im feeling ambitious, so im gunna learn hammer just to make a tutorial map. its gunna be a northern faction training camp, that way it doesnt have to look like a profesional boot camp. any sugestions, ideas, or other coments please post in this thread. my plan is to start as enginer and have diferent prebuilt armories to change class to perform different objectives. wish me luck (and more importantly, patience). *a few hours later holy jesus on a cracker, how do yall do it(rhetorical) i looked at some of the tuturials mentioned on butterylobsters basic questions thread and some helped a bit but uh, could someone post a empire specific one on the wiki so i can figure out what going on (it took me 15 mins to understand that those grids are looking at the 3 different axises (axi?), and if one is posted please point me in the right direction.
Don't start off with that training map right away, follow some basic tutorials at interlopers.net first make some basic rooms, learn how to aply texture, figgure out how to compile and the scale, thats allways the easyest way to start mapping, and tend to be the way that actually won't cause you to qouit out of frustration when you got the basic, go ahead and build that training camp To get a working map in empires you need spawnpoints for both teams, this can be done by placing two prebuilt barracks from eatch team (emp_imp_building_barracks, emp_nf_building_barracks or somthing) You also need a enity called Emp_info_params
I don't think the empires wiki is the place for basic mapping tutorials, there are many other places which can do a far better job of it. Perhaps more links to tutorials are needed though, I'll look into it. For now, here's a nice site which consolidates lots of different resources. Unfortunately it's quite old, so some lead to 404's.
i found a tutorial for making "your first room" and by playing with that i learned alot, i know not near everything ill need but alot. thanks for the info on makeing an empires specific map, that will come in handy when i get to it in a few hours/days/weeks. this is my basic plan, start in a base with a ref, a barracks, a radar, and an armory and have signs telling what each building does. to get out you have to build an unbuilt bridge, or tear down part of a wall (like in the end of escort). then have a number of turrets set up, 1 at a time, that you have to get past, with a sign telling you what class to try and get past it with (and an armory to change class in). after every "trial" you will have a flag to capture. once 10 xp is gained, advanced trials will start to use skills (go through a mine field using disarm, sneak past turrets as scout, ect). eventually you will come to an open feild with the com and a res node and will be told to make a vf to destroy an enemy base that is swamped in MGs so you will almost have to use a tank. the only problem i can think of, non-technical of course, is what to do with a rifleman other than killing a MG with nades, and target practice. i am definatly going to need some custom intaties(sp) though: many signs that tell what to do (ex: "use a scouts hide skill to sneak past these turrets"), or one sign that i can put different text on every time it is placed on the map. also some sort of target for weapons practice, i was thinking a stuffed dumy in a BE uniform. i was also planing on changing the discriptions for the two teams in the change teams menu. the NF discription would be basic commands and the BE discription would highlight the diferences between the teams (i know there arnt huge ones now, but mabey in a patch or two). so im gunna need info on how to do those 2 things, or someone could make them for me and i could just place them in the map. 1 question for either a dev or official tester: is it intended for an engi to run inside the range of a mg turret and unbuild, or should i leave it out? and no, im not going to run at this head first. i know this is a huge task for someone who's only experince with any mapping is for d&d and starcraft, the first step is definatly to figure out what im doing.
Sounds like an awesome idea! Be sure to get the basics of all the bonuses and strategies of the engineer down. Most people hardly ever use their ability to put reconnaissance down, or use their walls to change the battlefield. Devs, like in Hidden, you should have to go through this map before you get to play online! That would eliminate 99.9% of the newbies
just to keep everyone up to date on hwo im doing, my next goal is to make a very simple, functioning empires map. i know it may be a bit early, but better to early than too delay the release of the map, is there anyone out there who can make me some custom entities? i would do them myself, but it is taking more work than i thought just doing the map itself so i dont want to get burnt out learning that as well. in the opening post i listed some i will need, but tell me if your interested and ill PM you a more complete list.
I only read your first post (in a hurry), so I don't know how your progress is coming, but if you need help with hammer, I can link you to some very good Hammer Video tutorials that will teach you the basics, and some of the advanced.
i have a basic understandeing of hammer now, and can even make a working empires map (the walk through on the wikki is very good). all i need to do is learn how to make it look presentable, hills, dust, ect. and im good to start working on the actual map. i am going to need help with intaties(sp) though. if its really simple ill do them myself but sense this is the only map i plan on making, i would apreceate someone taking care of that for me.
