MonsterHunt Mapping Guide v0.8 By:Timmypowergamer

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Checkpoints

Post by K » Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:13 pm

::Checkpoints::
This section is to be completed at a later date. It will explain how to set up checkpoints in your map, so that
once a certain point has been reached the player will spawn there instead of at the beginning. Useful if you
have a very long map. Expect this on the next update.

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Advanced Trigger Systems

Post by K » Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:20 pm

::Advanced Trigger Systems::

Here I will explain some ways of combining some of the above actors into more complicated, but useful systems. All I’m talking about is combining the effects of various triggers to create a new effect. This way, mappers can create a sort of “Custom Trigger” without knowing any sort of coding or UnrealScript. It requires a bit of ingenuity and imagination, but there are some rather complicated effects that can be pulled off without writing a single bit of code. I will give an example of this that seems to pop up quite frequently on forums, involving counters and creaturefactories.
Now on to business.

A frequent problem that I’ve heard is how to get a counter to trigger after every monster from a CreatureFactory is killed. It seems like it would be easy to do, but because of the way the CreatureFactory works, it’s ctually somewhat complicated. A coder would simply re-write to CreatureFactory to support this, but most mappers don’t have that luxury. So here is an effective way to solve that.
The first thing to do is set up your creatureFactory. There should be a CreatureFactory actor, and several Spawnpoints that all have the same tag (as described in the above section). Once you have your CreatureFac working properly, its time to add a counter. Set the Tag of the counter to the same thing as the CF and Spawnpoints. So if the CF is named “pupae”, the counter should be named “pupae” as well. This is somewhat contrary to what most people would think, but trust me, it works.

Now you will have to set the NumToCount on the counter to the same thing as the Capacity of the CF, only +1. So if the Capacity of your creatureFactory is 30, set the NumToCount on the counter to 31. Then just set the Event of the counter to whatever you want (a door for example). When you run the map, the door will only open once every monster from the factory is dead.

The reason why this works, is because of the way the CF is coded. You see, every time a monster is spawned from the factory, that monsters Event is set to the Tag of the CF. When the monster dies it triggers
that event, this tells the CF to reactivate (unless it has reached its capacity already). So by setting the tag of the counter to the same thing, it in turn ALSO gets triggered each time a monster dies. The reason you have to add 1 to the NumToCount is to make up for the initial trigger, that activated the CF. Without it, the door would open after 29 monsters have been killed, because it had been triggered 29 times, plus the
time that started the whole process. That leaves one monster still running around.

Another thing you could do with this is have it so that monsters from 2 different factories must be killed before proceeding (say if you want 2 types of monsters attacking at the same time). This can be done
by repeating the process with the second factory, only instead of having the counters trigger a door, have them trigger another counter set to 2. That way, once both Factories have been exhausted and the monsters
killed, the door will open.

Like I said, you kind of have to use your imagination for these things. It also takes quite a bit of patience and determination. If you don’t understand any of this, or have something to add, please feel free
to let me know. I wasn’t even sure if I should talk about this or not (or what section it should go in) so please also let me know if it’s helpful.
Ok, that’s all for the Intermediate section of this guide (for now anyway). Next we will move on to some of the more technical and complicated things that can be done to your maps.

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Advanced Bot Support

Post by K » Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:21 pm

::Advanced Bot Support::

This will be completed at a later date. Bot support for MH is fairly tricky and requires some explanation.
Also, since not many people play MH with bots, im sure nobody will mind if this is left out for now.
However, I will say that adding bot support is not only a great way to test out your level for gameplay, but
it really shows you went the extra mile for your map. Anyways, more to come at a later update.

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Modifying Monsters

Post by K » Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:33 pm

::Modifying Monsters::

This is a great way to expand on the gameplay of MH, and
anybody can do it with a little knowledge. I will explain here
how to change the attributes of monsters, such as making
them larger and sronger, changing their skins and projectiles,
and sometimes even their behavior. None of this requires any
knowledge of coding or Uscript. The process of editing monsters
is really very simple, but to do it well you need to know
what everything does, and what you can and can’t change.

First of all, to modify a monster, it is as simple as adding one
to your map and opening its properties. There are many,
many different properties you can change for each monster,
I will go through as many as I can.

The 3 main changes most people make to their monsters
are size, health, and damage. To alter the size of a monster
you will need to expand the "display" tab in its properties. In
Display there are 3 fields you might want to change. The
drawscale field will alter the size of the monster. Changing it
to 2 will double the size of the monster, and 0.5 will half the
size. You can also change the skin that the monster uses.

Image

Simply select a texture in the texture browser and click use.
Most people will do things like making a Water Titan by applying
a water texture and setting style to Translucent. Its difficult
to make a proper skin for a monster, so unless you know
how to skin i wouldnt bother trying anything complicated.

Those 3 settings are the only ones you will most likely need
to change in the display tab.

To change the health of the monster, simply expand the
"pawn" tab and change the value for Health.
Keep in mind that the drawscale effects this value when
you are deciding its health.

Lastly, to change the damage a monster does, look for
a tab named after the monster you are working
on. So if you were modifying a krall you would expand
the "krall" tab. Inside there are modifiers for various
melee attacks the monster has. You can also change the
projectile the monster uses. Just expand the Combat tab and
change RangedProjectile to another projectile.

Image

They can be found (oddly enough) under "projectiles" in the
actor browser. You can also change other attributes such
as RefireRate, ProjectileSpeed, and Aggressiveness.
Most of the properties are fairly self-explanatory,
however if you are ever unsure you can look it up
in the Unreal Creatures Guide. Just about every
attribute of Scripted Pawns and unreal AI is described in it, so
it's your best resource if you are doing anything difficult.

There are limitations to this method of modification.
You can't modify monsters spawned from a creature
factory, or change the damage or skin of a projectile.
So here is a simple way to get around all that:
The first thing you need to do is create a new class. To
do that, just right-click the monster you want to edit in the
Actor browser and select New... Then in the window that
opens, enter "MyLevel" into Package, and give it a unique
name, then click OK. A blue window will open with your new
script in it. Just close it, you don't have to do any scripting for
this. Go back into the Actor browser and have a look at the
monster you are editing. Your monster will be a subclass of it.
Just right click-it and select Default Properties. Now you can
modify its properties just like you would a normal monster.
When you are done, just place the monster
somewhere in your map (or use it in a CreatureFactory) and
then save your map. Because you saved it to
the package MyLevel, you will not have to distribute any
extra packages with your map. You can also use
this same technique to modify Projectiles, Weapons,
and Pickups.

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Compressing Maps

Post by K » Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:39 pm

::Compressing Maps::

Most server operators will thank you if you include a compressed version of your map when you
release it. It saves them time and speeds up download times when playing online. There is a simple way
to compress your map, using a program that is included with UT called UCC. To compress a map using
UCC, you must open up a command prompt in windows, and navigate to your UnrealTournament/System
directory. Then type “ucc compress” and then the path to the map you want to compress. It would look
something like “ucc compress c:/unrealtournament/maps/mapname.unr”.

Now if you think that sounds like a lot of work, then you are right. Fortunately, there is a much easier
way.
Simply download this batch file and place it in your UnrealTournament/System directory. Then create
a new folder on the root of your C drive called “compress” (without quotes). When you are ready to compress
your map(s) simply copy them to the compress directory and run compress.bat (the batch file you
placed in your UT/System folder). You should also include any music, sound, texture, or .u files that your
map uses. When its done, there will be new files in the compress folder with the .uz extension. Simply
include those with the rest of your map files when you distribute it.

If you created the Compress folder somewhere other than C:\compress, then you will have to edit
the batch file. Simply right-click it and click edit, then change everything that says “c:/compress/” to the correct
path.
Skillz wrote:For linux and most likely mac's as well, the command parameters are:
/ucc-bin compress [pathtofile/filename.extension] -nohomedir
Just make sure that ucc-bin has write privileges, and the directory it's going to be copied to has write
privileges as well. Any user using Linux should know directory/file permissions. Wild cards are accepted
as well. So for example you can:
cd /System
/ucc-bin compress ../Maps/*.unr -nohomedir
It will compress every single map in the maps directory.
So there you go. If you are trying to compress on Linux or a Mac then that would be the process. Of
course, UnrealEd will not work on Linux so unless you are running a server then there is no reason to use
Linux for that.

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Credits

Post by K » Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:45 pm

::Contact Information::
timmypowergamer wrote:Thank you again for reading this guide. If you have any comments or suggestions (or spelling errors
to report ;) ) then feel free to contact me at timmypowergamer@shaw.ca, or message me on the Planet
MonsterHunt message boards: http://www.planetmonsterhunt.com/ .
As I said at the beginning of this guide, I will only answer questions directly regarding the information
in this guide. Questions about using UnrealEd, UnrealTournament or anything that you WOULD
ALREADY KNOW IF YOU TOOK THE TIME TO SEARCH FOR IT will be ignored. Spam or flame attacks
will not be tolerated either and will result in a ban from PlanetMH or (in the case of an email attack) legal
action.
The Planet Monster Hunt link is no longer good for it has shut down. But if you have any questions about the said material in this thread you can post questions right here on this forum section. We are all here to teach each other and to grow the MonasterHunt community. :D

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Credits

Post by K » Sun Nov 11, 2007 2:47 pm

::Credits::
timmypowergamer wrote: I would like to thank everyone at Planet MonsterHunt for patiently waiting for this guide. Thanks to
Shrimp and the entire original MonsterHunt team for this excellent Modification Special thanks go out to
Skillz for hosting this and for his excellent site. Also, I would like to thank everyone who has ever written a
tutorial for UnrealEd, for without them I would never have learned all this in the first place. If you feel that
your name should be on this list and I forgot you, feel free to contact me.

Copyright 2005 Evan Kawa (a.k.a. timmypowergamer)

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Re: MonsterHunt Mapping Guide v0.8 By:Timmypowergamer

Post by Hermskii » Thu May 07, 2009 11:20 am

This topic was locked and I don't know why. I suspect at some point that somebody asked me to lock it and I did but there is tons of great stuff here and I don;t see a reason to block people from adding to it so I unlocked it for the masses. If reading through it you find where I was asked to lock it, please point that section out to me so I can determine if I need to lock it up again. Thanks!
~Peace~

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Re: MonsterHunt Mapping Guide v0.8 By:Timmypowergamer

Post by Prowner » Wed Nov 25, 2009 10:29 pm

Maybe you mentioned this earlier in the tutorial and I missed it, but how do you add more lives for your player?
I will either save you or kill you, convince me otherwise.
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Re: MonsterHunt Mapping Guide v0.8 By:Timmypowergamer

Post by BIOMECH » Thu Nov 26, 2009 10:12 am

Um...
It's a server option, not part of the map.
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Re: MonsterHunt Mapping Guide v0.8 By:Timmypowergamer

Post by Prowner » Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:15 pm

Thanks!
But now something something really pissing me off....
All I want to do is delete this texture and remove it to start over, and I can't "[ctrl]-[Z]" because I saved the level and exited previously, and I was thinking this one should go... Why doesn't it go away? I tried reset, delete command, how? Am I missing the obvious...?
I will either save you or kill you, convince me otherwise.
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Re: MonsterHunt Mapping Guide v0.8 By:Timmypowergamer

Post by -HellFire- » Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:37 pm

Better read some tutorials about the basics first.

Gopostal gave me this link once and it really helped me alot.
http://www.birrabrothers.com/drac/ued2.html
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Re: MonsterHunt Mapping Guide v0.8 By:Timmypowergamer

Post by Prowner » Thu Nov 26, 2009 5:28 pm

Ugh... I've gone through all his tutorials... :lol: My first level consists of nothing else than just his tutorials in order. I threw in the teleporter tutorial to connect each of the rooms.
I will either save you or kill you, convince me otherwise.
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Re: MonsterHunt Mapping Guide v0.8 By:Timmypowergamer

Post by -HellFire- » Thu Nov 26, 2009 6:11 pm

If you know that then you really SHOULD be able to
All I want to do is delete this texture and remove it to start over, and I can't "[ctrl]-[Z]" because I saved the level and exited previously, and I was thinking this one should go... Why doesn't it go away? I tried reset, delete command, how? Am I missing the obvious...?
Image

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Re: MonsterHunt Mapping Guide v0.8 By:Timmypowergamer

Post by Blood Asp » Thu Nov 26, 2009 7:53 pm

M8 if u need any help add my MSN: EA_Elemental@hotmail.co.uk

I should be able to help ya out, i'm online sometimes ;)
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