'Map In A Box' - let me know what you think

(Ifurita) #1

Let me know what you think of this concept. For sure, there can be further refinement of ‘stuff’’ but thought I’d get everyone’s input on the working concept first.

First, here’s the file: http://www.fileplanet.com/dl.aspx?/planetwolfenstein/4newbies/Map_In_A_Box.zip

What I basically tried to package up is everything a newb mapper needs to add to his/her brushwork masterpiece to make it a playable map. I collected a bunch of commonly used entities (command post, forward spawn, constructibles, destructible objectives, constructible MGs), added a script_multiplayer, and wrote the game script.

Assuming a new mapper has a collection of buildings and terrain, all they have to do is load the prefab, reposition the entities, compile, rename the .script file, and play.

Here are the contents of the README:

Map In A Box
Author: Ifurita

Source Materials:

  • Neutral Command Post prefab + script, Seven_DC
  • Forward Spawn: Adapted from prefab by Drakir; script adapted from Railgun
  • MG positions: Adapted from prefab by Deathstick

Overview:

This is meant for new mappers who have gotten started building ‘things’ in Radiant, but don’t know what their next steps should be or how to take them. The entities are built so that the Allies are defending 2 doors, which the axis must blow up. ‘Map In A Box’ contains the following:

1 script_multiplayer
2 Func_destructibles (allied doors, which the axis must blow up)
2 Constructible walls (one allied, one axis)
2 Constructible MG positions (one allied, one axis)
1 Neutral command post
1 Forward flag with 2 spawnpoints for each side
2 Team_Wolf_Objectives with 2 spawnpoints a piece to serve as starting spawns

Instructions:

  1. Extract contents of zip file into /etmain
  2. Load your map
  3. Click Main Menu:Edit:Load Prefab and select mapinabox.map; click Open
  4. Ensure you have the filters for Clips, Paths, and Entities disabled
  5. Select entire entities and reposition them wherever you want
  6. Rename /scripts/mapinabox.script to [the name of your map].script
  7. Compile your map and have fun

See http://www.planetwolfenstein.com/4newbies/Map_Scripting_4_Newbies.pdf for more information

(Gremlin) #2

Hey, I’ll download it at home, but from what I read it will be just great
:clap:

(seven_dc) #3

Whoaa!

Ifurita you just went and done the thing I was thinking of. The template map!!! I was thinking set of templates just like this. I haven’t downloaded this beauty yeat, but I am going as I get home working. Thank you for remembering me in neutral compost thing!!!

In future we could do more advance stuff like moving tank in a box. Wouldn’t be hard to do because it would be easy to ripoff goldrush.

VAPORIZERS

(Loffy) #4

“We’re not worthy, we’re not worthy!”
:drink:

(DAbell) #5

Great idea i will give it a try, i don’t want to rely on this kind of hand holding but it will provide a great help to all us noob mappers who struggle to grasp the links between scripting and objects in game. I have tried to download but file planet has a 404 error on that download at the mo.

Thank you for keeping it real and not climbing up your own ass once you’ve learnt all you need to learn and just sneering at the noobs. :disgust:

Edit just downloaded it no problem must of been temporary error. :moo:

(lennyballa) #6

Great, this well help the newby’s. Btw, you better watch out for sin, he’s gonna release this map 3 times under a diffrent name! :stuck_out_tongue:

(blushing_bride) #7

excellent idea. Some things in ET are are just tricky and having simple working examples of each should be a great help. Goldrush is just too complex for most people like me. Don’t forget to remind people of your excellent returnable objective prefab either. In fact while we’re at it can Sock make a stickies of threads with prefabs in, i spent weeks (ok it was hours) trying to work out how to make a netrual command post before i found that i could download one!

(ConchMan) #8

has anyone else come accross this problem. is there a work around?

now i can’t be completely sure, one never can when learning, but before using anything in the “map in a box”, all was well in my map. i’ll try to give as much info as possible. please help me.

I added the neutral command post and spawnpoints to my map and still no problems.

however, upon adding the axismg “set” my compile time increases, my map will no longer load in game saying something like ‘sv_setbrushmodel: NULL’ and when i reload my map in radiant after saving it with the axismg, the console gives me 70+ warning lines of the form:

FIXME: name == NULL || strlen(name) == 0 in QERApp_Shader_ForName

I’d fix it myself, but i have no idea what this means as i don’t recal having an entity named strlen. any suggestions?

(SCDS_reyalP) #9

The ‘FIXME’ is aimed at the radiant developers, not you.

sv_setbrushmodel: NULL is caused by an entity which should have a brush but doesn’t. Searching should give you some common reasons it happens.

(ConchMan) #10

actually i did that already. when i searched yesterday i found out that sv_setbrushmodel: null can be caused by a brush that is one unit thick or less, a brush that has been streched to infinity, or other things like an origin brush that has one of its surfaces textured incorrectly.

i checked all of that, all 621 entities of my map seemed to be ok. I did find that there was one info_null that would not ‘highlight’ if i tried to selected it using the entities menu, nor could i find it in the map. and since i could not highlight it, i could not delete it either.

i gave up and went to one of my existing working backups. i made sure to do a brush cleanup (as painful as its results sometimes are). searched for all of my own info_nulls and didn’t have any problems cause at that point i didn’t have any info_nulls.

i tried inserting the mapinabox set once again and upon compile i got all of the same errors, and i had changed nothing else other than adding the command post and the mg_gun from the mapinabox set, so that made me think that maybe one of the brushes in mapinabox has problems.

anyhow, problem solved. after writing my first post in this thread, i simply left out the mg_gun set from mapinabox and it compiles at the usual speed and loads in game (yay yay yay). although i still wonder what caused the error cause the only thing different is that i don’t have that mg_gun set in there and that’s odd.

(Oxygen - o2) #11

AMEN