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EDITOR wishlist-/ suggestion thread


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And speaking of feedback (different thread I know) I have thoroughly enjoyed every one of your scenarios Combatintman.

Thanks mate - although I have just discovered a possible bug in CMSF which to my horror is present in two of the scenarios I've released and did not pick up at all in my testing routine. It has certainly taught me a lesson about increasing the scope of my testing!!!!

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Costard - sure I accept it is a wish list. Your comments about collaboration in mission making are certainly valid though.

I have helped a couple of non-native English speakers write briefings for their missions so there is scope for people asking for a bit of help and I have seen such a dialogue somewhere in the CMBN forum.

The thing with it is, have the manual to hand and then just leap in really, I learnt as I went along largely by referring to the manual if I had a drama. For things that I couldn't resolve from the manual I either looked or asked the question on the forums for suggestions or clarifications.

My preference is to go with historical scenarios because I enjoy the research and of course down the track it makes putting the thing together pretty simple. The map is real so you can generate it from either an existing map or Google Earth rather than agonise over whether to put a river here, or a road there. Although map making is time consuming in CMSF without the benefit of the overlay feature, I derive real pleasure from map making and like to think that I'm vaguely competent at it.

Whichever way you look at it, I am either blessed or cursed with the benefit of military experience which I admit does give me an edge in generating realistic briefing graphics and briefings. When I started out I had real problems getting the briefing graphics right just in terms of getting things the right size. Through trial and error I came up with the simple solution of doing it all in Powerpoint first before then selecting the images and sizing them in Paint. I really don't know why it took me so long to come up with this simple solution but once I did, I find it generally takes me about 15 minutes to edit and size the images and about another 5 minutes to save them and move them across to the relevant directories.

Because I have done more than one mission now, I already have a stock of briefing documents in the template format. So all I do is take the last one, overwrite it with the new briefing in Word and then save as txt before porting it across. The mechanics are quite easy, especially once you've got a few under your belt. The tricky bit is to ensure that what you write makes sense to the player to enable them to compete the mission.

Also important is to ensure that the verbiage matches what is going to happen and this can take a bit of time when you are flicking between the game and your document. To speed this up, if the mission is complicated I just put the data onto slides as I am designing the mission (eg if I set a Blue reserve to arrive in an hour, I record that data as I do it). I find it easier for instance to flick between a slide with the game data on rather than rummaging around the different screens required to marry all the important info up. I'm not saying this is the perfect way to do it but it works for me.

If you haven't seen it, have a look at JonS's thread, which I think is a sticky in the CMBN forum. It is full of great tips and taught me a few things even though I had a few missions under my belt by that time.

Anyway - I've probably dragged this thread a little off-topic so I'll close here.

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Well ... don't keep it a secret.

What evidence are you going to present that suggests that I deserved to be on the receiving end of that comment?

I highlighted it on this thread and it is being looked at:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=113568

I've owned up to my mistakes about inadequate testing on my part so reference the above ... your turn.

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What evidence are you going to present that suggests that I deserved to be on the receiving end of that comment?

Eh?

I highlighted it on this thread and it is being looked at:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=113568

Contrary to popular belief, I don't read every thread. And I am definately not still browsing the CMSF forum. (Thanks for the link though)

your turn.

Again, eh? I wasn't challenging you, and I probably should have put a smiley in there. I was curious about your bug, and especially this comment: "which to my horror is present in two of the scenarios I've released." I'll most likely want to avoid it in my own scenarios, too, but can't if I don't know what it is. (again: thanks for the link. Off to read that now.)

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Having watched ChrisNDs twich tv-show and seeing him having some trouble finding the fordable locations has reminded me of having simular problems myself from time to time...

I know i can use the MOVE ORDER for example to scan the rivers and streams for a crossable location and that many mapdesigners use some sort of terraintile on the sides of the rivers/streams to indicate where the water is fordable.

But

Maybe the FORD tiles could be shaded in a different kind of blue or have some vegitaion sticking up through the surface to make them stand out a little bit...

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Flavoured objects...

Many of the flavoured objects have like 6 different versions to choose from (the green squares with numbers in them at the bottom left)

To help identifying exactly what typ of BIN, CRATE, BENCH etc i have selected it would be nice if we could have a small picture off that very item (bin number 5 for example) shown below those green squares to help us get the one we want without having to go to the 3d preview to check it out...

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Flavoured objects...

Many of the flavoured objects have like 6 different versions to choose from (the green squares with numbers in them at the bottom left)

To help identifying exactly what typ of BIN, CRATE, BENCH etc i have selected it would be nice if we could have a small picture off that very item (bin number 5 for example) shown below those green squares to help us get the one we want without having to go to the 3d preview to check it out...

+1 to that. This would save a lot of time in the editor.

My try work around this like so: If I don´t remember which flavor object is which, I place one of each on the map. In preview mode I then remove all the other ones.

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Owing CMBN + CW, updated to 2.12

Foot path map editor tiles should be different from dirt road ones (or has that one yet changed in MG?). For personal use, I already made a quick and dirty mod on that.

Informative tool tips for various map elements/objects in 2D map editor. In example, hovering (or hover with a particular key press) the mouse tip above object selection tiles, letting pop up some small info text and maybe a small graphic showing the look a like as in actual 3D mode.

Would come handy for Independent buildings in particular, as No. of stories and variations only become known after actual placement and/or looking them up in 3D view. Same for flavor objects and maybe some other. Too much trial and error for my taste and making map creation more slowly than necessary.

Again I helped myself by making screenies of every map object in the game, including texture variations if available. Helps planning ahead, before actual placing any stuff on the map just by trial and error. On larger maps with accordingly longer loading times, this saves a whole lot of map creation time.

With regard to fords and bridges, I´d rather go the opposite way, having sort of terrain FOW, making terrain features state known only, when in direct LOS of a unit. Maybe not that appropiate for the given tactical scale in CMX2, where it is assumed, that (terrain) reccon was already be made before start of the battle. From my readings, state of bridges and location of fords had to be discovered by ground units approaching them directly, more so when air reccon could not be relied on in bad weather.

Beside "marking" fords by use of particular adjacent ground tiles, simple map labels could be used as well.

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+1 to that. This would save a lot of time in the editor.

My try work around this like so: If I don´t remember which flavor object is which, I place one of each on the map. In preview mode I then remove all the other ones.

Yes...this is what i do also

Flavoured objects...

Many of the flavoured objects have like 6 different versions to choose from (the green squares with numbers in them at the bottom left)

To help identifying exactly what typ of BIN, CRATE, BENCH etc i have selected it would be nice if we could have a small picture off that very item (bin number 5 for example) shown below those green squares to help us get the one we want without having to go to the 3d preview to check it out...

Or maybe a better and more simple way...Have the little picture above (or below...i don't remember wich) the word BIN change to show the CORRECT bin according to the number chosen below (number 5 in my example).

Beside "marking" fords by use of particular adjacent ground tiles, simple map labels could be used as well.

Good tip...

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Save-/ load-/ place tenplates in map editor...

Would this be a useful feature in this game ?

To create...

Use the mapeditor to 'build' your section of the map that will be your tenplate the way you normaly do.

Let's make a FARM for example...Place the buildings, fences, foilage and what ever else you like...To spice it up...add some flavoured objects.

When finished...DRAG A BOX around the area of the map that will be your TENPLATE and click "save tenplate"....DONE !!

To place a tenplate...just click "load tenplate" and you should be able to pick one off your avaliable tenplates from a list.

Click on a location on the map to place it...A nice feature would be to be able to rotate that tenplate in 90, 180, 270 degres to increase flexibility.

I think some of the things that could be made would be...(when appropiate...complete with flavoured objects)...

- farms

- shops and cafe's

- ruins

- trench systems

- different types off woods

- small villages

- bombarded areas with craters

- city blocks

- different defensive positions

- .....

- .....

- .....

- Whatever really !...only the imagination will limit this.

These tenplates could be uploaded to the repository by who ever makes them...

I think that in a short time we could have a quite large number of different tenplates to chose from that will speed up map building....

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I d like to see

1) an optional semi automatic tac map creator. If used, it generates a birds eye view image of the map (just a screenshot) and then allows the player to drag and drop tactical symbols (like inf platoon, armoured company, 'move there'-arrow, etc) from a box onto the map.

2) conditional AI triggers. As far as i understand it, the triggers in CMRT are going to be unconditional (a unit just waits for the condition to be true, no 'if-then-or-else' system). It is great we are going to have them (the unconditilonal ones), but conditional triggers would further improve the game.

3) copy & paste ability for flavour objects, buildings, trees, foliage.

4) undo option.

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From my current requirements, I need a seperate rubble terrain tile. For now I use a modded version of rocky red and sculpt it with ditch contour (up!), or tile lock.

Another wish would be 3D walls for use in rubbled (completely flattened) buildings, portraying interior walls and such. For now, I use normal wall segments, but that doesn´t look thaaaat good. Since these are more or less flavor, these then could be added to flavor objects, instead of true walls.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1420137&postcount=5

Forgot to mention, the textures used for all indi buildings blown out walls are fairly ugly, particularly the one for flattened state (building-damage-stub.bmp). This obviously has some problems with lighting/shadowing and looks overly bright from angles where it shouldn´t, even in dark environments with rather low background light. Maybe it´s due to the 3D building geometry lacking a back wall with seperate texture for the blown out part. More 3D geometry is needed as well as individual variations for the many different indi buildings. For now there´s just few generic damage textures used and shared with all indi buildings. Looks like a major problem for BFC to add or fix these, since in CMRT these still look the same. It´s a pity for the otherwise well crafted and textured indi buildings.

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From my current requirements, I need a seperate rubble terrain tile. For now I use a modded version of rocky red and sculpt it with ditch contour (up!), or tile lock.

Another wish would be 3D walls for use in rubbled (completely flattened) buildings, portraying interior walls and such. For now, I use normal wall segments, but that doesn´t look thaaaat good. Since these are more or less flavor, these then could be added to flavor objects, instead of true walls.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1420137&postcount=5

I would also appriciate more customability with regards to the building and ruins...Maybe if we get more building-blocks when designing villages-, cities-...urban type of terrain we will be able to 'build-away' some of the LOS/LOF issues of the engine that is not likely to go away any time soon...

- different hights of walls

- make the battledamage toggle include the walls also (not just buildings). The ability to toggle battle-damage to different levels...from only minor shrapnel-damage to fully collapsed.

- toggle different textures to the walls

- toggle windows and doors in the walls like modular buildings (both with doors and glas intact and also with thoose blown out.)

- Be able to choose to have the wall in the center of the action spot or all the way to the side.

- remove individual floors from buildings.

- A 90 degree ditchlock could perhaps help to build different floor-levels in larger custom buildings/ruins and also fit in urban terrain to make some more abrupt elevation changes (a terras kind of thing...)

Hopefully more custom built urban terrain could be less abstracted when in comes to fighting inside and also limit the LOS/LOF shortcommings of the engine...More work for the scenario designers obviously but if it works in a good way it could perhaps be worth it...

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