10 replies to this topic

[Fudge]

Hello Revorians! I hope you are all enjoying a pleasant Easter Sunday!

Welcome to my new tutorial series, beautifully named 'Scripting Test Area' (STA)

These tutorials are aimed at providing you with experience in scripting some of the most important aspects of any story based mission (from a group of enemy units attacking you to a cinematic) in bite-sized chunks that can be undertaken without causing you to curl up into a ball and cry for sweet relief - as I did many times when I was leaning through EA's campaign scripting.

Creating a script test map

 

Before you begin scripting however you must create a small, simple & pretty map in which to test your lovely scripts. This is one of the most essential things to any person new to scripting as it severely reduces map loading times - which you can spend a lot of time in when testing your map.

This map is then duplicated and scripted differently according to each individual tutorial, producing a catalogue of maps that define different aspects of scripting a story based mission.

 Creating this Map.zip   17.57KB   260 downloads

              

How scripts work and how they are created?

Below are two documents that describe and define each aspect of a script & team behaviours - for example they describe how to add a new team, open the scripting window, explain what 'subroutine' scripts are etc.

 EA & Fudges - Introduction to scripting.zip   294.46KB   311 downloads

Each Tutorial

Now the actual content of any particular tutorial (sorry I know there's a lot of rubbish to take in here) is a folder contains the following:

 

1) An 'STA - X' word document that describes:

1. '​The purpose' of this particular tutorial, which is essentially the learning objectives
2. 'The New tasks required' to edit and correctly set-up the base map (whatever test map you create)
3. 'Important things to observe' in which I identify the possible faults & highlight some of the most important learning features of any particular tutorial
4. 'Team Set-up & Conditions' this large table details each team, its composition & its behaviours
5. 'Scripts' this table names each script, as well as describing its settings, conditions and actions
6. 'How you could develop the map further' in this section I try to give you ideas as to how to broaden the scope of the map a little further and generally attempt to encourage you to undertake things that may be a little harder than that describe in the tutorial

2) Some photographs: simply to give you a bit of reference as to how the map should look.

 

3) A 'map.ini' file: It isn't within the scope of my knowledge to describe how map.ini works so I'm simply going to provide you with one for each tutorial.

 

4) An 'STA - X.scb' file: this contains the scripts, teams, players and scripted objects I detail so that if your having trouble creating a duplicate of the map I describe, you can simply import this script file into worldbuilder and observe first hand what I am saying.
 

Available STA tutorials:

 

 STA 02 - Attacking.zip   1.91MB   299 downloads - shows basic scripts: discovering an enemy (using areas, attacks & sighting), altering team behaviours, playing audio, setting flags & death counters, subroutine scripts & associated team scripting, victory & defeat scripts.

 STA 03 - Recruiting.zip   395.05KB   246 downloads - Very simple map: discovering an allied units, recruiting them, playing audio, setting flags

 

 STA 04 - Patrol.zip   403.67KB   258 downloads - One of my favourite scripts: involves setting up a simple patrol and guard looping script

 

 STA 05 - Cinematic Intro.zip   460.83KB   201 downloads - Advanced & extensive tutorial - although very rewarding: setting up a cinematic

Other
 

I would love it if you would post your questions here, request for specific tutorials, pictures of your maps or even your own scripted maps you've made using the tutorials - even if their rubbish!

I am going to do my best to create new tutorials every now and again, but I would of course very much appreciate some consideration in terms of the time my other commitments take up.

If you are totally confused and have no idea as to what I'm going on about please leave a comment and I'll try to explain this very bizarre tutorial system. Good luck!

Edited by Fudge, 03 May 2015 - 06:09 PM.

[MattTheLegoman]

Unfortunately I do not have the font that you used for normal text. I can still read it but it changes to a random Gothic font on my computer. =p

 

I want to add that this tutorial is of fantastic quality. The use of tables for describing the exact details of the scripts is brilliant! =D

Edited by MattTheLegoman, 06 April 2015 - 06:14 AM.

[Fudge]

Thanks for the feedback Matt! I'm glad you like the tables, god knows there was much debate as to how they were laid out! I'll try and find a nice standard font for the next one.

[MattTheLegoman]

Apparently my computer was missing a standard font. =p Have you thought about using PDFs?

[Fudge]

I've never made a PDF before, but I'll give it a go.

[Fudge]

New tutorial added: STA 04 - Patrol

This one involves setting up a series of basic subroutine scripts for team conditions, one of these subroutine scripts tells another script to run 'sequentially'. This script will then fire each action in the order listed, allowing you to set up a patrol involving patrolling, guarding, patrolling etc.

 

I've applied what I think is a standard font to the word document, however I haven't got round to attempting to create a pdf yet.

[Fudge]

New tutorial added: STA 05 - Cinematic Intro

The most extensive tutorial so far; certainly in terms of how much you have to do. However permitted you've completed all 4 previous STAs then it is very simple and the only new feature you'll be learning about is 'Edit Camera', which allows you to set-up camera positions.

Edited by Fudge, 03 May 2015 - 06:10 PM.

[Fudge]

Just to demonstrate what the latest tutorial aims to teach you, here's a demonstration of the scripts in action. The scripts themselves are included in every tutorial, so if you wish to learn by observation you need only import the script file into your map and all the Scripts, Players, Teams, Waypoints, Waypaths, Areas and Units are instantly added to your map.

[Fudge]

Sorry to bump an old topic, just indulging my own nostalgia! I just wanted to find out whether anybody ever actually found these useful? Personally looking back the layout is a right mess, but it would be interesting to know if anybody ever managed to learn something.

Videos would be far easier to follow!

Edited by Fudge, 07 October 2017 - 12:30 PM.

[MattTheLegoman]

It helps me and the sequential script idea helped with my Ruins of Ost-in-Edhil map.

[Mathijs]

Have you uploaded these tutorials, in decent formatting, to The3rdAge.net so they show up in our Tutorials section?

If not, that'd be a neat thing to do...