OSMT Discussion & Ideas

[SuperApe]

Okay, I'm liking this idea of Poison & Antedotes. I'm thinking Poison could probably be triggered, like a PoisonTrigger, where the Instigator gets poisoned and the mapper can set a DamagePerSecond amount. Poison would then be an Inventory item given to the player that takes off damage and causes the special Poison damage hud overlay (green pain indicator). I'm thinking multiple Poisons will simply be overwritten, so the highest DamagePerSecond has priority. Antedotes could be a purple MiniHealth vial subclass that looks for a Poison Inventory and removes it. I'll see if I can put this together for the version release today.

[SuperApe]

Grab it while it's hot.

NOTE: Usually everything is backwards compatible. This time I made a couple changes to variable types that will cause your maps to loose some settings. I'm sorry, but it was necessary and I will always try to keep these to a minimum. Here's the changes you'll need to reset:

- OSMObjectiveManager.DefaultEquipment is now an array of string values, instead of a pulldown list of weapons. This will allow the mapper to specify those "hidden" weapons like Transpickup and ShieldGun, if desired.
- ScriptedMonster.GoodieDrop is now a simple array of inventory items, instead of a struct array with only one component. I should have done this at the beginning. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

I thought a lot about the extra things that Ironblayde suggested. (I posted those suggestion on the previous page) I was willing to implement them until I had these thoughts:

The RandomTrigger now has an equal value for each Event entered. Each Event slot you set will have an equal chance of being fired once the Trigger is activated. It is important to note that no matter what, one of those will be fired. Ironblayde's suggestion was to give a probability weight to these Event slots, which sounded pretty good to me. Then I realized that a) there would be a potential chance that none of the Events would fire, unless we set up something tricky to make sure the probabilities always totalled 100%, and b) the system described can be achieved with a ScriptedTrigger and a series of ACTION_IfRandomPct conditionals. I decided not to implement this suggestion because it can be achieved with a stock actor.

There is a similar problem with the probability of GoodieDrops with ScriptedMonsters. Actually the way it was described sounded good, but required a "backup" goodie and only spawned the other goodie if a probability was reached. Again this is doable, but it seemed to me that this can be achieved by spawning a separate monster (with the stronger pickup) instead of setting up a few more properties in the standard ScriptedMonster. The mantra I repeat to myself constantly is "keep it simple". Any extra complexities I add to what the mapper has to do must be neccessary. I decided not to implement this suggestion because it could be achieve by another method.

Adding the GoodieDrop property to CreatureFactory was a great suggestion and I put that in this latest version. Thank you for all you suggestions, everyone. Please don't get discouraged if I do not take all of them. I am very pleased with the level of involvement everyone is displaying. This makes the toolset that much better for the rest of the Unreal community. Keep these suggestions coming!

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by Sjosz

As for mapper's tools, I'm keen on suggesting a separate box for monster AI, in a very comparable format as the Matinee box, with monsters as 'scenes' and their actions/AI as 'actions/subactions'. I do not know how exactly this would pan out, but IMO, it would be handy to have it as a menu of it's own instead of being in the standard properties.

Interesting idea.

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by n3m35i5

the download link (for this OSM map has) expired. mind uploading it to UP?

This brings up an interesting problem: How to upload these OSM maps? Since they do not fall under the normal gametype categories, I'm not sure how this can be done here on UP, or anywhere else for that matter.
Anyone have any ideas on that?

[Boreas]

I know Nalicity simply categorizes maps like these as "UT2004 - Other", the map description should probably explain the rest.

[Dlarkin]

My suggestion for the OSMT Toolset final release is this:

A clear and concise "Total idiots guide to using the OSMToolset FAQ". Personally I wouldn't mind helping you write this either, especially with me testing it out in my own level and getting a feel for how to do "Dummy" stuff.

One of the absolute hardest part of understanding how a lot of this stuff works is the amount of time and research that I have devoted to trying to descipher "ScriptSpeak" and understanding even the basic terminology of the language.

As someone who is NOT a programmer, coder, scripter, or "techie", the dumbest downed version of explanations for implementing this stuff into my level in PLAIN ENGLISH would be absolutely invaluable.

Nothing sucks more than having a Power Saw in your hand and spending hours wondering how to turn the damn thing on.

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by Dlarkin

My suggestion for the OSMT Toolset final release is this:
A clear and concise "Total idiots guide to using the OSMToolset FAQ". ... Nothing sucks more than having a Power Saw in your hand and spending hours wondering how to turn the damn thing on.

This is a good suggestion and I've already started a FAQ on the OSM Level Design thread. Yes, there is no reason to release the toolset if no one can figure out how to use the tools. I completely agree and welcome all suggestions for the Manual, Guide, FAQ, whatever is easiest to use. One of the hard parts is letting everyone know the depth this toolset offers: there is a *lot* of stuff that can be done and that ends up being pages and pages of stuff to read in order to hear about it all. Check out the FAQ and request "Questions" so I know what else needs to be done. Hopefully by the release we will have a comprehensive guide or manual.

[n3m35i5]

Originally Posted by Dlarkin

My suggestion for the OSMT Toolset final release is this:

A clear and concise "Total idiots guide to using the OSMToolset FAQ". Personally I wouldn't mind helping you write this either, especially with me testing it out in my own level and getting a feel for how to do "Dummy" stuff.

I really agree on this. the current FAQ is high quality, but it's still too skimpy on the basics for a content creation noob like me to understand. the best tutorials I've ever read are the hardest to write, because they plod through every single button, mouseclick, and verbatim dictations. noob mapping tutorials don't say "make a cube." they say "open THIS WINDOW by pressing THIS BUTTON, and type in THESE EXACT NUMBERS here, here and here. now click HERE to subtract it."

I'm sure the toolset is easy to use, but unless the tutorial is easy to understand, we're kind of limited to people who already have prodigious mapping experience.

[SuperApe]

Well, I guess this toolset is meant for mappers. But I don't want to exclude anyone here. Maybe this will help from the wiki:

One path of tutorials for beginning mappers:
Create a Room
Learn the Tools

Another path of tutorials for beginning mappers:
Mapping Lessons
Subtract a Space

Another:
Beginners Guide to Mapping
Basic Procedure

Another:
Functional Map
Mapping for DM

...

Okay, wiki is a mess. I'd honestly do all these links. You don't need to follow every link on every page, but you'll see that these are the launch points to a whole host of tutorial pages that will begin to make more sense. They have some overlap, but the practise will help, the different ways of saying the same thing will help and getting used to using the wiki will help. Most of these are definately of the "click here. now, right click and select this."-variety.

After that, you'll know a little more of the Terminology and should be able to follow this tutorial: Basic Bot Pathing without too much trouble.

Finally, with a little experience under your belt and a map that has some bot pathing, you'll be able to follow this step-by-step tutorial with no problem (substituting the words ScriptedPawn for ScriptedMonster, which is the new monster class this toolset introduces): Basic ScriptedPawn Tutorial.

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by Aquablue

...Which OSM(T) threads are best to view if I want to know some more specific details about the OSM single player gametype?

OSM Level Design is the main thread for OSM SinglePlayer-specific mapping questions, a FAQ, and other info. I would look over the OSMT Development thread, just to get an overview. For very specific monster implementation, try the Basic ScriptedPawn Tutorial on the wiki. That tut I wrote will give you step-by-step instructions on making monsters do specific things. For general SP mapping guideline & ideas, check out Mapping for Unreal Singleplayer on the wiki as well.

[outpt.co.uk]

Idea:

In order to improve puzzle variety and creation, would it be worth creating a few new trigger funtions?

For example, the old ElevatorTrigger in which you can instruct a mover to go to a specific keypoint.

Another trigger idea is one that allows you to reverse the mover through it's keyframes backwards. So you can control a mover backward and forward using two levers or triggers. In my case, this would be moving a crane in my crane puzzle.

[SuperApe]

I've added a few useful triggers so far: ExclusionTrigger (allow trigger except by exclusion classes), RandomTrigger (dynamic array of Event, trigger one randomly, etc.
For puzzles and Movers, I've been playing around with AttachTag and using Movers "on" Movers. I can usually get some good motion, although I've already found some limitations.

[SuperApe]

Originally Posted by me on the OSMT Beta Testing thread

Interesting idea. Like an actor with a dynamic array, where you can select a monster (ScriptedMonster) to override, set it's health ... maybe set some other things. Hmm. A couple of the things you mentioned are hidden properties, if not just hard-coded (as they were in UT99 too), but there's no reason they can't be properties, really. Let me think about that. That's a neat idea.

So, I'm thinking more about this feature. This should be available to any gametype, not just OSM, so I'm thinking of calling it MonsterManager for now. It should be a dynamic array of overrides to the available ScriptedMonsters. It should be able to modify properties discreetly, perhaps identifying the creature by Tag. It would have to offer a list of properties to override that mappers would commonly want control over. These would be normally hidden properties or hard-coded values.
Possible properties to override:
- Health
- Armor (damage threshold before creature reacts in pain)
- OSMScoringValue
- ProjectileDamage

[outpt.co.uk]

It could also be a quick way of applying some of the more common options to all monsters - so perhaps it wouldn't have to be limited to hidden or hard-coded properties?

[SuperApe]

Well, at that point, I have to think of the "normal" way I'd want to do it. If I wanted to change, say the AmbientGlow, of all Krall in my map, I'd pick one, right-click, select the Select All Krall item, and make my edit. Iow, while I want to make it easy to use the toolset, I really don't want to duplicate any existing functionality of Ued.

Health used to be an editable property. Maybe I should make it that way again.

Btw, I kinda wish there was a Select Actors of Matching Group item.