Tutorial: Creating a new & fresh gamesys

Judith on 18/9/2009 at 21:09

Great idea, doing this all manually is a chore.

Judith on 19/9/2009 at 10:00

For those who are lost in this technical babble: having your own gamesys is already a huge improvement. For instance, I'm saying: "hey, Ascottk, I got you some security camera meshes here, but I suck at all this Classes stuff. Can you make me some fancy security system out of this?" And he gives my meshes some AI behavior/alarm system, sends it back to me with his own gamesys, I'm just adding it to my default.ini packages and voila :) I wish we had this while making the Cabal. I really hope people will use this system while working in teams, which is kinda necessary if you want to pull off an FM which is both stuninng visually and gameplay-wise. Today's visual standards are pretty high, so if you don't want to make one FM within a few years, I'd recommend getting a sidekick ;)

And, actually I wish the same could be done with scripts, i.e. having your own folder for those, and the ability to exchange ideas between people without overwriting Triggerscript folder.

And last but not least, I'm still thinking about repackaging the Editor, making the "T3Ed - community edition", with improved interface functionality (resized windows, more context menu options), additional texture packs and meshes, swimmable water and security systems already in place, etc.

Ziemanskye on 19/9/2009 at 11:47

ascottk suggested this way back at the start of the cabal project.

I couldn't get it to replicate though. I could compile the new gamesys, put stuff in it, work with it in the editor, and then as soon as I tried to get the stuff to work in game (not play through editor) or on another computer, it just crashed out because it couldn't find the new stuff.

I will admit that I didn't try that hard to get it to work, and since it really was a few years ago I can't even claim what I tried, but the easy stuff I could think of didn't work (I even PM'd ascottk to ask him about it) so I gave up on the idea.

As for over-writing the triggerscripts? Maybe add an extra couple of lines to the .ini files for providing an extra directory or for them? I think that might annoy it in that it may only allow one path, but it might work.

Judith on 19/9/2009 at 12:19

I just found that you can do something similar with the scripts.

I opened Default.ini, found [ResPathsWhenNotBlockLoading] section, and changed the DefinitionsRuntime=tsd|TriggerScript\Judith (was Defs).

Then I scrolled down to [TriggerScript] section and changed the Definitions=tsd|Judith. When I fired up the editor, the standard triggerscripts were still loaded, but the new script I made was saved in the "Judith" folder. If only we could make it so the files aren't saved by the numbers like TS_4254.tsd but names of the scripts, it would be awesome.

I also deleted some unnecessary scripts, leaving only AI, CameraFunctions, Difficulty, GameObjects, TorchGuard and Weapons folders. It speeds up loading the triggerscript browser and T3ed as well.

Edit: As it goes for the names it's the tsid.txt file, which seems to be responsible for that. It contains two numbers 1 and 4254. I'm no sure what the first one does (maybe a bool value?) but the second is the last number of the script saved. So you can set it to 0 and your first saved script in your new folder should be named TS_1.tsd Always something, though it would be much cooler to have string names instead of numbers.

Edit2: I believe Flux mentioned that before, but you can also change Textures__p= and Textures__e= params to the same folder, so you don't have to put your dds files to both PCTextures (to see them ingame) and Textures (to see them under editor), saving your time and a lot of disk space.

New Horizon on 19/9/2009 at 13:20

Quote Posted by Judith

Edit2: I believe Flux mentioned that before, but you can also change Textures__p= and Textures__e= params to the same folder, so you don't have to put your dds files to both PCTextures (to see them ingame) and Textures (to see them under editor), saving your time and a lot of disk space.

I did that with my installer version of the editor. All the textures were kept in the pctextures folder.

Judith on 19/9/2009 at 14:06

That was a great idea :)

Beleg Cúthalion on 19/9/2009 at 15:52

I think this might be a good way to add all the T3EnhancEd stuff (Holy Water Arrows etc.) without losing custom actors. However, I wonder if we will have tons of extra...erm... "sub groups" within the gamesys or if the hierarchy will keep things clean and clear...?!

ascottk on 19/9/2009 at 17:41

Quote Posted by Beleg Cúthalion

That depends on the designer choosing whether or not to use the hierarchy.

An interface update for the T3Ed Class creator:
(http://img338.imageshack.us/i/t3edclasscreatorui1.jpg/)

Inline Image:

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/1552/t3edclasscreatorui1.th.jpg

Most if not all properties are in the treeview & has the comments from the devs with descriptions, & all of the links can be chosen. It doesn't do anything yet . . .

I could be a cheat & let people type in their own values or I could take the time to have value templates (i.e. if user chooses a property with a boolean value then the value box will show True or False). That'll take a lot of time though.

Judith on 19/9/2009 at 17:48

Looks promising, this will be a must-have app. Good thing I haven't started my new FM yet :]

massimilianogoi on 19/9/2009 at 21:00

Wow, cool! This deservers to be delved in the next days.