Part II: The Second Lesson

There were a number of things not covered in the first tutorial which are important in making a good modpack. Some of them are the following:

1) Hills between base walls. This can be difficult if you do not have Nullpointer's editor version 5.4 beta which is not released to the whole public yet. To do this with just editor version 5.3 you need to put the terrain hills in the map then go into the map and see if they ended up where you wanted them or not. This can take a very long time. It can be done though. Or ask someone who has the editor 5.4 to help with that part. Editor 5.4 shows a terrain mesh grid and can draw real objects to speed up the process. Make those terrain hills between base walls about 120 units higher in elevation than the floor of the base and use a number 2 brush to draw them in.

2) Smartie Tunnels. Usually do not add smartie characters to your map. Instead add the smartie tunnels and the smarties will spawn from those tunnels as in default giants maps. Smarties tunnels are object number 522 and put them in AI mode 3 to make them work.

3) Mecc/Reap/Kab spawn points markers. Default maps usually have about 6 different spawn point markers for Meccs, about 5 different ones for Reaps, and one for Kab. Numbering them is important. First one will have no team ID, second one will have team ID of 1, third will have team ID of 2, and so forth. If there are 2 different Mecc teams then their spawn point marker AI modes will be different for the 2 teams. Blue team markers will all be AI mode 1 and the Green team markers will all be AI mode 2. It is a good idea to rotate the spawn point markers so that they spawn facing the right direction.

4) Vimp path markers. There are two different AI modes possible for vimp markers. Make sure they're all the same AI mode. Number the vimp path markers so the the first one has no team ID, second one has team ID of 1, third one has team ID of 2, and so forth. There has to be one vimp marker that has no team ID or else the game will crash as soon as a vimp is killed.

5) Map elevations. It is recommended that you do not make any of your map go below an elevation of -40 because you might see a lot of ugly clipping in your map if you do. The max height on a default Giants map is close to 1000, most of them are about 300-400 for max height. Probably you should never make the max height above 2000 or the characters might be able to get there. Do not make very much of your terrain too close to sea level or that might cause some clipping also. For the part of your land that is above sea level try to keep the elevation at least 8 units high at the minimum to avoid this clipping problem.

6) Copying and pasting sections of maps. To do this you first need to export your height map and light maps from the editor. When doing so be sure to add the .bmp extension to your filename because the editor does not do that automatically. Be sure to notice what it says is the current max and min height of your map. Write it down for later reference because you're going to want to use these same values when you later import them back into the editor if you want the heights all the same as before. Next open the light map in a paint or photo program such as Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop. Use the selection tool to draw the dotted lines around the section of the map that you want to copy. You will notice that as you put your mouse pointer over different areas of it that different coordinate numbers appear at the bottom of your image window. Write these numbers down for later reference, because you are next going to want to copy sections of your height map which have identical coordinates to the areas that were copied from your light map. Once you have these areas copied to your Windows clipboard you can select Edit/Paste as New Image. Then you can rotate the image if you want. You can create a new image with your paint program and paste all these sections that you want together in that image. In Paint Shop Pro do Edit/Paste as New Selection and move it to the correct spot. Again write down all coordinates when you paste them into the new image so that both height map and light map sections have same coordinates for it to be exact. When you have your height and light maps as you want them, save them as 24-bit bmps and import them back into the editor using the Terrain Import Wizard. Tell it to close the existing map and to make blue the most significant color. Tell it to remove all triangles which lie completely on a height of zero.

7) Light objects. The objects in your map are all going to be solid black unless you have some light objects in your map. Light objects are number 1004. To begin with I suggest you try to add them as follows: First of all add object 1004 in AI mode 1. Check the box for lighting and make red, green, and blue lighting values all 0.28. Keep the angle on this one in AI mode 1 at 0 degrees. Next add object 1004 in AI mode 2 and make lighting values the same as the first. Make the angle on the one in AI mode 2 to be 120 degrees. Then add object 1004 in AI mode 3 and make lighting values the same again. Make the angle on the one in AI mode 3 to be 240 degrees. You might not see all 3 of the lighting value boxes unless you make the editor window full screen. Do not use the lighting options for any other object or the map might crash.

8) Objects and bad fps. Too many objects, oversized objects, objects with high detail, objects that are real solid, or objects that move will slow down your map. Especially more so if they are in the middle of the map. Be moderate in your use of objects. Those pretty swaying palm trees can cause quite a loss in frame rate.

9) Automatic lighting. If you use this feature of the editor you can get a much better colored map done much quicker. You can experiment with different color values for the different elevations. Not only can you modify the color values but you can also modify the elevation at which these values apply at. This can take some time to figure this out at first. What I recommend is that you initially try the following and then later modify it to your individual tastes.

Open up the automatic lighting menu. The radio button for height of 1000 should already be checked. Leave it checked for the whole time. Check the box at the bottom for Enable Sun & Sky Light and Apply Automatically While Editing. You have 7 different elevation color assignments to pick and 3 different sun and sky light colors assignments to pick. To start with leave the default elevation values where they are. Click on the color the editor has chosen for the elevations -40 and click on Define Custom Colors button. On the following menu you will boxes to put in numeric values for Hue, Saturation, Luminance, Red, Green, and Blue. After you have chosen your custom color by typing in these number values you will add them to the custom colors and then click on them to be able to use them in your map. I will list the different evevations and I will give some color values to try to use for them. I will tell Elevation then Hue then Saturation then Luminance then Red then Green the Blue number values for you to try.

Next put the sun at a 45 degree angle with the right box showing sun below where it says Enable Sun & Sky Light and type in these Sun & Sky Light colors for the color choices.

After you've seen how this color scheme makes your map look go ahead and alter the colors to the way you like. Your color choices will all be lost if you close up the editor. Save the map with your colors before you close the editor.

Happy mapping.