Officially my first post, To do or not to do Options

[Scorch]

Ok, this is officially my first post. Since I am reletively new to Tib Sun modding and all, I need to ask a question or two.

First, I have been working on a new map, my remake of Cityscape, and I was wondering if in my next few posts I should start talking about it and showing you all in-game pics. Should I eventually release the map, or should I not? I want to, for I have some friends who all think it looks good.

Second, I need people to give ideas about good ambient lighting. I need someone to give the all the info for it too.


P.S.
If someone could tell me how to download and then PLAY the maps that others have made, (tell me the entire process of where the maps should go and everything) that would be great.

This post has been edited by Scorch: Jan 5 2008, 10:43 PM

[KingByng]

To answer P.S.:

You need WinZip first, as most maps are in WinZip files. When you download, WinZip should open, with all the files of the map present. You need to select all of them with the control key or drag select with the shift key. Then click extract, and type in where your TS directory is (usually its C:/Westwood/SUN) in the box at the bottom of the window that pops up. Click ok and the map should show up in game.

[eXit]

It's all up to you, there are people who post their maps and then show progress, but there are also people who never even say that they are creating one before the release. So the decision is yours.
The ambient lighting is also your decision, try to match the lighting with your map though. Like if it's a snowy and chilly map, try to make it have a slight blue tone, if it's a dry and desert map, make it so the map has a orange tone etc... When you get further you can experience with lighting and see what fits best. Also, remember NOT to make your maps dull with black lighting or almost no lighting changes at all, it really helps you get better comments if you give the maps you make attitude .
About the P.S. part...Blackie Chan said everything you need except for 1 thing, there is usually only 1 file you need, and it's the map file, .mpr, there might be screenshots with the maps that usually annoying "professional mappers" put there, now i wonder why

[Crash]

There might be screenshots with the maps that usually annoying "professional mappers" put there, now i wonder why

I hate when people do that

Anyhow, you should always see the tutorial forum before posting. Dear TitanmarkII wrote this tutorial.

By the way, Aurora196 already made a cityscape remake, but I guess he doesn't care if you do too Don't forget to have cliffs that aren't repeated, straight, or blocky. Here is a tool that helps you fix cliff errors Here's a tutorial that will help you fix cliff errors Also remember about the shores, I made tutorial for that, it can be found here You should always have a general idea before mapping, either by drawing it or having it in your head. Though this is different from person to person, you could try just to map aswell.

Good luck in mapping! BTW, there are links in many words here... click on here and you will get to where I mean.

This post has been edited by CrashKing: Jan 6 2008, 12:09 PM

[Shakar]

Ya, lol. Why don't you underline the ones with the links, Crash? Anywho, as they said, it's your choice weather you wanna post it and then give your updates to the WIP or if you wanna keep it secret until you release it. It's your choice, so you decide. Hec, even my current WIP map Tiberium City is a map that I'm making up it's layout as I go along... Interesting to me... Anywho, good luck with your map, and welcome to TibWeb. =)

[Aro]

might be screenshots with the maps that usually annoying "professional mappers" put there, now i wonder why

Quiet you!

[Scorch]

This is in reply to ALOT. First, what CrashKing said about the cliffs. I have seen many maps before, many with the repeating cliffs. I find that very annoying, and it shows that perople did not put in alot of work or just didnt care. I want to play maps for the detail and the experiece, I wouldnt mess that up with MY maps.

Now, in reply to BlackieChan. Ha thanks!!! I needed to know that.

In reply to eXit. I would go with a dark, red, dawn-like tone. But, now I wont, which I will explain later.

In response to what Aro said... Wha.....?

In again, another response, but this time to Shakar. Thanks, you gave me an idea, and again, thanks!

Finally, in reply to Scorch... Oh wait...

Umm, Ignore the above. Now, what I said about the map, I will explain now. I have done too much to the map, it really isnt what I wanted it to be, and I dont like it. (Yeah, I base my maps on what I think, I just wanted to get a few ideas. An yes, I hate it when maps look... weird). I have started a new map, whcih I am calling Territory Wars. It will be a four player map where each player has an easy to defend position. Tiberium wil be limited though, and players must later on send their harvesters out of their protective bases, leaving them exposed. The key to winning in this map will be, well, starving your enemy of resources.

I have already started, but I am having troubles with tunnels. I have already assked Bittah Commander on Wagnerma.de where we having been, "talking", for a week or two now. He has been a great help. Now, I am in the U.S., so I probably wont get an immediate response. If anyone can help me now though... I would be very appreciative.

[Aro]

This is in reply to ALOT. First, what CrashKing said about the cliffs. I have seen many maps before, many with the repeating cliffs. I find that very annoying, and it shows that perople did not put in alot of work or just didnt care. I want to play maps for the detail and the experiece, I wouldnt mess that up with MY maps.

I Like you already.

In response to what Aro said... Wha.....?

What eXit said in his post about screenshots was aimed towards me and Ixith, cause as far as I'm aware, We're the only mappers on this website that have a habbit of putting screenshots in the download.

Umm, Ignore the above. Now, what I said about the map, I will explain now. I have done too much to the map, it really isnt what I wanted it to be, and I dont like it. (Yeah, I base my maps on what I think, I just wanted to get a few ideas. An yes, I hate it when maps look... weird). I have started a new map, whcih I am calling Territory Wars. It will be a four player map where each player has an easy to defend position. Tiberium wil be limited though, and players must later on send their harvesters out of their protective bases, leaving them exposed. The key to winning in this map will be, well, starving your enemy of resources.

First of all, what exactly do you mean by "Weird"? Secondly, The idea's of tactical maps are great in my opinion and they require alot more thought than just random made maps that focus on making things look realistic. One of the best maps I've ever seen was one where it was tactical, like Terrace but really nicely detailed (I'm not saying the map name because a certain someone will get a big arrogant about it ). Hopefully you can produce something like that. I'm looking forward to seeing what you produce.

I have already started, but I am having troubles with tunnels. I have already assked Bittah Commander on Wagnerma.de where we having been, "talking", for a week or two now. He has been a great help. Now, I am in the U.S., so I probably wont get an immediate response. If anyone can help me now though... I would be very appreciative.

What kind of problem? There are two tutorials on tunnels.
This is a tutorial on fixing the tunnels.
This is a tutorial on tunnel curves.

[Scorch]

Thanks Aro. When I said I dont like it when maps look weird, I meant that like strange, like they are not, right, in a way. Like they are VERY different, and not what you would expect. Also, when I make my maps, I like to make them realistic. In a real battle, and you are a commander, or a general, or whatever, you usually dont have too many options to choose from that will help you defeat your enemy. I usually like it when you are playing, and one of those At First You Dont Succeed, Call In An Airstrike situations come along. I hope MOST people understand what I mean.

Anyway, thanks for the tutorials.

[Scorch]

Ooohf. That seems like alot to do with tunnels.... There are other things I can do though, and might just make the base defences... funner? Yeah, I should try that. If you ever read this again, I might explain..

[Aro]

Good luck. I'm interested to see your work.

[Scorch]

Cool, thanks.

[Scorch]

I have a question, and I'm asking because I'm not too sure on how to do this. When I said that the player starting positions would be easy to defend, I ment it. How can I make it so that when players start off, they will have prebuilt structures? Like some powerplants and then maybe four to six base defences? I know I've seen a topic on this before, but I can't seem to find it....

[Bittah Commander]

The only way to get this to work is by adding either GDI or Nod structures on the map and then the player that is Nod (or if there are multiple Nod players, it's the player who picked red) will get all those structures. This obviously really isn't practical for multiplayer maps, especially if you play it online (since one player would get an unfair advantage).
So in a practical sence, having prebuilt structures on multiplayer maps isn't possible.

[Scorch]

I could have sworn there was a trigger for this..... Wait, Bittah remember a while ago when I told you about the neutral house becoming friendly towardds players with the whole make allie trigger when someone constructed a certain structure? I should fiddle with the houses to create four houses, one for each player. Base defences in player start locations should become friendly towards the player that starts at that area. That should work, at least I THINK it will....

[Bittah Commander]

Yes, in theory it should... But the problem is that many of the triggers only work in singleplayer. You could try it, it just might work... But if it doesn't, you know why.

[Aro]

I could have sworn there was a trigger for this.....

What you're trying to acheive here, can't be done in multi-player maps, only single-player maps. I Think the trigger you're thinking of is in FinalAlert2, cause I remember one too ("Ally with player @ 1" etc.). However, I know for a fact there isn't one in FinalSun.

[Scorch]

I got it working to a certain extent. There are alot of problems though, but I'm sure I can get it working properly somehow.

One problem is that the defences sometimes will NOT fire upon your enemies. Sometimes they do. That's the biggest problem though, and I'll get that fixed up soon.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Aro, I don't have FinalAlert. But I AM positive I saw it on FinalSun. Don't know where, but it wasn't singleplayer.

This post has been edited by Scorch: Jan 10 2008, 11:41 PM

[Aro]

I got it working to a certain extent. There are alot of problems though, but I'm sure I can get it working properly somehow.

One problem is that the defences sometimes will NOT fire upon your enemies. Sometimes they do. That's the biggest problem though, and I'll get that fixed up soon.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Aro, I don't have FinalAlert. But I AM positive I saw it on FinalSun. Don't know where, but it wasn't singleplayer.

You've lost me there. It's seriously not possible to get your idea working correctly in FinalSun. Could you show me what you mean when you say, 'I've got it working to an extent' just so I'm aware of what's happening?

[Scorch]

Ok. I set some neutral houses, four of them, so there is one for each player. I have set a trigger "Make Allie" that will start to wqork when teams build certain buildings. Ok, that didn't come out too clear, so heres an example. Team four starts at th bottom left corner of the map. There are neutral house defences at the entrance of the base. Say, when player four builds a power plant, the neutal defences near their base will become friendly towards that player. The defences will not attack that plaer but will attack other players.

Like I said, I created four more neutral houses, one for each player, so they may have "preset" defences for themselves.

I have tried this several times on different maps, but it sometimes doesn't work.


Player starts at a spot, they build power plant, the defences become firendly towards that player.


How I know this, well, it was an accident. I set triggers, where when anyone builds a power plant, the neutral house becomes friendly towards them. Then, when they build ammo crates, (Yes, I made ammo crates buildable) the neutral house becomes hostile towards them. I don't build them for that reason. It's really fun when you have the neutral forces act "friendly" towards you.

I hope that was clear enough.

[Aro]

Ok. I set some neutral houses, four of them

You're talking about a Multiplayer map, right? You can't make custom houses on multi-player maps. Though I've never tried making secondary civilian houses in multiplayer maps.

I have set a trigger "Make Allie" that will start to wqork when teams build certain buildings.

This trigger will only work correctly if certain players have a certain house color. This technique is reall bugged in FinalSun, as the only preferences you can set are Nod and GDI (Playable houses), so the Nod Player who's red will be the only Nod player who'll get the effects of this trigger, the same applies for GDI, but Gold instead of Red.

[Scorch]

I don't know then. Maybe I downloaded a bugged one?

Hmm... If I uploaded the map, would it still work?

I actually think I did something that enabled this to happen... There are alot of things I went out and changed...

[Aro]

If you like, you could upload your map, and I'll find out whats going on.

[Scorch]

The map isn't quite done yet.

Besides, I'll just uninstall the stuff I have and then redownload them. (I'll keep some of the previous maps I made.) It won't be that much of a problem. THEN, if it does happen again, I will upload the map for you.


This entire situation just really ticks me off.... I'm sure it would kill you too, huh?

This post has been edited by Scorch: Jan 13 2008, 06:12 PM

[Aro]

I'm still not too sure what your problem is. From what I know, You want some custom structures to be friendly to the player in the specific position as soon as the map starts up, right? Or at least at some point during the map. It's just not possible on a multi-player map, due-to the fact It's not possible to make custom houses, and there just isn't a trigger that enables this kind of action. Alltogether, what you'd like to do is not possible (Apart from In Single-player maps).

[Scorch]

Dang. I was hoping I could do that. Anyway, the map should still be fun, and realistic, without it.

I have already re-downloaded all the programs I will need, and I've gone through everything to make sure it's all, "new."

If I do ever find out what I did to make the houses allie with the different players, this will be the first place I post it. Or maybe not. Now thinking about it, I wish I had told you earlyer...

[Aro]

If I do ever find out what I did to make the houses allie with the different players, this will be the first place I post it. Or maybe not. Now thinking about it, I wish I had told you earlyer...

I've already began looking in FinalSun to find out what would be a good technique of getting this working to a reasonable extent. My attempts just turn out to be worthless, as because of what I said earlier: It's not possible to add custom Houses in Multi-player maps.
Anyway, It's not possible In TS / FS Multi-player maps, and Unfortunatly, that's not going to change unless someone does some miracle patch work.
But yeah. Keep In touch, I'd like to see your work.