d'Spair on 4/3/2005 at 14:53

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PART 2: MISSION OBJECTIVES (CHAPTER 1). BASIC CONVERSATIONS, SCRIPTS, TRIGGERS AND FLAGS KNOWLEDGE.

2.1: Planning Objectives.

OK, now nothing stops us, and we are to move on to objectives. Due to some engine and game design decisions in Deadly Shadows, this process is a bit more difficult than in Thief 1 and 2 (crap, it actually was quite difficult in the first two games!) In Thief 3, there are two types of objectives you can have in your mission: the actual mission goals and the objectives (or restrictions) determined by difficulty levels. Remember Original Missions? For example, in each of OMs you had goals of this type: “Get 90% loot”, “Steal 3 Special Items”, “Don’t kill unarmed” and so on. All those goals are not actual mission goals, but the goals set by Expert difficulty level. But there are also special mission goals, like “Steal Bloodline Opal” or “Find Compendium of Reproach”. You have to understand the difference between those two types of objectives (as you probably know, in DromEd there is no objective division of that kind).

There’s also a big plus in this system: you don’t have to manually set different goals for different skill levels (unless you want to do this), all is set automatically.

But let’s start with some quite simple things: adding local mission objectives. This process is quite simple and very well described in the brilliant David’s tutorial. I’ll try to add something to this text, though.

In our mission, we’re going to have four local objectives:
- Get inside the bank;
- Steal the valuable goblet (once you do this, the objective number 3 becomes visible);
- Push the very important button (invisible at the beginning of the mission);
- Get out of the Bank, once you’re ready.

We’ll set up those objectives just for you in order to understand the basic mechanics of objectives system. There are some common things with objectives in Thief 1 & 2, but there also many differences.

2.2: Setting Up Local Objectives.

As far as your mission can be (and is) split into a few parts, the goals now are not linked to certain levels. The idea is simple: when the player starts the mission, the special trigger turns the goals active. When the player does something in the game world (takes the goblet, pushes the button), another special script turns one particular objective completed. This way you can move between levels successfully, and your objectives will work.

Objectives are connected with the Conversations system. Don’t worry: we will have nothing to do with speech or something. Conversations determine the order of actions that take place in the game. In our case, those actions are goals turning active for the player.

In T3Ed, press View > Conversations. You will see the Conversation Editor window split into two parts: the left-hand and the right-hand. In the left hand, expand to PlayerGarrett and select Conversation > Add from the top menu.

Set Conversation Name to “BankObjectives”. Left Conversation Owner for “PlayerGarrett”. Under “Usage” window, press the “Add Map” button. You will see the list of mission names. In the top line, write “Bank” and press “Add Map” button to the right. Now select your “Bank” mission from the list and click “OK”. In the “Usage” window, your “Bank” mission now should present. Also, in Options turn on the “Remain in First Person” setting. Very good, now press “OK” and return to Conversation Editor window. As you can see, the new “BankObjectives” conversation appeared under “PlayerGarrett” branch. In the right-hand window, right-click and choose Add > Goal.

Set Goal Name to “objGetInside”. Turn off “Do this objective last” option. Initial state should be set to “Pending” “Objective”. In “Goal Text”, enter the following text: “Find the way to get inside the Bank… There should be two ways, through the basement or via Bank East Wing.” Press “OK” button.

[Note: After you have clicked “OK” button, Schemas may start loading… It will take a few minutes (there are more than 15000 schemas) and it’s quite annoying, but don’t worry – just wait for the end of this process.]

Now use the same method and add three more objectives:

Number two: Set Goal Name to “objStealGoblet”. Turn off “Do this objective last” option. Initial state should be set to “Pending” “Objective”. In “Goal Text”, enter the following text: “There are quite a few valuable items in this Bank, but the infamous Golden Goblet should be the most important for a man like you... Locate the Goblet and take it.” Press “OK” button.

Number three, this is our invisible objective: Set Goal Name to “objPushButton”. Turn off “Do this objective last” option. Initial state should be set to “Hidden” “Objective”. In “Goal Text”, enter the following text: “Oops, it seems that the alarm systems noticed that the Goblet is missing, and all the ways out are now closed. You have to find the secret button that reopens the gates!” Press “OK” button.

Number four, the last objective: Set Goal Name to “objGetAway”. Turn ON “Do this objective last” option. Initial state should be set to “Pending” “Objective”. In “Goal Text”, enter the following text: “Once you have retrieved the Golden Goblet, find your way out of the Bank and escape unnoticed.” Press “OK” button.

Very good, the goal parameters are set, but don’t hurry up. As you remember, in Original Missions we also have some useful tips and hints that are displayed in the Objective screen. Let’s do the same for our mission. Now right click and Add > Goal again.

Set Goal Name to “objNote1”. Turn off “Do this objective last” option. Initial state should be set to “Pending” “Note”. In “Goal Text”, enter the following text: “The alarm systems in this Bank are quite tough... You may experience some serious problems while travelling inside the building.” Press “OK” button.

Now add another note, named “objNote2”, with this text: “The Bank is full of wealth. You're going to have a lucky night.”

Ok, now we are ready. In the right-hand menu, right-click and Add > End (left Event Label field emty). Make sure that the End event is in the very bottom of your Conversation! Now in the top menu, press File > Save, then File > Compile (in the popup window choose “Yes”) and File > Export Mission Objectives. Close the Conversation Editor window.

Now we actually have texts and data for our objectives, but we have to make our mission know about that. First of all, we have to add one script.

Open the Trigger Script Manager. Expand to Missions and, when Missions is highlighted, press “New” button to the left. Set script’s name to “ObjInitialize” Press “Conditions” button and select Scripts > When map starts, arriving from a different map. Press “OK”. Now press “Actions” button and select Conversations > Queue conversation [String] to play. Now in the main Trigger Script window, left click on the blue [String] word and select “BankObjectives” from the list. Press “OK” twice to get back to the Trigger Script manager window (if you wish, you may group all scripts for your Bank mission in the separate folder. To do this, select your “ObjInitialize” script and press the “Group” button. Enter “Bank” in the Group Name. Now you have the separate branch in Missions > Bank. It’s much easier to add your custom scripts there in order not to spoil another folders). Now press “OK” button and wait for the scripts to save.

Finally, in T3Ed, open your Bank1 map. Add Property > Scripts > TriggerScripts to your MissionStart point. In “TriggerScripts” line, press the “Add”, then “…” button and find your “ObjInitialize” script. Highlight it in the TriggerScripts manager and in your Properties window, press “Use”. Finally! Save and export the map.

Well, let’s see what we have now. When the player starts the Bank1 map, the ObjInitialize script triggers the conversation named “BankObjectives”. This conversation adds goals to the game. Easy, isn’t it?

Now quickly start the game and enjoy. Even before starting your “Robbing The Bank” mission, you are now able to read the texts for three objectives (“Get inside”, “Take the Goblet” and “Escape”, the Button objective is invisible right now) and for two Tips. Oh yeah. Start the game and go to Objectives screen. The same! Very good. Try to move between the levels and check your goals – they present! There’s only one problem now – they are not working, haha. You cannot complete those objectives. You also have no objectives determined by the difficulty level (i.e. “Get 40% of loot”, “Steal 1 Special Item” etc). We’re going to solve both problems just about now.

Now you have to create some actions in the game that will trigger and set your goals to completed. Let’s do it.

2.3: Creating An Objective “Steal The Thing”; Creating An Invisible Objective (Beginning).

Let’s start with the Goblet objective, it’s very easy to do. Open your Bank2 map and add Actor > WorldObj > InventoryObject > Loot > GobletLootDiamond somewhere on your map. Now open Trigger Script Manager and add the script called “GobletTaken”. Under Conditions, use Frob > When I am frobbed by player. Under Actions, set Goals > Set goal [objStealGoblet] to [kGS_Success]. Then, add another action: Goals > Set goal [objPushButton] to [kGS_Pending]. Ok, now save this script and go back to the main editor window. Now add this Script to your goblet.

La dee da. Start your mission. When you move to “Bank East Wing” and take the Goblet, the second objective “Take the goblet” will be completed, and you will be given another additional objective: “Push the button”. Take note that all the objectives work properly even if you move between the maps.

2.4: Creating An Objective “Frob The Button”; Creating An Invisible Objective (Continuation).

Now for the Button objective. The method is absolutely similar. Make the script that will turn the goal named “objPushButton” to [kGS_Success], when the player frobs this button. Add this script to the button then. Place the button on the Bank3 map.

Now if you start the game and take the goblet, the hidden objective will appear. Then if you go to Bank Basement and push the button, the third objective will be completed.

NB: This system is actually not bugless. For example, try to frob the button BEFORE you take the goblet. You will see that the third objective will turn visible and completed simultaneously. Then go and take the Goblet, and the third objective will reset to incompleted. Another attempts to frob the button won’t help, and you will not be able to finish the mission, as a result. If you really want to make this system work as it should, you have to mess with additional triggers and flags system (When the player takes the Goblet, a special flag is set to True. The “Push the button” objective is set completed only when the player frobs the button AND the flag is set to True).

2.5: Creating An Objective “Enter The Place” For Different Maps. Flags system.

Well, now let’s start setting the objectives that are connected with going to somewhere. The objective “Get inside the bank” will turn to completed when you reach one of two different areas. Let the first one will be placed at the entrance to the Bank2 map, and the second one – at the entrance to the Bank3 map. This way, when the player moves to either map Bank2 or Bank3, the objective triggers to completed.

Remember the Castle Thief 3 Original Mission. You have three ways to get inside the castle: through the open window, via main gate and via the back door that the cook opens (once you set off the torch). Once you have entered the building, the objective is set to completed. Even if you leave the castle then and try to get inside via the other ways, nothing will change (once completed, the objective can’t be completed again).

In this mission, the authors used a very good method. They have placed three volumes at the entrances to the castle. They also placed a special actor on this map and made three TriggerScript links from this actor to each of the volumes. The actor has a script that turns the “Enter the Castle” objective completed when the player breaches one of the volumes linked to the actor (erm, I hope you follow me).

This is definitely a good method to make “Enter the place” objectives, but only if we deal with one single map. In our case, we’re going to place our entrance volumes at two different maps, so this method will not work.

Right now we’re going to deal with Flags. The Flag system adds a whole new dimension to the scripting system and give great results if set properly. Open View > Global Variables > Flags. Now we have to add our own flag. Call your new flag “BAN_BankEntered” and press the “Add” button. Close this window.

Now let’s add another script called “BankEntered”. Under Conditions, set “When linked volume(s) [MYSELF] are breached by [Category_Player]” and “Query if flag [BAN_BankEntered] is set to [FALSE]”. Under Actions, put “Set goal [objGetInside] to [kGS_Success]” and “Set flag [BAN_BankEntered] to [TRUE] expires on map change [FALSE] expires on mission [1]”.

Now open the Bank2 map. Place a volume close to the Teleport destination that leads from the Bank1 level, so that the player enters this volume right after he had entered the Bank2 map. Now add this “BankEntered” script to this volume. Rebuild, save and export this map. Now open the Bank3 map and put another volume close to the entrance from Bank1, add the same “BankEntered” script to this volume. Go in the game and move to either Bank East Wing or Bank Basement. As soon as you get there and make a few steps, your “Get inside the bank” objective should turn to completed.

Pay attention: once your objective is complete, entering the other volume in the next map won’t do anything. Once the objective is set to completed, it can’t be completed again. The scheme is extremely easy: at the beginning of the mission, the flag “BAN_BankEntered” is set to False. When you enter one of the volumes, the script checks, if the flag is set to False (it is), and then sets the objective completed and set the flag to True. Then when you enter another volume, the script notices that the Flag is already True, and blocks the signal.

2.6: Creating The Final Objective “Escape When You Are Ready”.

Alright, now we have only one last objective to set up: “Escape when you’re ready”.

It’s quite easy do. In your Bank1 map, make a little niche – it will be the area the player need to enter in order to escape. Now surround this niche with a volume. Create another script called “Escape”, with Conditions “When linked volume(s) [MYSELF] are breached by [Category_Player]” and “Query if all goals are completed or cancelled, exclude hidden [TRUE] ? include ‘do last’ goals [FALSE] ?”, and Actions “Set goal [objGetAway] to [kGS_Success]” and “End Mission [TRUE] successfully” and “Reset script conditions and actions”. Now add this “Escape” script to this volume. Actually, that’s it.

NB: You may have noticed that we have to make this script in spite of the fact that we have set our “Escape” goal to Last. It seems that this Last flag on an objective actually does nothing except putting the text of that objective to the very bottom of the Objectives screen in the game. So, don’t be fooled: even if you set your goal to Last in the Conversations menu, it will still be able to be completed before the other objectives are done.

If you go in the game now, you will find out that your last “Escape” goal can be completed only when the other objectives are already completed. Moreover, when you enter the final escape zone, you will be asked if you want to finish the mission. If you decide not to do it, you will be able to continue playing, wondering around the mission, and then you can get back to this escape zone and finally leave the mission (that’s why we put this “Reset” action at the end of the script Actions tree).

Finally you can finish your mission and read the Debriefing text you have written long ago!

Ok, but you’re still not satisfied, are you? You can’t choose difficulty levels. You have no “Don’t kill unarmed” or “Steal 90% loot” objectives. Can you live with it? Of course you can’t. Then welcome to the next chapter!

I hope that now you begin to understand that proper usage of Conversations\Links\Triggers\Scripts\Flags system may give you some really awesome results. Yeah.

d'Spair on 4/3/2005 at 14:59

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PART 4: SETTING UP STARTING INVENTORY

Drink a cup of tea, make a break, or go sleep (it’s even better) – we’re going to finish our efforts quite soon. Only two important things left: creating the default inventory and mission release.

David from TTLG has already explained how inventory works. Unfortunately, his method is not very helpful if we’re launching our mission via the “New Game” button.

Open our poor Entry map again. Find the EnterMissionInfoInn actor and go to its Properties > EnterMissionInfo > EnterMissionDefaultInventory. Here it is, the place where we modify a starting set of tools Garrett has when the mission starts. You have to add items by manually typing their names, so in order not to make a mistake, open Actor > WorldObj > InventoryObject and find those items you want to give the player. Remember how they are named and type those names EXACTLY in the EnterMissionDefaultInventory fields. “Num”, of course, is the number of tools available, but you can’t use the number that exceeds the “MaxInventoryStack” for that item (it’s set in the Gamesys).

For example, if you want to add two Noisemaker Arrows, you should put “NoisemakerArrow” to the “ItemName” field, and “2” to the “Num” field (MaxInventoryStack for Noisemaker Arrows is 5). Easy!

You have noticed that the player already has a blackjack, a dagger and 10 Water arrows. You can change it here.

There are some tutorials on giving the player lockpicks and upgrades – they should help you. We’re not going to discuss it here.

NOTE: There’s a strange bug connected with this system. Before starting the mission, go to the “Gear” screen. You’ll see that not all the items are present here. Some bombs or other things may be missing. However, during Restart no bugs of that kind occur.

Once you’re done, Save and Export the map. Go and check your brand-new inventory in the Game. Bring ‘em hell!

darkcosmos on 4/3/2005 at 15:53

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Wow, very impressive! Can't wait to work through it tonight...

It is very well organized and easy to follow. The only confusing thing I found is in part 2.6 on creating the Exit objective. Where you have "create a little inch", I'm wondering if perhaps you meant "little niche"?

I almost hope you stay ill a little longer to give us more great tutorials! ( :ebil: I'm just kidding)

deadman on 4/3/2005 at 16:08

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Just a quick note; are you talking about the method outlined in the release document that talks about creating a shortcut to T3.exe and adding an argument to load a specific mission outside of the editor? If so, this worked fine for me.. I just created a shortcut and added the name of a map (i.e., Tutorial5) outside of the parentheses. When I double-click the shortcut, it loads the map, giving me an alternative to doing it through the editor. It's supposed to work differently? :confused:

Again, just a quick note. I'm not even far enough in this editor to be reading the rest of this :joke:.

deadman.

rujuro on 4/3/2005 at 16:34

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If I remember from the post where this was all being discovered, d'Spair found that there were errors when moving between two maps that were introduced when running with the command argument.

oops, simultaneous