the cinematic script blocks to be a separate group of script blocks. At the start of the intro, enable the cinematic group, and at the end of it (or when the player skips it) disable the cinematic scripts. I know it sounds complicated, but once you've tried it for yourself, you'll see that, really, it's not that bad. Look at my missions if you want to see the easier way of doing it.

2 - Yes you could. But it might interrupt the flow of the mission, so think about it carefully. In some circumstances it might be good though. To do it, just follow the same procedure as the intro movie outlined above.

3 - Yes, you could. And some of them already have extract movies (such as the beach resort mission in IT). What you need to realise is that "movie-mode" is just that - a mode for showing cinematics. It's not just for intros...

4 - You don't have to pick a gamemode if you don't want. If you don't set one, any mode that uses the mission scripting (SP mission and MP co-op) will show the intro. But there's a reason why IT chose to only show it in SP. If someone in MP skips the intro, but others don't (or, they do skip it, but at a different time), the system doesn't know what to show to who, because the game should be suspended while the intro movie's on... To get around this problem, Red Storm disabled the movies in MP. I didn't know that either until the missions I have out were played co-op by some guys and they told me about the problems they were having with it!

5 - For missions, place the actors on the map manually. I know it's a pain, but it really is the best way. The zones (spawn points etc) are for MP use and dictate things like where to spawn in head-to-head play, where the enemies appear in Firefight gametypes etc. If you place them in this manner however, you won't know what actor/team/platoon etc names they'll have,, which means you can't control them in the scripting. So place them manually.

6 - See my reply to you PT for this one. Basically, no, you don't need them. They're for MP play, as well as the other SP gametypes (Recon/Firefight/Defend etc). If you only want to be able to play the map in mission mode, you don't need them as such. You will need an insertion zone somewhere though. And personally, I'd keep the sounds as well - they add atmosphere to the mission.

7 - There are very few outright "limits" in the game - or rather, not that you'll come across often (eg max of 256 actors on a mission, so I'm told - I've never tried to place that many!). The only real one you're likely to see is the limit on 6 actors to a team. As far as the slowdown goes, it all depends on what's happening on the map. The more actors & vehicles you have in sight, the harder your system has to work to control them all effectively. If they're shooting, that makes things tougher still. The amount you can get away with before you have to worry about slowdown really does depend on your system specs (graphics card, RAM etc) and what game settings you have selected (eg resolution, how much detail is on etc - shadows are a big killer). If you start gettig slowdow, either loweryour settings, or remove some guys from the mission. I had to do that once with one of mine. You should also take into account the likely sysem specs of anyone else who might place your mod. If it's just for you, and you have a great system, then work it hard. But if you're going to give it to someone who's PC only just meets the min specs for GR, remember that you're going to have to go easier on some things to avoid it becoming unplayable for them.

I hope that covers everything there, but feel to ask some "follow-ups" if you're still not quite sure about any of it...

Ok, cinematics first...

I have your Castle Siege, and looked at your cinematics for that, and "copied" your "Skip Cinematic" sequence, and I even made sure it works in your mission, but it doesn't work in mine. Not sure why...

I am also trying to "film" an insertion by a Black Hawk, and this thing is darn near impossible to figure out. It doesn't seem to want to follow the path, or I'm using "Path" wrong... I can make it go up or down, but can't seem to make it go where I want to...

I've outlined a path, yet it wants to go it's own random way (and usually out of camera shot...)

Any ideas?


EDIT:
Amazing what "enabling" the Skip Cinematic script group can do for you!

However, still haven't figured out the Black Hawk movement thing... any help there will still be appreciated!



[This message was edited by crtChunk72 on Sat May 08 2004 at 09:00 PM.]

[This message was edited by crtChunk72 on Sat May 08 2004 at 09:11 PM.]

So now that you've enabled the scriptblocks, have you got the intro movie thing sorted then?

The Blackhawks are a bit of a pain to get working properly. The timing for the camera switching will have to be done pretty much by trial and error til you get it looking how you want it to, but the Blackhawk itself is awkward too. Rather than set one long path, with multiple points on it (as you would for a ground vehicle or a team of actors), set multiple paths, with just the first point on them (ie create lots of "points" rather than one long path). This is what was done in IT for the Blackhawk movement. Try not to make the turns too tight, or it'll veer of course. And once it loses where it's going, it'll fly off wherever it feels like!!

It's still a bit of a pain, to be honest - which is why I normally can't be bothered messing aorund with it! But with lots of messing aorund like that, you can get them to fly in on a reasonably straight path, land and unload the platoon, and then take off and fly away again...

Yea, "Skip Cinematics" has been taken care of, with the enabling of the script... Thing that threw me off is I have a DisplayMessage script that fires off after 40 seconds and I didn't have to enable that one, it just worked... but, enabling the "skip" made it work.

Blackhawk: So, I'm using Embassy map... can I plot "straight" points and would it go straight, or would it want to "turn" to go around buildings?? Does it depend on the height? And yes, that "veering off course" and "fly whereever it feels like" has already shown itself...

I've been playing with two blackhawks (just the get the hang of them... my theory was "smash as many in as I can, figure out how to use them, then remove them and "do it for real"). One was flying a circular pattern (One Path drawn in Square, set to Loop) and it worked at first, but then I added a "DestroyVehicle" before the path and it started flying it's own course (wherever it wanted to go). Got rid of the "Destroy Vehicle", and it still won't fly my path. I'll try to break it up into four single-point paths... and maybe make them a little wider apart, to avoid the tight turn situation...

The other blackhawk (my insertion one) was starting at the original spawn for the map (lower center) and I was trying to get it to fly to the Embassy building, and deposit my troops on the roof. Very difficult going, so far... it would fly up the first street, towards the bank, and then veer off left instead of right, and then wander around aimlessly, and never drop my troops off at insertion... without my "skip" cinematic script working, this cause quite a problem at the start of my mission!!! Now that the "skip" works, I can at least watch the chopper veer left instead of right, and skip the rest...

So, my "insertion" path starts at original spawn for that map, goes up the street, turns right, turns left (now heading to the right of the bank), continues straight "over" the underground garage, and straight to the rooftop of the embassy. I've tried it as several "one-point" paths and I've tried it as a single "several-point" path, and the chopper keeps wanting to veer left instead of right on my first turn...

Can I have this more of a straight line, going "over" the building, eliminating the turns, and make this work? Or do you have any better ideas? (By now you're thinking: "Umm, try a Humvee insertion instead!!" aren't you... )

Thanks, man!

Lol... Insertion by a M35 would certianly be easier! You can fly choppers over buildings - providing you set the altitude to be high enough (otherwise you wouldn't be able to land the heli on the embassy roof, would ya?!?) So by all means try that too. I've tended to find that, once the chopper starts veering around the place, it's normally easier to get rid of it and then start again rather than trying to remove whatever I did to mess it all up! Like I said, they're a pain in the *EDIT*...

The reason you didn't have to enable the other ones is because they were probably in the Default group of script blocks - which are always active. Mostly, it's only the default group you need - and I've even seen some Igor guides tell you you don't need any others ever - but sometimes it's good to be able to set up other blocks that are only active in certain situations. But any group other than the default group you have to enable manually.

Glad you're getting there though...

I'm giving up on the freakin' Black Hawk Insertion... it just wants to go in it's own direction...

So, I'll instead try to play up "why we're there" with some cinematic effects, and then quickly cut to the Black Hawk already on the rooftop, deploying the troops, and taking off... a quick cut scene is the best I can do...

I have another question for cinematics, although I think this is an easy one: Room. What the heck is it? Does it matter what it's set to? And, also, how come I can put the Effect Camera in the middle of the street, yet my little yellow circle on the 3D view puts it inside a building? And, how come sometimes my views are all messed up (maybe I'm looking through a wall?? not sure...) It gets all "yellow" and I can see the shadows of the enemies approaching, but not the enemies themselves.

I promise, I'm almost done with the stupid cinematics part... then I can get back to asking cool mission scripting stuff!

"Room"?? I don't know what you mean... Where are you seeing it? You're not thinking on the effects are you? That you use to set the camera locations and targets? Coz there's something there (I can't remember exactly what, but when you see it, it's obvious) that allows you to say that the effect is inside rather than outside.

I'm guessing the yellow spot appearing to be in a building when you've placed the camera in a street happens when the building is to the south of the street? Bear in mind that the building is tall, and so overshadows the street, so the camera appears to be inside the building when in fact it's actually behind the building on the road. Is that what's happening? Is it working properly in the game when you view the cinematic?

I've no idea why your cinematic would appear "yellow" and "messed up". It is possible that you've positioned the camera so that it's trying to look through a wall or something, and that might mess things up a bit. The part about the enemy shadows but not their figures... Have you made the enemies invisible for the intro movie? Coz if so, it's sometimes a glitch that can happen. The actual actors are always present in the game, and the game will model them as such. Then, before any AI for them is calculated, the actor/vehicle models are made invisible. But sometimes it leaves the shadows behind. I've had that before, when I had a load of enemy reinforcements ready to arrive. I had them positioned on the edge of the map, but hidden, during the mission, and then they appeared at the end. It all worked fine, except that, when you went to that part of the map during the game, you could see shadows of guys floating in the air coz I had four guys sat in the back of a truck!

Or the other thing that can happen as a game glitch is that, at long distances in foggy conditions, the shadows are visible before the figures are... Which means you can really pi$$ people off by shooting them before they're even in visible range, just by aiming slightly above the shadow you can see. You get called a cheat for doing that though...

It's none of those...

When I place an Effect, there's a drop-down box title "Room" that has in it Room 101, Room 102, Room 200, Room 201, etc. It appears when I move the "Camera" around, this changes without me changing it. I was wondering what that was...

I know about the building/yellow spot... let me describe it better. Looking on the 2D map, I place the "Camera" directly in the middle of an East/West road (with buildings on either side) and then I look at the yellow circle on the 3D map, and it's past the sidewalk and inside the building (can't remember if it was "North" or "South" of where I was expecting it to be...) Is this a bad representation of "height"? Trying to plot a 3D space on a 3D map that's actually 2D?

And when you say what's happening during the cinematic, that's the one where I'm getting "weirded" out... the whole screen is yellow... I play with the camera and the target, and eventually I can see what I was expecting to see (down the street, with two guards walking towards me). Move the camera closer (because those guards look so far away!) and it all goes back to yellow screen (with shadows appearing, but no guards... similar to that effect you spoke of where you're looking off in the distance and can see shadow but no avatar). So I put the camera back, and I can see again, but... it's not where I want it!!

Okay, I think I may have it this time... Is the camera set up in the air? Ie, have you set the height to be fairly high up?

If so, then yellow dot that marks the location is "raised up" on the 3d view to show the elevation - which may make it appear to be in a building behind it. I might then also be that your yellow effect that you're getting is due to interference with the sky? If you've set the camera so high that it gets into the skybox or something maybe?

The rooms, I'm not quite what you're on about. It sounds like the box where you set what room the effect is in (think of a two-storey building - place a camera in a location there, and do you mean the room on the first floor, or the ground floor?)... But that shouldn't be happening on a camera that's set outside...?

I'll see if I can get you a screen print of the room thing, and if so, I'll email it to you...

I'm wondering if you're right about the "sky interference"... that might make sense...

I'm assuming when you place a camera, does the "supposed" height on the map play in as well? If I put a camera at 10 meters near the park (in Embassy) where the chopper went down, and I place the target at 10 meters near the "hotel" east of the park, are they at the same height?? Or is the target "lower" than the camera because of the slight decline down the road running west-to-east?

Or, as another example (but perhaps clearer), if I put a camera in the courtyard of the Embassy at 20 meters, then go "up a level" on the map so I can place the target on the Embassy roof, at 20 meters, are the camera and the target at the same height, or is the target 20 meters plus the height of the Embassy? If I'm this confused, then it's quite possible I'm getting "sky contamination" effects on my cameras...

"Sky contamination"... Lol... "Help, there's too much air up here!"

I believe (although admittedly I've never tried it to be sure) that the camera heights are set above the position where you place them. So, in your example above, the camera on the emabssy roof would be above the one in the "courtyard" by the height of the embassy building. I think the "Height" box refers to the altitude above the point where the effect was placed. Otherwise, there'd have to be some sort of reference datum level on every map so that, wherever you placed a camera, 20m height would always be 20m. As far as I know, there isn't one.

But like I say, I've never actually tested it to be sure - I've never had the problems you're having with it. If you can't get it fixed, I'd be happy to take a look at it if you want to email me the Igor file...

Every map has a "scenecenter" when made in 3dmax, and all geometry and dynamic objects (trees, doors, windows, etc., are placed on the map in reference to the scenecenter. Thia applies to vertical as well as horizontal positioning. I believe that also acts as the reference datum for Igor, but I'm not positive.

I can try the camera positioning like I mentioned on the Embassy and report my findings back here...

I'm back!!

I placed a camera on top of the embassy, and to make it look "right" I had to set the Height to 1 Meter, so I'm guessing the second level indeed "resets" the height.

Anyways, I swapped my Camera B and Position B and now I'm getting something (for the soldiers walking up the street) as opposed to "sand brown everywhere". I monkeyed with the heights, positioning, etc... couldn't make it work. So, I just swapped them (now the camera looks up towards the crashed chopper instead of down away from it...)

Oh well... onwards... I started scripting some surprise reinforcements popping up when you approach certain zones... having fun...

Just didn't want you guys to think I wasn't trying...

Trust us mate, we know you're very trying! Lmao j/k

I'm glad you've proved Cob wrong - might stop him drooling for a little while and make him leave scripting-related stuff to us Igor-monkeys...!

Just a quick thing to remember when reinforcements arrive: make it happen from a map edge - ideally along a road "from out of area" if you see what I mean. I've played some mods where, halfway through the mission, a load of enemy reinforcements appear all around you coz you've done something to trigger it. I'm all for making it hard (as you may have noticed from some of the missions I've written!), but it should also be fair. And realistic - which is the key thing to GR anyway...

Well, again, not sure how familiar you are with Embassy, but at the park (with the downed chopper), I've tried spawning punks to the South West (there's a little road there) and let them come "charging around the corner".

Problem is, sometimes they don't charge "around" the corner, but instead "glitch" and stay behind the corner, but their bullets are still going through buildings (and therefore taking down my crew!). I'm not allowed to go back there and ferret them out, because that part is off-limits.

So, now I'm doing like the original mission did. When you enter the park (actually my zone is smaller, for testing purposes) I instantly "teleport" and "make visible" and "Platoon AI On" two teams of five soldiers, and bring a truck around the corner. Since my zone is in front of this road, I see them "pop" into existence, but I figure if I move the zone (once testing is over) out of view of the road, it will look much better (in the final "product").

With them teleporting to the same place as the original mission, they have much less tendency to run behind the corner (where I can't get them) and pick off my mates from behind there.

Which reminds me, I actually do have another question: I've added the two POW boys and the Pilot and WO from GR-02 from the other missions into my map... and when my reticle pops over them (with IFF on) it says "POW" or "Pilot"... can I change these? In my mission, the pilot and WO will be fine, but POW is a bit misleading...

Thanks!!

The reinforcements idea sounds good - it should work well. It's something to think about when you're scripting them turning up, that's all.

The actor names in IFF can be changed, yes. Open the actors in the Actor Editor in Igor. Change their name to whatever you want to appear on IFF when you put the ret over them. Save the file under a different name so that you don't overwrite any original game files. Hey presto, you've created a whole new actor.

Easy innit? Then, just place your new actor on the map in Igor as normal. If he doesn't appear in the actor list on the bottom right pane in Igor with all the rest of the actors, make sure your mod is active in Igor (open Igor with no maps open and then choose "Mods..." from the file menu). If it is, close and refresh the active mods bit, and it should update Igor's list of available actors to include your new additions.

You can also alter some other actor stuff in that editor, such as their class (rifleman, demo, sniper, support), their stats (weapon skill, stealth, endurance, leadership) and also what texture files to use.

Hope that helps.

Off-topic, but I have to say that I'm seeing clear signs of apocalypse in this thread. Gav made a nearly 1000 word post. I copy/pasted that to OpenOffice and checked the statistics. It showed 994 words. Run for your lives, folks.

Back on topic. Not much to say, except that good luck with the mission, Chunk. Hopefully you won't give up halfway.

994?? Which post was that? Tell me, and I'll go back and edit it to get it through the 1k barrier...