A mapper's Guide

[Kays]

This is something I had totally forgotten about until I stumbled across it a while ago. It's a thread I had started as a guide for making maps for BW1.

[blank=An Introduction]
An Introduction

For a start, if you don’t already have them, go to Our Downloads and download Black and White Express Map Editor 2.02. and Kilroy’s Training Ground. Also my map.

So for a start, open my map with the map editor and look through it, just to get an idea how a map is structured
The first thing that you’ll notice when you use the map editor is that the text is colour coded. If you turn off Word Wrap the commands will be easier to see, since now they line up.
The map editor also has an excellent help feature. Highlight the command, such as CREATE_ADOBE and press F-1. This is a good way to learn what the various commands do and what the items associated with that command are.
The buttons on the toolbar include an co-ordinate finder and a means to load B&W straight into a skirmish game. To zoom in with the co-ordinate finder, right click on the map in the top left box.
It also has an auto-insert feature which we’ll get to later.

The first lines in a map define which landscape is to be used and then Player_One is setup. Since this is a sandbox map there is no other god.
The villages are set up next. I’ve kept all of the items retaining to each village together. If you’re curious about something rem it and see what disappears. Add rem and a space before the line, this way it is ignored by the game. Or un-rem something if you’re curious about. I rem-ed out a number of goodies at the end of my map, Including a neural creature. I’ll explain more about how to use other creatures in a map next lesson.
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I’ll will get together an explanation and an exercise on village building, that should be fun. Hopefully starting lesson three.
Tip: Editing and viewing the changes isn’t that difficult. When in B&W, Alt-Tab to minimize, make your changes, save them, go back to the game, hit Esc. choose Leave Skirmish game and reload the map.

This is your first exercise, To study my map as well as Kilroy’s Training Ground. KTG is a skirmish map and has an other god written in, find him and see how he is set up, including his creature. And find some of the goodies in my map.

Special Villagers.
Among the things that you’ll notice about my map when looking at the villages is that I used The command Create_Special_Town_Villager to create the villagers as well than the customary, Create_Villager_Position command.
Special villagers are the actors that you meet when doing the quests. If you haven’t already noticed, there are Special Villagers in each of the towns in my map. Try adding some to KTG.

Tip: Don’t have a town with only Special Villagers in it. They don’t breed, you do need some regular female villagers if you want the population to grow.
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[Kays]

Placing creatures in a map.

In a map there are two ways that a creature is written in. The most common is as the other god’s creature.
In KTG you will have noticed how the other creature was added to the map. With the following command.
CREATE_CREATURE_FROM_FILE("PLAYER_TWO", 15, "ComputerControlledCreature", "2942.91,2607.57")
This sets up the creature. First the creature’s affiliation, his god’s number,  then the creature type(15=Rhino), then the mind file used and finally the location where he appears, “xxxx,yyyy”
The next line makes this creature the same size as yours.
You don’t have to set up your own creature, he’s assumed and appears next to your citadel automatically.

Neutral Creatures.
A neutral creature is an other way. This is a creature with no god affiliation, It does what it wants to.
To insert  neutral creature, change the god afflation (Player_Two) in the Create Creature line to NEUTRAL.
The SET_COMPUTER_PLAYER_CREATURE_LIKE command doesn’t work with a neutral creature and it’s size will be that of the original creature

Using your own creature’s mind file in a map.
This can done for a number of reasons, mainly for fight training. But it also will give you a neutral creature that is the same size as yours. Or if you have CI, a creature Tyke’s size.
The procedure is very simple. Find your creatures mind file. If you don’t know how, it’s described in my How to Backup thread under Lost Creatures.
Copy this file to your desktop, rename it to your creature’s name, Note; do not include the .erc extension, just the name.
Now move this file back into the CreatureMind folder.
To use, just input your creature’s name into the “Create Creature” line instead of "ComputerControlledCreature “.
To change the creature type change the 15 to the appropriate number for the creature you want to use.
I will not post the list, since I would like you to use the F-1 help function of the map editor to find these.

 

[Kays]

Creating a Map.

Now is when the fun begins. You get to make your own map. Most maps are based on other maps, using them as a starting point. For this exercise we’ll use Land 3 and you get to keep your creature.
When you come through the vortex there is no village. So we’ll build that first, so to speak. The next lesson I’ll discuss placing objects and then finish up with another village.

Find the land3.txt file in the B&W\Scripts folder and copy it to your B&W\Scripts\Playgrounds folder. Now open it with the map editor.
The first thing to do is to change the value in the second line, SET_LAND_NUMBER(3) from 3 to 0. This makes the map playable.
Then place your curser under SET_NIGHTTIME….. Now, go to Auto-Insert> Villages and double click on Create a citadel. Now click on “Find”, to open the co-ordinate finder. Find your temple and click on it. This will display the co-ordinates in the lower left. Now click on insert, this will copy the co-ordinates to the Create a Citadel dialog box. Go back to that box to enter the rotation and size.Rotation is a value from 0 to 6000, starting facing 9 o’clock and going counterclockwise. Size for buildings is usually 1000.
Now click on insert and you’ve just created your citadel. Your creature comes with it, no need to write him in.
Now we are going to use one of the mappers favorite tools, Find and Replace.
Scroll down a bit past Player_One before the town_Fields, now make a space or two.
Below you will see the lines Create_Planned_Abodes. Highlight the first command and click on the binoculars in the toolbar. This will bring up Find and Replace, with the find box displaying what is highlighted. In the replace box, type in CREATE_ADOBE, Now click on “Find” and then “Replace” to change all of the commands in that group down to the Create_Planned_Citadel line, which you will delete. You just created a citadel, you don’t need two. You will notice the there are no civil buildings, except for two crèches.
Note: Now is the time to change civilization type, since building size varies with civilization. Use “Find & Replace” to do this and don’t forget that there are two parameters to change in the Create_Town line.
Now save your map to a new name. Close it out, go to your Playgrounds folder, (I keep a shortcut on my desktop). Verify the name of the file that you just saved by checking the time saved. The Save As function does some funky things.

Open the map again with the map editor. Click on the “Preveiw Map” icon in the toobar and load it to see to see what you’ve got. Now decide on the location of the remaining civic buildings, and a wonder if you wish. Also, if you changed civilizations you might want to relocate  or rotate some of the buildings. This is best done manually.
Tip: When making changes, only make a few at a time and check your map regularly to ensure that there are no errors
Next write in the remaining civic buildings. This is best done by taking the Create----Crèche line copying and pasting it a few times and then changing the appropriate parameters.
Now to finish off, unless you want your villagers to build one, also write in a worship site. Use auto insert. Co-ordinates and rotation don’t come into play, Just make sure the size is at 1000. Now check your map.
Note: we didn’t use Auto-Insert to place the civic buildings because the find feature doesn’t function, so I find it easier to copy and paste
Since it’s not included in help, the civic buildings are:
STORAGE_PIT
CRECHE
WORKSHOP
GRAVEYARD


Placing Villagers

Place your curser at the end of the first Create_Adobe line and hit Enter. Now go to Auto-Insert and choose “Insert a Village” co-ordinates aren’t important, as long as it’s within the village. Make this villager a “Housewife”. After inserting that line into the map, change the first set of co-ordinates to that of the adobe in the line above.
Important: The line will look like this; CREATE_VILLAGER_POS("3094, 3146", "3127.75, 3083.66", "HOUSEWIFE", 20) change HOUSEWIFE to read CELTIC_HOUSEWIFE, or what ever your civilization is…. It will crash otherwise
Now copy and paste this line so that it is replicated. Change “Housewife” to a title for a male villager and you should have a happy couple. Add a couple of children if the adobe is large enough.
Now copy an paste this happy family under each of the adobes, keeping in mind to vary the ages of the family as well as to change the occupation of the male occupant. Don’t forget to also change the first set of co-ordinates to that of the new adobe.
You don’t have to occupy every home, as the population grows they will become taken.
So basically, now you should have a working village….

Now that you’ve gotten this far, we’ve forgot one important item, the other gods creature. You should know how to write him in.
Curio, before you do, hit pause as you enter the map and go to the other god’s citadel. Then unpause it.

Things to do until I can get a lesson on object placement together.
Check out the script in your map, especially the other villages. Change the miracles of the villages to suite you. The other god has two villages. Rob him of one if you wish, using Find & Replace. Change Player_Two to Neutral. Or give him an other one.
Play around with object placement a bit by placing some streetlights or campfires in the villages.
As well as other items. Your village also need some more fields. Tip, fields are 10 by 10
Or create some flocks. Cows, pigs, etc.

Here are reference pics of each of the adobe styles. The first one shows the spacing used on all.

Celtic

African

Aztec

Japanese

Indian

Egyptian

Greek

Norse

Tibetan

 

[Artemus]

Woohoo XD Go Kays.
How'd you know I was gonna try to build my own map today ???
Awesome coincidence

 

[Kays]

I hope it's of some help.

I wrote that a very long time ago.

 

[Artemus]

I hope it's of some help.

I wrote that a very long time ago.

Oh yes X3 I'll most definitely use it... The scripting part of the map making might be a little to learn for me, but hey, can't be worse then SecondLife's Java/C++ (Or whatever the hell they made a hybrid of... I can't remember at this moment.) based LSL and I can write a lil of that stuff :happytears: