Mapmaking Guide for Idiots

[Daddyo]

Where's the dedit manual??

I imagine your laughing at me now...

Next question, everytime I open any map including my own I just saved, dedit asks "this level has out of date objects, update?". Maybe I've got a screwy tron 2.0 install (very likely)?

There's a pile of .exe's in the /Tools folder, do I really want or can I find out what these do?

Is there any conceivable way to permit a light cycle to literally fall off a plane?

And finally, the bottom left side of dedit that shows the worlds that i'm working on shows shows two worlds with the same name, but I don't have two copies of that world on my computer (as far as I can tell).

Should I be staring at NOLF mapper forums to find out goodies like scripts?

Thanks!

[TronFAQ]

Where's the dedit manual??

Manual? What manual? Oh, you mean the documentation that came with it. You call that a manual? .

Next question, everytime I open any map including my own I just saved, dedit asks "this level has out of date objects, update?". Maybe I've got a screwy tron 2.0 install (very likely)?

Don't worry about it. It does that for everyone. Just click yes. I've never had a map go kablooey by saying yes. But it's in your best interest to make multiple saves of your map, as you make progress. In case something does go kablooey.

Is there any conceivable way to permit a light cycle to literally fall off a plane?

Why does this question sound familiar? . It could be faked, I suppose. But I'm not sure.

And finally, the bottom left side of dedit that shows the worlds that i'm working on shows shows two worlds with the same name, but I don't have two copies of that world on my computer (as far as I can tell).

It's because the map has been saved in two different formats (.LTA and .LTC), no doubt. So they're being treated as two separate maps.

[Daddyo]

And finally, the bottom left side of dedit that shows the worlds that i'm working on shows shows two worlds with the same name, but I don't have two copies of that world on my computer (as far as I can tell).

It's because the map has been saved in two different formats (.LTA and .LTC), no doubt. So they're being treated as two separate maps.

Do I have any way of knowing which one to open and continue working on? Thanks for the quick reply. Nice tutorial btw

[Layer]

And finally, the bottom left side of dedit that shows the worlds that i'm working on shows shows two worlds with the same name, but I don't have two copies of that world on my computer (as far as I can tell).

It's because the map has been saved in two different formats (.LTA and .LTC), no doubt. So they're being treated as two separate maps.

Do I have any way of knowing which one to open and continue working on? Thanks for the quick reply. Nice tutorial btw

Um...in windows explorer you probably can look at the dates modified/created to give you a hint.

Also - TRON's version of the lithengine doesn't support the kind of physics that allow an LC to just "drop" of a grid. and as an FYI - you also cannot have 2 LCs on 2 different planes that would be directly on-top of one-another due to the trails...a trail on a lower plane can still kill an lc on a higher plane (as evidenced on some of the custom maps where people go where they aren't supposed to).

If you want some documentation (and even a few video tutorials) I suggest downloading the FEAR SDK - it has documentation that it quite good - well, definitely better than TRON 2.0s for sure. Between that and the TRON 2.0 docs you should be able to learn quite a bit.

[Daddyo]

I suggest downloading the FEAR SDK

Thanks!

[xistence]

About the 'out of date objects...' thingy : happens everytime you changed resources used by your map (textures, sprites, blah...). It needs to adapt the map to the new circumstances, so just click yes, save and reprocess the map.

About your doubled map: look in the map-list in dedit about the file-size and compare it with the files in window-explorer. If you have multiple maps, they can only be saved in different format, but each format uses compression or not, so the exact same map would never have the same size in LTC, LTA or TBW. Open all, check which one is the one you are working on, check the file size and delete those not being equal to that size.

About those executables in tools:
-dedit : you know for what it is
-fxedit : i think you know it, if not > used to create extended fx, saved in .FXF (Game/ClientFx), and used in combination with different DeditObjects, all in front 'SpecialFx'
-LipCompiler : important for lip-synchronization
-LithRez : the commandline tool to rez/unrez archives
-LTC : Must be the tool to form a .LTC out of an .LTA File. While LTA is ASCII coded and way to big, LTC is the binary form of the same data.
-ModelPacker : called by ModelEdit if i remember right, but surely can be used manual if needed, compresses ModelData i expect
-ModelEdit : Setting up new models for the game, you might ask around as we have some great talents about this in here (Zook, TronFaq, etc)
-Processor : not needed to be used manually, also that you can. Called by dedit when you process a map
-RenderStyle_packer : You define it in a special script-language, needs to be compiled in a faster readable binary-format
-RenderStyleEditor : if i'm not to wrong that seem comparable to me as a PixelShader (maybe the same technology under a diff name, or at least nearly the same as a PS). So you can define special renderstyle (think about a toon-look with pixelshader, something like that maybe)
-RenderStyleViewer : to watch those styles you created
-WaveEdit : There you can setup / alter .WAV you made for the game. Seems to be important as this engine has its own 'use' for sound-files. TronFaq might have infos about that
-WinLTC : frontend for LTC, for the commandline-haters
-winpacker : also called by dedit, after processing a map, so to form a .DAT-File out of the processed data

To prevent a LC not to fall from a plane, if i understand it right i think the answer must be no. As soon you want to stop a LC, you can only do it with a wall, that means 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrr .... BAMMM'
But im not the specialist in making LC-Maps. Maybe there is a way.

Hope this can help a bit

[Daddyo]

Yes, thanks for the effort. Got my speed zones working (height too low), can't believe how long a map you can make, essentially infinite. This is alot of fun, a little bit frustrating, but not too bad so far.

[xistence]

Well at some point you got probs with lightning because of polys getting to big in size. But splitting it into sequences and using static or dynamic occluders can make a map really big. For sure it should be avoided to do so, cuz of several reasons.

[win3k]

Morning chaps

Wahey!! another map maker goes through the pain barrier.

Next question, everytime I open any map including my own I just saved, dedit asks "this level has out of date objects, update?". Maybe I've got a screwy tron 2.0 install (very likely)?

Don't worry about it. It does that for everyone. Just click yes. I've never had a map go kablooey by saying yes

I have

I *think* that it's associated with the version of cres.dll (and /or one or more of the attribute files) available in the root of the tron install, but unless you're messing around with things like emails and new message strings, you should be good to just click OK.

Cheers

win3k

[xistence]

*Pointing up to my previous post*

Again, this messages comes up when updating resources used by your map (textures, sprites, prefabs, etc. changed). Nothing to do with cres.dll. If it appears everytime, then there must be another reason that something changed.

[win3k]

Nothing to do with cres.dll

The reason I think it might be is that in early work on UE, I had a sandbox map for testing things out, which I could load and save without any indication of out of date objects.

I set up a dialogue object in dedit, then added appropriate strings to cres.dll (nothing else externally got changed). When I reloaded the map, I got the "Out of date objects" warning, I clicked OK (update objects) and saw that the dialog string numbers had all been reset to zero. Your mileage may vary, but I am now more cautious when dealing with this warning message.

win3k

[Void(EN12-82)]

Is there any conceivable way to permit a light cycle to literally fall off a plane?

Why does this question sound familiar? . It could be faked, I suppose. But I'm not sure.

Hehehe... Quote of the month, this one. Made me laugh

[xistence]

I set up a dialogue object in dedit, then added appropriate strings to cres.dll (nothing else externally got changed). When I reloaded the map, I got the "Out of date objects" warning, I clicked OK (update objects) and saw that the dialog string numbers had all been reset to zero. Your mileage may vary, but I am now more cautious when dealing with this warning message.

win3k

For sure this might be also checked by dedit before going working on a map. In the end all things that might change and being part of a map, will be tested when opening a map, to reduce the amount of error-checking/exception-catching during working on a map. So they do it just at the start-up. A lot of thing, if they changed or are missing, causing the engine to stop work probably or even to crash, i experienced a lot during my total-conversion-modding.
To be pre-cautioned is definitely no mistake, but i wonder that you just got that message after editing CRES.DLL as it should pop up even you modified prefabs, sprites or other stuff.

In the end a big secret how those guys a Monolith really programmed that routine.

[Daddyo]

Wahey!! another map maker goes through the pain barrier.

What can I say, I'm masochistic!

You guys actually modified a dll, that's pretty neat. There's always a way to get something done.

I did what probably any beginner would do and made a LC map with all the prefab goodies. I've heard this before, but not much at all is there, I was suprised even after hearing this. When I check out the stock maps, the mappers must have made up alot of structures themselves.

I've got a couple ideas that I don't remember seeing in maps that I'm going to attempt. So I'm sure you'll hear many more questions. Alot needs to be written down again in the forums anyway... And if you already happen to have scratch pads on techniques, you should slap them up here if they're ready to go, like glass walls, trigger scripts, etc. Thanks!

[Layer]

When I check out the stock maps, the mappers must have made up alot of structures themselves.

Well..here's the deal - Monolith only gave us the bare minimum om prefabs that they created for TRON 2.0. The nice thing about the world of TRON is - nothing has to really be that complicated.

Here are some nice pre-fab factoids for you (that I think are very cool)...

1) Pre-fabs can self-update in your map.

If you buld a prefab and place it into your map - but change the prefab later on (in it's file - not your map) - the prefab that you placed into your map before will always update to the new version automatically for you.

2) You can create messages that manipulate objects located in your prefab - from either the prefab or from the map.

A) Say you have a simple prefab of a worldmodel of a box with a SFX object attached to it that is set to explode upon the worldmodels destruction.

you can message the preb from within itself with:

msg #.sfx ON (where the # means the current prefab, and sfx is the name of your sfx object.)

This would allow you to place the same prefab multiple times in different locations and when you destroyed a certain prefab - only it's corresponding sfx object would go off.


B) Another way to message prefabs is from outside the prefab itself.

Let's say that the prefab in example A above is called Box. Your SFXObject is just named SFX. You place 3 prefabs in your map - Box, Box00, and Box01.

Now you decide you want a player to trigger a scripted explosion of Box00. For this you can message:

msg Box00.sfx ON

And this will play the SFXObject corresponding to the Box you message. - Great for scripting events with prefabs.



I personally love making prefabs - and they can be a quite powerful tool in mapping.