SOM Tutorial

[dmpdesign]

Soon I will have a step by step tutorial/manual for using the SOM tool, as well as guides to download and share addons.

In the meantime, check the main page www.swordofmoonlight.com for updates on the SOM sections.

Please check back soon.

[ToxicMinotaur]

Might be stupid question but I'm new to game making so...
Whenever I test a map I find that nothing likes to fully render till I'm right on top of it. I know I'm just not setting something correctly but I need some help.
Thanks.

[dmpdesign]

It could be several things, but first, let me know the system specs of the machine youre running on...and what version of direct x youre using.

Secondly, check the map settings option, and see what your draw distance is, and your fog distance is and so on. I recommend starting with a draw distance of about 25.

Thirdly, SOM has some quirks, and if you leave blank sections on the map between two sections you won't see the section beyond the blank gap until youre right up on it. To fix this problem (if you want a blank gap) use the dummy no collission map piece located toward the bottom of the set.

If none of this stuff has helped, I will need more details about what youre making.

[ToxicMinotaur]

Ok...specs
XP home SP2
2.16 GHz
512mb RAM
Direct X 9.0a
NVIDIA GeForce 4 something?

Draw dist. 30
Fog opts. all at 0
No blank spaces between filled spaces

If I left something important out sorry.
Thanks for helping

[dmpdesign]

Sorry I didnt reply sooner.

Change your fog distance to .5 or about halfway up the bar. If its set at 0 I think that means it begins fog immediately and might have something to do with the fact your game looks odd.

If it still looks weird, set your draw distance to something huge like 100 and test again.

If none of this helps, we will need to get down to more specifics. Which map parts are you using to construct the map? is it an indoor or outdoor scene? Have you placed any objects on the map? Have you made sure to enable direct3d before running the actual test for the map?

[Holy_Diver]

I'm sort of hamstrung, but I finally got SoM on a computer that will work all the way with it (WinXP with hardware accelerated graphics disabled -- for the map graphics preview box)

Anyway, the map-editor seems like a nightmare. I will look for some tutorials but in the meantime I could use any advice in using it. For one, just clicking on the map tends to scar the map by default!? With only one chance to undo. I will try to look for guides, but it seems hard to just pick a square and find out what is going on there...

From the looks of games like DoM I would guess you can layer map elements somewhat, but on the other hand I'm not so sure. Anyway, whoever thought of this way of creating a level must've been a sadist

PS: Are there really no hotkeys?? Do you really have to do everything with a mouse!? And how do I copy a tile, if clicking on it immediately changes it (oh, nvm... discovered shift+click...)

[Holy_Diver]

^Update: I'm getting the hang of it, but I feel totally limited by the tile selection. If only tiles had multiple layers I feel like there would be a world of possibilities. I loaded Tom's DoM map, and I'm using the tiles I'm given... my guess is that is probably the complete tiles set that comes with SoM, but if not, maybe I should look for more.

Is there a tile composer tool at least?? At any rate, it seems like so much could've been done, if SoM just let you work with shapes, and choose from a number of textures from shapes, and then let you layer elements, like walls, ontop of grass, and such. Maybe if walls were in the list of obstacles (like barrels / if they're not) we could get something like that going. Otherwise seems like the best thing to do sticking with this paradigm is quadruple the tile selection (if even possible)

Maybe instead of remaking SoM, we could start by just making new SoM tools... as soon as we can crack the file formats that is.

[dmpdesign]

I agree whole heartedly about the map pieces, the lack of layers or what i call tiered map tiles is completely weak...but it was designed to emulate KF1 which did not use multi-tiered map tiles either (what a shame this tool wasnt designed for KF2 or 3).

There is hope...through great efforts you can create map pieces that have high walls, multiple tiers and rounded graphics, but i am not exaggerating when i say 'great efforts'

the 50 some piece set I created just to emulate the outside cliffs of KF3's high elf ruins took a VERY long time to make, and they still have bugs and dont look that great.

I would gladly volunteer my time to create some multi tiered cave and castle sets except there is a huge limitation to SOM's map part capability in that it can only hold like 1024 pieces.

Granted, many of the sets in the tool to begin with are simple reskins of the other sets (5 repeats in all I think?) and it would probably be useful to eliminate a few of the repeats and utilize the 100-200 extra map tiles to create something epic..something I will likely do...but only after i finish DD as it is currently utilizing tiles from every set available..and i dont want to mess that up.

For now, monkey with the custom snow and cliff set I made, get the hang of using the 'activity' option so you can see a close up of whats going on at the tile level, then when i get finished with DD I will work on getting some better map pieces to load for a new project.

[Holy_Diver]

Yeah, there really needs to be a huge collection of tile sets, and some way to shop for just the sets you want to use in a given game. The number of tiles I'm seeing is way more than you need for a game (I'd be interested to know how close the default set is to the max number of tile limits)

Truth is though it should be possible to make tools that pretty much achieve all of this, then spit out a tileset based on your choices. The only problem then is working with them (but of course you could even replace the map editor completely so you didn't even have to think in that paradigm)

I gotta admit though, if not for SoM I never would've thought making a 3D games with the old school tile thinking would be possible. It's very charming in a way.... and seems to work very well for this sort of game...

It sort of reduces making the game to a mini-game, which is always handy when you want game-tools to catch on with non-game-making-professionals. I won't say it's efficient in and of itself, but it is a sort of equalizer.

[dmpdesign]

original set uses just over half the total available slots (somewhere in the 600 range)

The outside set, castle set, houses and moats add another 250ish parts. So with everything from Johns site or my installation batch file, you are left with around 300 tiles...bad thing is, some of the available slots are in between other sets so to keep any new tiles sorted together on the editor, you really want enough open space to keep them by each other, which means numbering them after the 860 range. So I think 1024 is the max, will ask John, and that makes 1024-860 = 164 left to tinker with. If you install my snow/cliff that only leaves you with around 80 to use.

My recommendation is to toss out some of the repetition sets, maybe from 400-600 part numbers.