Linking Nodes:
Play the map (best is to do it directly from the editor). Pause the game. Go to the "Map"-tab where you can usually see the Radar in ONS. Click on the button "Link-Designer".

Now connect the Nodes as you please and give the setup a name. DO NOT CLICK ON SAVE, because that would only create a local file that contains the information and would exist beside the "official" linksetups, even duplicates are possible.
Click on "Export to UnrealEd" instead. This will copy the linksetup to clipboard, as if you would have used CTRL + C.
End the game, right-click on a spot in the map and select "Edit" -> "Paste". That will create an actor that contains this one setup.

You can only copy one linksetup at a time to the clipboard, so you need to start the game again if you want to add more linksetups.

The linksetup named "Default" will always be used if the admin or client doesn't select anything else.

You can change the name of the setup afterwards by clicking on the created actor. You could also change the links there, but it's really hard to keep the overview there.


Custom vehicles: You will need the vehicle's mesh, texture and .u-file, for example Gorz_Birds.u which contains the code for Phoenix, Wasp, Falcon and that other Skymine-shooting thingy. Since they use the default Raptor-mesh, there is no need for an additional mesh-package. Only the texture-package is needed.

To use them in your map, simply open the ACB, click on "Open" and find the correct .u-file.
The list will reload and you should find VehicleFactories for the custom vehicles at the retail Factories.
You could also just take a retail Factory and change it's VehicleClass to the class of the custom vehicle, which will be available once you loaded the .u.


I am curious.

Damn thats easy to link nodes:)

Now, when playing i can't see any vehicles. How to set vehicles for each node? thx

Edit, how to place turrets?

Edit2, vehicle problem solved, i can see them, and spawning at each node solved:)
That custom vehicle can you do it for me?

Thx

Oke, i uploaded the map. Can you add custom vehicles?

It still needs some better improvements, i need to set good paths for bots -_- .
The vehicles are placed just for testing

I need to place turrets, and on two side nodes with sandbags, something to cover the top of the node, in some maps there are circles around the node for protecting.

And there must be warsmog, so the draw distance is shorter:)
Play it, in onlaught mode :p and set music Ons-08 on. Could be awesome:)

The link: http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/186203/ONS-DomeOfDoom-Beta1-ut2.html

Thx

Turrets: Those don't have an own Factory because they aren't the same kind of vehicles as the other ones. Turrets get disabled when a Node gets destroyed while vehicles will be destroyed.
You find them at:
ACB -> Pawn -> Vehicle -> ONSWeaponPawn -> ONSStationaryWeaponPawn -> ONSManualGunPawn
You can also set the Twinbeam-Turret from the Hellbender to be used like that (it will be destroyed on Node's destruction, not disabled). Take ONSPRVRearGunPawn to do so. Other Pawns, like the Tank-turret, will not work.


Distance Fog:
Did you discover the Levelproperties already? You can get to them by using the top bar. View -> Levelproperties (or press F6, but that will also let the network informations appear)

In the Levelproperties are several important things that should set for the map:
-Audio: Leave everything as it is, except the "Song". This is what is played in your map. Enter the name of a file in Music-folder of your UT2004-installation without the ".ogg". The song should match the gameplay of the map, otherwise it will just annoy the players and stop them from playing your map again. Your map doesn't fit any of the slow sounds, I recommend you to take KR-Collision-Course (enter this name as "Song"). KR-songs are retail songs, so the player will have them already. Everything else would require them to download the song manually because songs are not transmitted by the server due to license-terms.

-Camouflage: The that is used when the player uses his Camouflage-adrenaline combo. This is obsolete in ONS, but just for information: Indoor is the mesh that is used when you are on BSP and SMs, Outdoor the mesh for Terrain.

-LevelInfo: A very important category!
DefaultGameType: This is what you need to change to make your map a real ONS-map. You need to enter Onslaught.ONSOnslaughtGame here.
Leave the rest as it is. You can change the StallZ to move the blue line (visible in one of the sideways 2D-viewports). That is the line where vehicles like Raptors will stop to gain speed in order to prevent them from reaching unlimited height.

-LevelSummary: Should be pretty self-explanatory. You can take a screenshot of the map, load it into the myLevel-package (do NEVER save myLevel, it will be saved when you save your map) and then use it in this category.
You should leave the Atuhor's name there in any case, just add your own if you think that you have done much improvements.

-RadarMap: You can enter a RadarMap-image, if you have one. Creating such a thing can be hard work, so it's not bad if you don't enter one.
But you should adjust the CustomRadarRange (and set bUseTerrainForRadarRange to False, because you don't have any Terrain in that map). The CustomRadarRange is the radius from the center to an edge of the Radar in UU, meaning the center of the map to it's furthest outside. You can measure UU in UEd by holding Shift and MiddleMouseButton in a 2D-Viewport and drag the mouse to where you want. So you should enter 6200 here as range.

-ZoneInfo: The categories that follow are the same as in a normal ZoneInfo. The Levelinfo's settings will be used in any zone that doesn't have an own ZoneInfo. If you use ZoneInfos then you need to set the individual properties there, or they will have no effect.
bClearToFogColor: Set this to True when the player comes to a point where a part of the map is actually occluded in Distance Fog. Leave it False if the end of your map is never occluded by the fog.
bDistanceFog: Set this True to enable Distance Fog.
bTerrainZone: Set this in a ZoneInfo to True if you want to have Terrain in that zone.
KillZ: Same as the StallZ, but this time it's the red line. Everything below that line will be destroyed. That is needed to prevent actors that somehow fall out of the map from endless falling. You should set it pretty close under the lowest point of your map.
LocationName: The thing that is shown in the HUD when using the Teamchat (this stuff: "(GSPB)Crusha: I am in position (West of Center in a Cicada)")
ZoneLight: See here for Distance Fog.
ZoneSound: Something that only a few mappers use although it has a lot of impact on people with EAX-soundhardware. Change from that list something that describe your map, for example "Auditorium" or "Hangar". It's just a simple click with a big effect, the engine will do the rest.



The map:
To be honest, it looks sooo boring. Not sure about gameplay, but mapping is also some kind of art. Look at it. What do you see? Grey!
And there's not even lightning that makes it look at least a bit more interesting, no, the lightning wasn't even rebuild, so we lack all kind of shadows.
You can colour lights to give an optical contrast to places, but don't exaggerate. You should choose 2-3 colours and stay with them. And the lightning doesn't need to be too regular, you can set spots of light to make things look more interesting. Rebuild the lights and see how it looks much better already, but you could still help a bit.
Click on a BSP-surface and press F5. Go to the second tab and look at the Ligthmap-scale. The lower the value is, the bigger is the filesize, but you get sharper shadows, or even shadows on places where they haven't been before because the resolution was too low. You can set it at least to 16.


Take a real serious look around. So many things are floating in mid-air! Weaponbases, a red light in the center building, walls, there is even a weaponlocker on the thing at the ceiling(wtf?!).

I think it's also better to use a PickupBase for the U-Damage.
Btw, I think the map has way too many pickups for ONS. Every dynamic object costs the server a channel so that he can watch the object. Channels are created for: players, vehicles, pickups, projectiles… that can get pretty much in a map, especially on spam-maps, where creating and deleting channels (due to many, many projectiles) costs the server a lot performance, so the pickups are last thing that the server wants on such maps. You can see the number of channels by pressing F6 ingame, 200 is good, 300 is not so good anymore and 400 is unplayable. Play the map with 32 bots and see.

Pickupbases have a texture-bug when being placed, that has never been fixed by Epic. Select a xPickupBase, go to it's "Display"-properties and open the "Skin"-array. Click on "empty" to fix the bug.

Pathing: Bots will want RoadPathNodes and FlyingPathNodes for vehicles, you find them in the ACB -> NavigationPoint -> PathNode and below.
Those pathnodes can have wider distances between each other (and should have). You will get a feeling for the distance. Too much pathnodes will make the bots go crazy and slow down the map, too few and they will not act clever.

The "fences": They cause a HOM-effect when you look at the ground inside them. To fix that bug, just select the Brush, rightclick on it and select "Type" -> "Semisolid". That will cause them not to cut the rest of the world's geometry. However, never let a semi-solid touch another one, or a non-solid. That will cause it's own bugs.

Then rightclick on a fence's surface and on "Select Surfaces" -> "Matching Brush".
Then open the Surface-Properties with F5 and set the flag "Twosided", so they look more realistic.


The stairs next to the Cores: They are horrible. You should never use such shapes, it's a miracle that the game don't crash immediately when you start it. Not even talking about how crappy it looks!
Find either a better stair or use a JumpPad. And you couldn't use such a stair if we would have real physic. It's way too "tight".


And add some AmbientSounds, the map is dead-quiet!
You find them in the ACB -> Keypoint -> Ambientsound.
Then search the SoundBrowser for a good sound to use with this and then place that thing in the map on the point where you want it to be. It would probably be good in that dark pit. You can use Realtime-Preview to listen to the sounds, but the volume of the sound is probably not what you will get ingame.


Nobody is a pro with his first map, usually first-maps are always done for private practice and burnt after that.


Oh, and you filehoster put his name infront of that file: [MEGAUPLOAD]ONS-…
You should get yourself another one, like Mediafire or Rapidshare (I prefer the first one, but Foibos would flame it as "Slowfire" )

First of all, what a post! U should write a book of it =)

I now, there are many bugs, that everything is messy, but i just wanted to show it to u.

The (original) map looks boring, 2 years ago i played on INV servers, the gameplay was so great, it was a very popular map, just because of it grey/dead/scary feelings.
The gameplay is absolutely great in INV.

Did you ever see The Matrix revolutions? I think the map is based on that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhoaoTZJSX4 after 1.00 Min.

The map would be so different, but i can't realize it. I still have much to learn

Mostly i forget where i found my textures. How can i copy a texture that's already on a surface?


Thx

crusha_k_rool wrote:
Nobody is a pro with his first map, usually first-maps are always done for private practice and burnt after that.
Excluding me ;P I'll make that DeathMatch map as good as possible!!!

First, I'm learning the things that are needed for creating a good and nice map and only THEN making the beauty itself...
It's not good to make something while "being untrained".

Also, first maps that are always done for private practice and burnt after that, are created by impatient people I think...

It's not boring to learn mapping, it's very good indeed ^^

Texture: not sure about duplicating, but the headline of the window that you get when pressing F5 with the selected texture will tell you texturepackage.texturegroup.texturename.

Then just find it in the TextureBrowser. But be careful. If you have a surface selected, then the Browser will apply any texture you click on to that surface.
Or if you first select a texture and click on different surfaces afterwards, then each surface will get that texture.

I'm really sorry for tearing you apart (I mean the recent teaching of VK) but I planned this on this weekend and I have many questions now...

Anyways...:

I know that this isn't easy but I'd like to learn about emitters.

Plus the questions...:

What is the difference between fake backdrop and invisible? (my guess is that when a projectile touches a fake backdrop then it disappears)

What is an antiportal?

How do I modify brushes? For example, this is a modified cube I guess:



What is a BSP based Terrain?

What is Intersect and Deintersect?

I don't think you may know this but I saw it on default maps; its name is InterPolationPoint. Do you know what is it/Any idea what it may be?

How Do I make Surfaces for fluids?

And finally quickly the volumes: Blocking volume blocks pre-set things
Volume? O.o?
I know what is Ladder volume
I don't know what is Physics volume
I don't know what is DefaultPhysics volume
I don't know what is Pressure volume
I know what is Water volume
I don't know what is KarmaBoost volume
I don't know what is sniping volume
I don't know what is ConvoyPhsysics volume
I know what is Lava volume
I don't know what is xFalling volume
I don't know what is IonCannonKilling volume
I don't know what is Limitation volume
I don't know what is HitScanBlocking volume
I don't really know what is AsCriticalObjective volume
I know what is LeavingBattlefield volume but it is just a warning message?

Okay, that is all... I'm sorry again, in the future, if I have any smaller questions like these then I'll ask it in Private Message, now I posted them here because they are many at once...
I'll leave you alone for a while don't worry =)

Posting questions here is good, because everybody can read them then before he asks the same things again.


I haven't done any Emitters myself yet, there are some subclasses of "Emitter" in the ACB and there are also xEmitters. xEmitters have no preview in the Editor, but you maybe you can find some things that you might need there.

I'll try to answer the real Emitter question later.



Fake Backdrop: Flag a BSP-surface with this and it will be replaced with a look into the skybox. Press K to see the result in the Editor. Invisible will turn this surface invisible, it's collision is still there though.


Antiportal: It is used for leveloptimization. Everything that is completely occluded by an anti-portal is not rendered by the engine. So you need to place them in solid geometry, or it will give you a HOM-effect if you look directly into them.
You can see the effect by going into wireframe-view and use the RealtimePreview of the editor.
This is exellent to learn more about it.


Modifying Brushes: Vertex Editing or the 2D-Shape Editor, with which you can build simple shapes without needing an external 3D-application. But it's very limited.


BSP based Terrain: It's crap. It was used in the first Unreal Engine, but since we got heightmap based Terrain, there is really no need anymore because BSP lools more blocky and puts more strain on the CPU and can cause errors.


Intersect & Deintersect: If you build something out of multiple Brushes but you want only one, then make the Red Build Brush bigger than your whole construction and move it so that it encloses your target. Click Intersect then and it will lay itself tightly around your construction and taking it's shape and texture-informations. You can then delete the old stuff and add the single Brush instead.
Deintersect is doing the other way around. Read more, although I think it's hard to understand without pictures. I never used that stuff actually.


InterpolationPoint: I think it has something to do with predefined paths for cameras to drive along. You should see this often in retail Assault-maps, where you get a nice introduction in singleplayer.
In UT3 exist InterpolationActors, which are the new and enhanced kind of Mover, or everything that should ever move or interact.


FluidSurfaces: You can use a FluidSurfaceInfo or an xProcMesh. The Info is the by far easier way: http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/FluidSurfaceTutorial.html


PhysicsVolume: Can do many things, but is mainly used for changing gravity, EAX-soundeffect, causing pain to Pawns inside the Volume, etc.

DefaultPhysicsVolume: This is just the class that keeps the default properties for a PhysicsVolume. Do not place it in the map.

PressureVolume: A PhysicsVolume with changed default properties. It deals damage to Pawns inside it with the DamageType "Depressurized".
It also was thought to be turned on and off by triggering, so you could simulate a room that increases it's pressure to something painful when a certain button is pressed, but that doesn't work without a hack.

KarmaBoostVolume: Increases the speed of KarmaObjects in the defined Vector-direction. ONS-Tricky uses such Volumes on the ramps and ONS-Adara on the boost-pads in the center. Since all retail-vehicles base on Karma, they are boosted.

SnipingVolume: Is used in combination with UnrealScriptedSequences to define AI-scripts. Link the Tag with some property can let a Bot wait at a position with a defined weapon and let him ambush everything that enters the SnipingVolume. You won't need this in your maps, it's fancy for developers who are paid for what they do.

ConvoyPhysicsVolume: I have no clue, but I guess it's used in AS-Convoy. Maybe to leave the corpses behind if they fall on the track.

xFallingVolume: A PhysicsVolume with changed default properties. It deals damage to Pawns inside it with the DamageType "FallDamage".
Use it if you want a player to die earlier when he falls down somewhere but the KillZ-line is far away.

IonCannonKillVolume: Enter it and a countdown will appear. If you are still inside when the countdown ends, then you will be hit by an Ion-Cannon beam. Battlefront uses some of them.

LimitationVolume: Basically the same as a BlockingVolume, but it lets the effects disappear instead of spawning hit-sparks and that stuff. You don't want sparks on the border of your skybox.

HitScanBlockingVolume: Will probably block only HitScan-weapons. HitScan = InstantHit, like Shock Rifle, Miningun and Sniper…

ASCriticalObjective: Used in Assault. If a player of the enemy team enters this volume, then the defending team gets the message that the current objective is in danger.

LeavingBattlefieldVolume: It seems to be only a warning message.

crusha you really should start a hotline and take money for it >=D