Our amateur moments in mission editing

[eegore]

  I hope its cool that I post this as I do not have much of a question. 

  Basically I pulled up my very first attempt at making a mission, and man did it suck.  I didn't know anything about scripting, or delays on triggers so in order to have a conversation on screen I put up a bunch of triggers then had a guy walk through each one.  I played the damn thing over and over spacing the triggers out little by little so that text appeared at the right intervals.

  Also in this same mission I didn't look close at how Synch worked so I just timed how far away I placed units and attempted to estimate how far away I needed to place them so they would run in in waves. 

  I didn't, and still dont really get conditions in triggers so my maps are full of guys on the outskirts walking into triggers that detonate bombs and such.  If I didn't want a bomb to go off I would have another trigger on another guy that would kill the unit that would walk into the detonation trigger. 

  Anyone else do stuff like this when they first started?

[Gcfungus]

Sure, I remember trying to make a multiplayer map which used about 25 triggers in a row to make a cutscene. It really is worth camera scripting if you can be bothered to learn it. Cutscenes made with triggers never look as good, as ai can react differently every time, creating holes or overlaps. Don't worry, it's a common thing.
Keep going, and you'll get better. 

[Walter_E_Kurtz]

You might consider changing the title of this thread to something that reflects the shame and ridicule that can be expected on public exposure; something like

n00b mission-editors do the funniest things

You know the button in the Mission Editor that says on it "Mission"? Well, for a while I didn't realise it was a button - I used to edit Intros and Outros by copy-and-pasting those parts into blank mission.sqms.

[eegore]

  My first bonehead attempt at an intro was a matter of switching back and forth between the mission and the intro in an attempt to get everything to look the same. 

  Look at mission, switch to intro, select unit and place as accurately as possible.  Then after a while it occurred to me that I could just cut and paste the damn things all at once. 

[savedbygrace]

I began scripting cutscenes by using Gamelogics as targets and positions before I was informed of the power of the already built in camera.sqs tool. What a tool of convenience.

Still don't get conditions? Still want to know?

[eegore]

 Ive read the tutorials on here, but there's still a lot of stuff that I can't seem to make sense of.  Conditions are one of them, it just seems I always type them up wrong or something.  I find it simpler to slap down a workaround, like men running into triggers and gamelogics I guess. 

 I of course would still be willing to learn about stuff like conditions in triggers etc.

[savedbygrace]

Conditions are not only used in triggers but waypoints and scripts as well. The ones used in scripts are a little harder to grasp unless you understand the syntax and placement of code.
Basically a condition is just a word or variable or calculation that must be declared true elsewhere. Lets say you place the word or variable Uraniumdonut in the condition field of a waypoint. The unit will reach that waypoint and will stop untill you declare elsewhere that Uraniumdonut is true like this  Uraniumdonut = true. You have just met the condition that the waypoint asked for, in order for the unit to proceed. Likewise if you were to place the same word(or another) in the condition field of trigger, that trigger would not activate until you declare the condition true. So lets say the trigger created a bomb at a cars position. The bomb would not be created until you declared that variable or word true Uraniumdonut = true  "boom" the condition is met and the bomb was created. Pretty simple. where do I declare it true? In the On activation field of triggers or waypoints or inside scripts of course. Lets say you want the car to blow when another is right next to it....place the moving cars waypoint next to the car that will blow, in the onactivation field of the waypoint next to the car, place Uraniumdonut =  true and when the moving car reaches that waypoint, the parked car will go boom....if you want the bomb to have a delay, just adjust the timer fields in the moving cars waypoint.
Does that shed any light on the subject?

[eegore]

  Your description makes it appear too easy, of course I just got back and need to test out what you described.  I was under the impression that conditions had specifics.  As in I could not just type anything into a triggers Con: and the declare it true later on. 

  For instance I never really do any missions where a chopper takes you to a location unless I place the player into it because I was under the impression that I needed a specific text in a trigger to get the damn helicopter to wait until you actually get inside.

  My workaround has always been putting the pilot outside the chopper and holding his "get in" wp until the player gets within 2 meters of the chopper.  But it could still take off without the player geting inside. 

[Kendo J]

I was under the impression that conditions had specifics.  As in I could not just type anything into a triggers Con: and the declare it true later on.

Conditions are to me one of the most important aspects of mission making. I mostly use them in conjunction with triggers and scripts. But to make it simple you can declare any condition you like anywhere in the game through a trigger script or anything.

An easy example is a trigger that has "west present/repeatedly" activated, it has in the activation "condition1 = true" and in deactivation "condition1 = false".

with this condition you can do anything you like i.e. have east units attack the trigger area only when west units are there e.g. have an east waypoint with condition1 to set it off. Or have a separate trigger that activates a script when the condition variables are reached. inside your script you can use conditions to jump to certain parts of the script.

Say you have 3 triggers cond1, cond2 & cond3 all west present triggers, and one enemy counterattack script. if you want the script to control enemy counter attacks only on what ever condition is true (to put it simple what trigger the west are in) you can use the script lines...

;start of script
? (condition1) : goto "counterattackplan1"
? (condition2) : goto "counterattackplan2"
? (condition3) : goto "counterattackplan3"

#counterattackplan1
;use this bit to spawn enemy units or move their waypoints or whatever you like possibilities are endless
exit

#counterattackplan2
;same again, what ever scenario you like
exit

Kendo

p.s. for choppers I am sure there is a comref source on checking if the unit is in a vehicle or not. I don't bother with this anymore i use black outs and port units into choppers. check out this ( http://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=28786.0 ) collection of scripts i made a while ago, although it is outdated if you like it send me a PM and i will send you a more up to date version using BAS blackhawk rope insertions plus a whole lot more on conditions and scripts

[eegore]

  Thanks for the information guys.  After having a break I'll haveto start trying some of my old ideas again.  Multiple attempts at completing a task and getting the #error message over and over usually just lends me to change the "efficiency" of the layout so to speak. 

 

[schuler]

Thank you all for proclaiming your profusions.
I like the thought of teaching, some don't share their knowledge, and say learn it for yourself ,,,,, its better for you,,,, well blab la ba, I am willing to share anything to help authors make a good mission as I enjoy seeing gamers build a first mission from a 3 to a 6 or 7 score in efpec. To me a good mission is the one that you can't stop playing, or thinking about what you are doing in the mission overwhelms you. Tricks, playing with the gamer are most unique in a mission, some authors do it well. This always gets my attention! I love the fact that setdamage can kill any unit,,,, lol ha ha ha the power!
I call scripting tricking the game, using the trigger to get what you want! It seem to me that there is always two ways to get the same result in scripting, at least. You just have to find the one that works in your mission and its concept.
  I just lost all my scripting crap on my pc as a formatted pc with lost info,,,,,,,..... Damn I hate it when I don't back up!!!!! But here is some crap that might be useful to some one ................keep in mind not all may be the right syntax as I have copied some of it from watching the "who"s on line" at the bottom of the forums ? 


unit xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Bravo = group this; this setGroupId ["Bravo", "GroupColor0"];  this setbehaviour "SAFE"; ({[_x] execvm "stuckcheck.sqf"} forEach units yourGroup)
removeAllWeapons this;
this addWeapon "Binocular"; camUseNVG true;
this addMagazineCargo ["1Rnd_HE_M203",8]; this addWeaponCargo ["m16a4_acg_gl",1]; this addWeaponCargo ["MP5SD",1]; this addMagazineCargo ["30Rnd_9x19_MP5SD",6]; this addMagazineCargo ["200Rnd_556x45_M249",5]; this addWeaponCargo ["M249",1]; this addWeaponCargo ["M16A2GL",1];
this setUnitPos "MIDDLE";
this addMagazineCargo ["PipeBomb",2];   
this addWeapon "Binocular";this addWeapon "NVGoggles";
this addMagazine "PG7V" ; this addWeapon "RPG7V" ;
!(alive etank)
BOMB1 = "Bo_GBU12_LGB" createVehicle getpos bcar
"smokeShellRed" camCreate getPos helo
shellsOnBoard = 24; this addaction ["Drop smoke", "dropSmoke.sqs"]

this setBehaviour "CARELESS";
flyInHeight 0; this setBehaviour "CARELESS"; this setSpeedMode "NORMAL";
this moveInCargo Heli1;
this disableAI "MOVE"; this setBehaviour "AWARE"; this doWatch H1;
 
unitname domove getpos position
unitname domove getmarkerpos "markername"
this setPos [getPos this select 0, getPos this select 1, 14.7]

this addEventHandler ["KILLED", { ((getPos (_this select 0)) nearestObject 346577) setDamage 1 } ];
this addEventHandler ["KILLED", { player sideChat "Sir, I think we just killed a civilian!" }];

Bravo = group this; this setGroupId ["Bravo", "GroupColor0"];  this setbehaviour "SAFE"; ({[_x] execvm "stuckcheck.sqf"} forEach units yourGroup)


triggers       xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
{(group _x) leaveVehicle _x} forEach thislist
this && ((soldiername1 distance chopper) < 10)    xxxx condition
soldier1 action ["eject",choppername]

actionname = player addaction ["action", "script.sqs"]
then to remove the action, write the following in the 'on deactivation' field of the trigger:
player removeaction actionname

[West,"HQ"]
Smoke1="Smokeshell" createVehicle [(getPos Name1 select 0),( getPos Name1 select 1), 10]]

condition:   Object ID#  getdammage > .8
activation: whatever you want

player addEventHandler ["killed",{_this exec "playerKilled.sqs"}]

grenade1 = "GrenadeHand" createVehicle (position Trigger1)

{_x moveInCargo Heli1} forEach Units Grp1

!canMove tank && (player distance tank > 250)
"1" objStatus "DONE"; radioWest sideChat "HQ, Night Frog here.!"; end=true;

!canMove tank

condition : this
on activation : {_x addeventhandler ["fired", {hint "wham!"}]} foreach thisList

obj xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"0" objStatus "DONE"; obj0=true;

mis xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
playMusic ["Track1", 30] (Plays Track1 from Second 30)
10 fadeMusic 1

[Krieg]

Just a topic to show off your beginnings of mission editing - When mission editors do the funniest stuff. From making mission, to "beta testing" it.
Me? Well, I think it was classic start. I turned on my mission editor, and got 3 islands. I choosed the first (aka Everon). Placed standard squad. Assigned myself as machinegunner. Placed another squad. This time enemies. Then I spotted that weird-looking sun-like button. I wasn't sure what it was, but yet again, I pressed it. Remember those two text-boxes? I started writing a briefing there.

Private! You will be on patrol with your squad. Russians had invaded this island few weeks ago. It is full of enemy squads. Take care of yourself. HQ out.

Did some settings to weather. And pressed preview. Enemy squad was too close! We got slaughter at very beginning. Started moving each enemy soldier little bit far away. Then, I spotted waypoint button. Double-clicked it, and guess what, nothing happened. After time I managed to place "search and destroy" waypoint for both squads. This time we won. Only problem was, it didn't end. Then I took a look at "Synchronization" button. I thought it was meant to add sounds and speech to the soldiers. Couldn't get to work, so decided to save. Exported it to single-player and was surprised. to find no briefing.

Later on, I was trying to get SCUD to launch it's missile at empty tank with "2 engage that Abrams". When I got no results, I decided to do next best thing. I placed 10 satchel charges beneath SCUD, retreated to (what I thought) was safe distance, and guess the result.

Code: [Select]

Satchel charges overuse + N00bish player = Suicide and ridiculous mass slaughter of poor enemies.
At time, I did not realize what intro was meant to. I placed the player, and was surprised to be unable to move.

I did not realize how to end mission, and over time, I got "brilliant" idea. Using radio alpha from trigger. I placed a trigger with 100X100 and player outside of it, and was surprised to be able to end mission outside of it. Anyways, mission did end, and I used that method until "The Final Stand".

"The Final Stand" was meant to be a lot different then it turned out to be. Remember that line of sandbags? Well that was meant to be first line of defense. Player was meant to be in second, complete line. Behind him was meant to be the last remaining base of soviet union on island, where Medic Tent was meant to be. Player was suppose to watch as first line of defense felled when a lot of enemy forces stroke. Of course, few enemy tanks were meant to be lost, so player had chance to repel enemy attack. Since I have high-end machine, I never noticed lag. Only thing that stopped me from making that mission was thing called "63 group limit". At time, I did not remember to put resistance friendly to east and put them in first line of defense.

What to say? I learned most from experience of creating "The Final Stand".

[Walter_E_Kurtz]

Noob mission-editors do the funniest things. Been there, done that, don't want to talk about it 


The best places to learn from are:

1. The BIS Tutorial
Go to the root directory of your Flashpoint installation and double-click on Readme.chm (also available in other languages). Click on the top right box "Editor", and then on the tank "Editor Tutorial".

2. Other people's missions
Use a tool such as Pbo Explorer to peek inside mission pbo.s - you can highlight, copy and paste from text files. Useful for scripts, description.ext, briefings and overviews. This doesn't work on BIS missions, which are encrypted; you need Eliteness instead.
Do try to give credit where due, if possible, particularly for scripts.

3. OFPEC
Naturally.

[savedbygrace]

I went ahead and merged the two topics being that they were similar but doing a search for them would be a needle in a haystack.

@Kreig
The 63 group limit/low variable allowances are challenging limitations to work with at times, especially if you try and create a mission that allows tremendous strategy adaptation by the player but in the long run, I feel it makes us more efficient editors because it causes us to become creative in the way we work around problems. That only enriches OFPEC with many different experiences and approaches. The lag barrier has also been a problem for me. I build a mission that I think is nice and runs smooth and then when I post it for others to test it, I get reports on lag...oh yeah, it can be frustrating at times especially when you have invested so much time in a particular version but again, in the long run it makes us more efficient and creative.

I was a creeping digger in the beginning. I spent years searching and reading tutorials, guides and forums subjects as well as playing through the SP missions and campaigns of OFP before I did any extensive playing in the editor. My first expereince with the editor was a love affair. I could not grasp the fact that this game provided me with the ability to create my own little battles and stuff. I was in heaven and had to learn more. And here I am today, a pathetically addicted slave to the challenge of learning the boundaries. But I can honestly say that I have learned many other things along with it.

Not everyone dislikes viewing where they've come from.

[haroon1992]

I bought it in 2001.
After I launched the game, I clicked on Campaign.
At the start of the first mission of Cold War Crisis(Red Hammer Campaign), I was surprised by what the player has been holding, I thought it was a branch of a tree LOL
I realized after a while that it was a gun and it was an AK-47..
My brother said that "Search for an ak 47 from dead bodies"
I thought it was AK 4T7 , so i kept saying "there is no such gun as ak4t7 here only AK four sevens "...

The first time i messed with the editor was one week after the event.
I put a guy in kolgujev and started the mission..and i found that there was no one except me..
so i put some other guys from my side...and previewed
after i killed the 3rd man ,the rest of the guys killed me...
I was surprised and later realised that they were the same side as mine.

I learnt trigger delays ,camera effects and sounds ,waypoints ,all by myself.. but I didn't know about the trigger's condition box and the on act and on de-act boxes...
I was unable to observe radio options at that time,too.

then one day, i opened up the OFP Help, and found some extra resources plus a tutorial to mission editing..
it showed me how to put some enemy guys into a truck and unload them at certain position on the map...
it also showed me the way to check whether the truck is destroyed or not
the most precious thing was that it told that "you can learn more stuffs from the internet!"
and that was the first time I planned to use internet....

nowadays, I've become a better - noob LOL....
(but i still not have created any missions to their completion)
I create a mission and after the point at which i became bored,i immediately dropped it...!
and started creating another mission....
I spent most of my time in ArmA and ArmA 2 just running around in the mission editor,trying to find a good place to create a mission or just to please my mind by the beautiful scenery.......
(yes,I enjoy the scenes from both arma and arma 2....especially foggy early mornings in forest..!)


regards,
Hrn

[Lone~Wolf]

Oh no, don't get me started! 

The first time I got into the editor I took a look around, and clicked on everything, and nothing did anything. I got so worked up and looked in so many manuals! Eventually after (I'm not kidding) an hour of clicking everything I found out what I had to do...

I needed to double-click.

Yes, that was how my first day of OFP went. Badly.

Anyways, It took me the better part of a year before I actually managed to open and look at the contents of a .sqs file, but from there, t'was love at first sight. I haven't gone 5 days since without playing/editing/loving OFP for 4!

It just shows ya, hmm? 

[Zipper5]

My first experience was actually a result of the start of Iraqi Freedom. I hadn't touched the editor before, been mainly trying to finish Cold War Crisis (I found it ridiculously hard at the time, but addictive). But with the start of Iraqi Freedom I got an idea for a mission to take place on Desert Island.

Basically I spammed one of the coasts with US groups and APCs, and the rest of the island to the north of me with Soviets. I ran into the unit limit and thought I had completely broken the mission until I realized I could simply delete some Soviets to fix it. I made myself the leader of one squad, changed my unit to a the Steyr Aug soldier and gave myself a Search and Destroy waypoint on one sole Spetsnaz way up in the north of the map on that infamous hill, who I intended to be Saddam.

On my old PC I got maybe 10 FPS max in this mission, but I played through it so many times, each time was different. I'd substitute myself as different things, like an Apache, or an A10, or sometimes I'd try it as the Soviets. Having such a massive battle going on around me was amazing to me at the time. Sometimes I'd just sprint right through it all and see how long I could last. I actually saved the mission as "The Hand of Justice" or something to that effect and it remained there in my SP missions for years to come... Until I lost it...

So that was my first ever editing moment. From then on I knew I was born to make missions.

[JasonO]

Haha, brilliant thread.

I remember my first time in the editor. I got a Blackhawk and placed a variety of east units down. I was young and didn't know much about miltary units. However this wacky unit named 'Shilka' couldn't do much harm could it?

After flying over the units I soon learned what a Shilka was.

[RKurtzDmitriyev]

Try this for size: I just spent four hours or so trying to figure out why an SQF function I wrote seemed to cause all other functions to stop working. After much effort trying to isolate the problem, I realized my error after taking a hard look at the first line of my function.

Code: [Select]

private = ["_array","_selector", "_deletestring","_return"];
For some reason, this causes all other instances of the private command to stop functioning.

[GW]

my first try is very funny,i make one east engineer soldier against a abrahm platoon and 2 mechanized infantry,played 1000 times  :clap:that mission,still i have that mission, 

[OFP_f3d3]

i still remember my first time in the editor.
when i saw it i didn't know that i was playing one of the few games that let you do  a lot of things as the ofp.
i started watching the islands, seing the weapons, and watching everything. the i started making some noice. after making big craches between russian and us forces i discovered that i could hide in the bushes but later it was completely useless in nogova. i think the first kind of mission i've made in ofp was placing 6 russian group and 6 us groups in desert island and adding some jeeps and some trash i started the mission. some years later i started discovering many tutorials and many great things of ofp, like scripting, music, voices, camera effect, and many other things. i don't know what you think but, when i first opened the editor i said "my god,  :blink:know i can try all the things i've imaginated and the other war games didn't allow me to do like placing soldiers wherever i want or making them do stupid things " what did ou all feel when you first got into the editor?

[Wolfrug]

Private

Don't get ME started on the damned private command! I was using calls inside a script, and just couldn't figure out why the variables kept getting reassigned to all the wrong values - apparently it was because unless I use private in a script, the local same-name variables of a called script would overwrite the local same-name variables of the script calling it Yeah, you have noo idea how long it took me to fix that.

Okay, so it was actually Spooner who told me what was wrong. But not after I had done countless hours of trial-and-error (mostly error).

Wolfrug out.