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Q: What's Your site about?
A: Well, when I first started editing maps back in the "DOOM" days the help was hard to come by, So when I started building maps for TRIBES the first thing I noticed was that the PREFABS in the editor had cryptic names and I could not tell them apart. So I started taking screen shots (print screen) and building a "Catalog" of prefabs. so I did not waste so much time looking for that special building I saw in a map someone else made. soon I had a complete set of screen shots of the prefabs, I cropped them and put them on web pages just for printing. I shared them just with friends, But soon I realized that maybe others might enjoy them as much as I do, I cataloged prefabs first (f3) then terrain bit maps (f2) and lately "Custom Objects" made with ZED to spice things up a bit. oh and of course "HELP" pages. |
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Q: How do I get the editor you talk about in your site?
A: You have it already if you have a copy of Starsiege TRIBES, the editor is on the disc, to open the editor hit "`" key (without quotes) and type "exec(editor);" a black screen will pop up with a tool bar on the right-hand side that's it. |
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Q: OK the editor is open but the screen is black now what?
A: hit the "`" key again make sure the text scrolling down the left-hand side of the screen is goes away hit the "5" key and hold down the "e" key until you are above the terrain. note you will always begin the editor at the map center many times this is below ground. |
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Q: How do I get started building a MAP?
A: There are many great tutorials available, I read as many as I could find to start sometimes a concept was unclear until I read it written another way. I put a list of some of these on my site "http://www.planetstarsiege.com/catalog/help.html" you will need to do a lot of reading and playing to make good maps. |
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Q: How come some of the objects are not on my list in (f3) I can't
find them?
A: Some of the objects in the catalog require a small patch installed in the base directory so that thoose will be on the (f3) lists others were broken and I fixed them so you could load them from the (f3) list, still others are custom and you will have to add a .VOL file to use them in the editor. see "http://www.planetstarsiege.com/catalog/downloads.html" |
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Q: Do I need a patch to use the editor?
A: No, the patches add/fix about 35 objects that were not on the original (f3) list but are in the standard game anyway. these things should have been on the (f3) lists but were not. there are still hundreds of prefabs to play with even without my patches. |
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Q: What is that "*" thing mean in front of some of the names
in your "catalog"
A: The "*" thing means that these objects will need to be set as "destructible" in the .mis properties or in the (f2) options, or weird things may happen during play. |
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Q: I'm building a map and the object I want to use is an under-ground
base but when I set it in the ground my player cannot enter the lower parts
of the base because he can't get through the ground, help, how do I fix
this ?
A: Some bases are set into the ground and you will have to make a hole for them in the terrain to do this enter the "terrain editor" (f4) an hit the "o" key for options now with that window open find the boxes that say "open1" check this box and hit "o" again to leave the options window now pull down the selection menu and select "set flags" , from now on any block of ground you select will be removed, make a hole just big enough for your base and un check the "open1" option box when you are through. warning making terrain changes will make your map client side only and you will have to give everyone who plays it a copy of the .vol file, as well as the .mis, .ted and .dis file. these maps are not good for servers unless every player already has a copy of the map set. this is why so many maps have changes to the bases and rearrangements of the prefab objects only, because these maps will automatically download from any server to any client as soon as the map is changed. or when you connect to the server. |
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Q: OK I'm a super star map maker and I want to make "my own" objects
can you help?
A: there a only two editors available to edit Tribes objects the ZED shipped with the "tribes tool kit" from dynamix, and a mod to the 2.0 version of World Craft. I have used both with some success. |
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Q: So which editor for custom objects should I use?
A: I don't know try them both here's a comparison (mho) I'm using ZED right now but if I can get the custom textures to work in World Craft I'll use that too. ZED pluses Came from dynamix used in the original game to make all the objects there now Minus brush has subtraction of brushes in one step, handy. More Textures with some fiddling you can use any texture from any object already in the game. (more on that later) Size perspective on the same scale as other objects. once you set the size correction factor you never have to touch it again. (.03125) Detail level in the ZED the minimum is 1 zed units about 1.25 inches in the game. for World Craft the minimum is also 1 but in World Craft "make hollow" makes a wall about 1 foot thick, ZED has smaller detail, maybe this could be changed for World Craft there is a batch file that could be altered to correct this but I haven't figured it out yet. Help there is help on the web for this editor that is just for TRIBES, World Craft has lots of help on the web but not for the tribes conversion.the only problems I had was with the conversion. built in abilities to make multiple low res. versions of an object used to reduce poly count and increase speed in the game for large objects. Saves as .ZED more flexible format. and if dynamix ever releases more ZED samples they will be in this format. Faster with practice I found the ZED faster to use than World Craft especially using textures numbers are faster than scrolling every time to select. Grouping if this feature is used special tricks are available to speed the functions of textures and brushes. Set up easy except for any texture other than "human1.dml" this default is easy, other textures require using an .VOL extractor to get at certain files that are buried in the .VOL Compiler stable you are more likely to have a crash with the ZED than with the compiler almost anything that won't choke the ZED will compile and work in the editor even if textures are missing or the geometry is wrong, you don't have to worry about compiling once its built. builds all the low res. version at the same time no external program needed, World Craft requires a separate program, and you must build separate low res. versions in world Craft before compiling Big hassle. |
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ZED minuses
Crashes often or lock ups if you use win9x it was built for NT save often and use the "texture viewer" instead of the "texture browser" if you use win9x Custom texture This maybe a problem I can't figure out how to place custom textures in the ZED there must be a way. Select all this will not let you add a texture to all "brushes" at once. Texture Scaling can only be done in steps X1,X2,X3, x1/2 x1/4 x1/8 World Craft has precise control with a slider. Skew Option this can only be done once and has to be the last thing you do to a brush. Quick BSP to see any changes in the texture mode you have to run this otherwise you cannot trust that the texture will be the way it appears in the editor later in the game. Primitive Brush hard to get used to and sometimes confusing. for beginners or someone used to World Craft Camera Placement this is harder in ZED because you can't see where the camera is in the 2d modes window and can only be changes in the 3d mode window Compiling is done at the DOS prompt and can't be built into the ZED , no scripting function included in ZED. |
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World Craft Pluses
Easier to use especially if your familiar with World Craft, I have used World Craft for a number of years now. Compiling is done through a special "advanced options" window an can be automated right down to launching TRIBES then the editor and placing the object right in front of you .although I could not get this sort of performance on my system because there was a step missing (somewhere?). I still had to do two steps manually. with some work this could be great. Custom Textures There is a menu to insert custom "WAD" files easy and you can load more than one palette at a time and use them on the same object, although making a custom WAD file (using MAKE_WAD.bat) is done with a batch file very picky, I tried many times to compile a custom wad and built several that actually worked in world Craft, only to have TRIBES crash on those same textures in the editor. with some work this could be great. Texture control World Craft has precise control with bsp update ZED has stepped control and the quick BSP must be updated manually when streaching a texture. Editor More Stable World Craft is bullet proof if you are just learning it is forgiving Undo is great up to 50 "undo" steps are saved. PREFABS World Craft supports "prefabs" (not to be confused with the prefabs in TRIBES), where you can add entire objects to other objects just by picking them off a list and placing them in the window, you can build your own "prefabs" too. |
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World Craft Minuses
Compiling many times I have built something in World Craft editor just to have it crash in the compiler Textures Available World Craft comes with only the "Human1.WAD" I have not been able to get more wad files into World Craft, There must be a way. The "Make_wad" batch will not work for me. Maybe some expert could show me how? this is yet another way where World Craft could be great. Scale The scale in world Craft is all off for TRIBES so the textures must be sized every time or the object could be made "huge" all textures applied and then shrunk using the "select all" and the handles around the object with "texture lock" on this has worked for me but, if you try to reduce it too much the compiler will crash. or you can get the size right first and correct every texture by .05 the detail level is low also because the minimum size is 1X1X1 and the player model is only about 4X1X1 so doors are 5X5 and small buildings are 20x20 in the ZED the same player is 16 ZED units high not 4 units so you have 4 times the detail in theory but in practice it's about 10 times |
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In conclusion either one will work to some degree,
World Craft: should be easier to build large objects if you can get it to compile and not crash, but you will have to do the low res. copies of the object separately ZED: offers the highest level of detail and should compile if you can build it without too many crashes, and the low res. copies are easy. Both could use some more automation, better documentation and custom texture handling adding this would make each a complete tool set. ZED has specific help, World Craft has only general help. except for the instructions that came with the conversion Kit. ZED was easy to setup, World Craft was hard (because of the conversion) Both are close to being a complete solution at least with my experience. And both required a LOT of Trial and Error testing. |
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