New Tutorial Map

Discussion in 'Mapping' started by Kidpaler, Jan 30, 2017.

  1. Kidpaler

    Kidpaler Member

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    SO. The old tutorial map... there is no better word for it other than it is shit. It teaches you 2 things, how to build a building and throw a nade over a wall to kill a turret. Where is the fun in that? It teaches you NOTHING about any of the other classes, nothing about tank driving or making, and nothing about commanding.

    SO what does this all mean? It means new people, who play the tutorial, WILL NO LONGER BE USELESS!* This tutorial will go over what each class does, it's specialization, and when it is best to use it. So far, only the "infantry" portion is mostly done, but the tank and commander portion shouldn't take all that long.

    This "tutorial" will also feature some other cool things such as a shooting gallery to test out tank weapons, their arc etc, and figure out the "spray patterns" of infantry weapons. Also, I will try to include a cool "Operation" in which you can test yourself.

    Here are some screenshots of the basic infantry section.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Please note: Lighting is not finalized. This is very early and basic work of the areas.

    You will also be killing bots in this tutorial which will, hopefully, return fire. The map is setup so that you choose what you want to do in the main spawner area, then you get teleported to the specified module you selected. Hope this will help noobs.

    For Engineer: Destroy a turret, Build an Armory, build a breakable to get over a barricade.

    For Scout: Use hide to crouch and crawl past turrets, sab a turret, snipe a bot.

    For Grenadier: Kill an APC that is shooting at you.

    For Rifleman: Go ham on some bots and cap a point, which will end the Infantry Tutorial.

    Any suggestions on what else to "feature", please let me know!

    *So long as they actually play the tutorial
     
  2. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

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    Explanation on every grenade and weapon of every class.


    Scout sticky bombs short range
    rifle sticky boms short range
    grenadier RPG can be guided, mortar arch and has to be shot ducked
    engineer seizmics dont do damage, building turrets and walls. A good explanation on how to use walls and not for camping but for pushing
     
  3. Kidpaler

    Kidpaler Member

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    All that is planned in voice over. Hard to show that in the actual game, and without any triggerable event for me to call on.

    I will be trying my hardest to make this as comprehensive as possible.
     
  4. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    those dark/black textures, it might be because you use the model ones. make sure you use the ones from <empiresdir>\materials\imperial\buildings_worldgeometry - i think they come with empires now anyway, but if not i can upload them for you.

    the difference is the shader they use, worldgeometry uses "lightmapped generic" while models use "vertex lit generic".
     
  5. Kidpaler

    Kidpaler Member

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    This was just simple Vrad lighting for a quick compile I did to send it off to Thexa to work on getting the bots to work. Hopefully when I do a full compile with everything done it should look good.

    By the way, if you made those textures, nice job. They are the easiest to use to make a city.
     
  6. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    no i didnt make them, theyre just the building textures with a different shader. i made them for myself once (which bascially was nothing more than 2 batch jobs in vtfedit), but i think the ones included in the mod aint "mine".

    but yeah, theyre great for making buildings :D
     
  7. D.D.D. Destroyer

    D.D.D. Destroyer Member Staff Member Moderator

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    This is supposed to be empires 101, not a comprehensive guide to everything you need to know. It needs to be short and focused. You can't put too much into it or it'll bloat in size and become a drag to play.
     
  8. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

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    Every tutorial ive ever played has atleast explained every weapon and utility you have. This shouldnt be any different
     
  9. D.D.D. Destroyer

    D.D.D. Destroyer Member Staff Member Moderator

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    My experience of tutorials is as desribed already. However, as DT pointed out, there's no easy way to ensure people do these things properly. They can be mentioned, they can be pointed towards, they can be shown (via videos), but they can't be enforced.
     
  10. Kidpaler

    Kidpaler Member

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    The problem arises from triggerable events I can call. I'd love to show stickies, but unless we had bots driving around, which it's hard enough to get them to stand still and shoot, I can't accurately show the different types of sticky grenades. I can say what they do, but I can't show it.

    Same will go for tanks. I can't show everything sadly.
     
  11. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

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    Actually I think I know a way that could work.
     
  12. Kidpaler

    Kidpaler Member

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    And... what way is that? There is very limited hammer events that I can call on. For example, there could be an apc blocking their path that you say "kill this with stickies to advance", but seeing as it'd be a bot or a scripted apc, I can't enforce that.

    Another example, there isn't a trigger that I know I can call on for a turret being sabbed. So, I have to rely on the voiceover informing the player they CAN Sab buildings and them trying it out.
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2017
  13. LordDz_2

    LordDz_2 Strange things happens here

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    Phff noob.
    All you need for drivable vehicles is a couple of func_tanktrains, prop_dynamics with the model parented onto the func_tanktrain and an invisible textured func_breakable parented onto it.
    Sticky the func_breakable, voila, vehicle explodes!

    Or if you want to be cool, you just spawn a bot into a trigger_once which triggers a vehicle spawner.

    Then use a trigger_multiple with the chassis filter to check when the vehicle leaves the trigger.
    You have to set vehicle fading to 1 or it won't work until the corpse is away.
     
  14. NekoBaron

    NekoBaron Member

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    Make rifleman the starting class, have the class change point be an unbuilt armoury so they have to painfully E build it and change their class inside, then change them to engineer so they see how much better it is to build with.
     
  15. Kidpaler

    Kidpaler Member

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    Hmm. You're right. I did do that for the "sniping" portion, but I will be removing that once the bot's are in.

    Also, I will probably need help for some portion of the commander tutorial. Would you have any idea how to get it to seem like buttons are being highlighted, IE research?

    Edit: The commander tutorial will feature some level of bots and ordering them where to go as well so it will be much better than people are probably thinking. I just need some way to "highlight" the buttons to make it easier to find them.
     
  16. Kidpaler

    Kidpaler Member

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    Regarding the Rifleman first, the voiceover will clearly say to play Engineer if you are starting. This tutorial should take a brand new person 5-10 minutes teaching them the absolute basics. Yea E building is a basic, but it'd be nice to get them to know that Engineer is the best class for noobs more wouldn't it?
     
  17. LordDz_2

    LordDz_2 Strange things happens here

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    For the actual commander gui, no you can't change it with hammer.

    If you show the commander gui in front of the player, you can just use func_brushes, chop into into pieces and just color the research options you don't want the player to use, darker.


    A hint for them that they can change class quickly using the hotkeys would be nice too..
    (B, G, A = Select class, grenadier, accept) and that they should change class to what happens would be nice.

    Far too often I see engineers next to a barrack deconning tanks..
     
  18. Kidpaler

    Kidpaler Member

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    Yea I could do that I guess. Damn. Oh well. Same will probably have to happen with the Tank building tutorial.

    Could you show an image in front of the player in place of the text that you did on Minigames? If so, we could do a "moving" image to show them where to click. This might actually be the best option as it would allow for them to see where to click via a small "video"
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2017
  19. LordDz_2

    LordDz_2 Strange things happens here

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    Yeah, all you need is a transparent .vtf, a .vmt with some special settings and an env_overlay in the map.
     
  20. NekoBaron

    NekoBaron Member

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    But if you do them in the suggested order you could be suggesting the first class is shitty easy for noobs and the best play rifleman because its the last thing you teach, actually it would be best to just have 4 areas and let them decide the order then open a final gate when they do all 4 others.
     

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