Making a mission

Before we begin, it is important to note that missions can be loaded in as either day or night. The time of day you choose to load only affects how the map looks in the game view window. This is needed when you want to create a special nighttime look. To be honest, every map maker should want to do this as nighttime offers you the chance to show off.

Step 1: Mission properties

Probably the most important part of the Mission editor is Mission properties so we will quickly run through its basic features now so you understand what is going on.

Name

As the name suggests is your map name, in all cases the Use name in game (also available in other windows too) will force Mechwarrior 4 to use the name you type in as the name displayed for the map. This is useful for objects you place on the map which we will talk about later.

Group Member

This lists all objects in the game but for our purposes, we are only interested in Ambient Light and infinite light. Nighttime will only have Ambient light listed. Remember these exist, we will get back to these later.

Mission Options

These options enable Nighttime lights for Bots, and Respawn options as default.

Heat sink efficiency

This is the temperature on the map. 1 is used by Bigcity and is the normal setting. 1.3 is used by Lunacy and is very cold. 0.7 is used by Dustbowl and is very hot.

Supported gametypes

This is where you add the games you want to support. Even custom gametypes like those written by mechstorm can be added from here. It is fairly easy to use, you simply move the gametypes you want to support from left to right. Custom gametypes must be copied to your maps script directory before they will appear on the list. You then choose one of the custom gametype sections that best describes the new gametype and add them. Next you select that custom category and click on select scripts to get the script you want to assign to it. Each category can only have 1 script assigned to it. Which is why my team King of 2 Hills is not listed under custom undefined any more.

A bug in the editor means each time you reload your map, the number of teams set on this part of mission properties is reset. If you then save the map, the editor tries to add 8 more times to it. To avoid this, simply enter supported gametypes and manually set the number of teams your map supports each time you reload your mission. This will avoid the bug.

Skies and Weather

Here you choose your day and nighttime skies. Custom skies will also appear on this list. Weather brings up a list of in game effects. The only two you should pick from that list is Rain or Snow. Ignore the rest. This is how you get weather to work on your map and it is only visible in the game if weather is enabled in the server.

Fog

This is where the fun begins. You can set the starting distance fog starts to have an effect on visibility and the end distance where it completely blocks visiblity. 1000 meters is the normal visible distance but you can sent the end fog settings to 300 if you wish, creating a pea soup effect. Increasing the start fog distance to 600 makes your map look very clear up to 600meters which is when the fog starts to appear. You can set the values for 3 different levels of fog, these are used when fog is enabled on the server. General fog is the normal fog used when fog is not enabled on the server.

Another really neat feature is Fog height. We have seen above how fog affects the distance you can see but fog height allows you to create a ground fog effect, sort of like mist on a swamp. the minimum height needs to be the same height as your terrain. You may need to experiment to find the right starting height. The end height can be used to set the max height the ground fog will reach. If you set this to about 10 or 20 higher than the the start height you can have misty valleys which look really cool on some maps.

Opacity allows you to set the fog density. Low numbers like 0.1 mean you will hardly see the fog at all whereas a setting of 0.9 will make a very think fog bank on your map.

Step 2: Placing objects on the map

Object placement is achieved via the use of 2 windows and checked when using the game view window. Using all 3 of these avoids what we at mechstorm call floaters and allows you to exactly place each item on the map. Each object also has an object properties window which you can view by double clicking on the object directly.

Use name in game

Again we see the use name in game. You can add custom names to objects using this but no two objects can have the same custom name. So if you`re adding 3 Thors to the map, don`t give them custom names or the game will add 0001 0002 0003 to the end of the names you have chosen.

Snapping, position and rotation

This allows objects to stick to the ground. On flat surfaces this works great but on hills you might want to use the box in this section to modify the default height the object is at. A -1 lowers the object slightly below the current surface height. A + 1 will raise it.In some cases it`s wise to untick this option and use the boxes below to manually place an object. The Box Y decides the height if you have to do that, the rest control facing, patch and other such items. Have a play, you soon see how it works. The camera options at the bottom can be used to view the object in the game view window to make sure its not floating and looks right.

Gametype Resources

Everything below this concerns AI units, all AI units are setup from here. To use them see the chapter that deals with AI Brain files later in this tutorial.

The Resource, Gameview and Overview window

The items you can place on a map are all listed in the Resource windows. They are placed on the overview map and checked in the game view window to make sure they are correct. These are important for setting up missions and well worth learning how to use properly.

The Overview window also allows you to adjust the map boundaries, these are the blue lines that enclose your map in the overview window. You can turn the terrain on and off and adjust the height map, auto place a large number of trees or zoom in and out of this window. Very handy indeed.

Object placement tips.

When you finally do start placing objects on your map the Overview properties window might come in handy. You can use it to hide certain objects from the map thereby allowing you to see and move other objects.

Overview window and its connection to gametypes.

The moment you add any official gametypes to a map, the editor places all the bits you need on the overview window. You then have to simply move them to the correct positions. Normally this means moving the team start points, place team 1's flag and capture point at team 1's start point and moving the hill to nav centre. When you do this though, be sure to check the teams don`t spawn in mid air. You can do this by moving the drop points for each mech very slightly whilst follow terrain is turned on (by default it is unless you turn it off for this object). That will avoid another common bug map makers experience.

Step 3: Bot support

The Overview windows view menu contains options to hide the bot lattice which should only be created after you have placed all objects on the map. If you move an object on the map you will need to recreate the lattice. The lattice allows AI Bots to move around on your map. To add support for bots, go to the tools menu on the overview window and select create lattice, then select recalculate lattice links.

Step 4: How to add a deep red dawn look to your map.

Once your map has all the objects on it, Its time to finish off the overall effect by creating a look to the weather and other natural elements. We start by choosing a sky from the mission properties as described above. Much of what we will be doing now, concerns mission properties so if you have forgotten it, go back and have another read of that section on this page.

Choose your sky for both day and night, the nighttime sky will only be visible when you load the map in as a night map. Everything we do here will need to be done for the night settings too so you will need to load the map in as a night map after you have setup the day time look. All options concerning night, have night in the name. Dont edit anything else that doesnt have night in the name if you have loaded the map up as a night map. It will mess up your day time look if you do.

Now add any rain or snow effects you might want to use from mission properties.

Make sure mission properties and the game view window can both be seen and click on Fog colour basic. This will bring up a window with some colour sliders and a square coloured box. Click and hold the coloured box and drag your mouse pointer to the horizon on the game view window. You will notice the basic fog colour changes as you do so. This makes distance objects disappear into the mist more naturally and is the recommended way to set the basic fog.

Night fog, ground fog and all other items including Ambient Light use the same system to choose the colour.

Go to Group members in Mission properties and select and set the colour for Ambient light and Infinite light. Make sure you`re looking at a building or map object such as a tree when you do so. Ambient light and infinite light are used to make the colour of those objects better match the lighting on the map. If you remember my advice in Chapter one about rendering your terrain with a sky colour that matches the one you want to use in the editor, you should start to achieve a nice natural look right across your map.

For nighttime, use the night ground fog and night options under fog colour to lighten or darken your terrain colour. These can be used to make that `just before dawn' effect instead of the usual pitch black effect you get if you don't change this.

TIP: Lighting effects on water

You can change how bright the light is that gets reflected off the your water by editing the following lines from contents/missions/mymission/mymission.data. This means you do not have to live with a very bright reflective surface, you can tone it down a bit using notepad to change this values.

waterspecularfactor=345.00
wateratnightspecularfactor=345.00
waterspecularpower=32
wateratnightspecularpower=32

Once your done, just load your map in to the editor and save it off. The above values are the defaults. You will have to have a play around with them to get them right for your map because the setting required for each map are different. Most users do not even bother with these but the results can be ever effective.

Step 5: Special effects

In the Resource window under Misc you will see a FXgenerator. You can use this to add lightening and other effects as map objects (just like placing a building or tree). You can then tell the editor using that box, how often the effect should go off and whether it should only be seen at night. Do not go crazy with the FXgenerator. It can cause a major hit on performance for your map. Also, once you have loaded the map in to the game, you will need to completely shut down your computer and rest in order to view an effect if you change it. The game seems to remember the first effect it sees and doesnt check to see if you have modified it. Simply closing the game and reloading it wont work.

The list of effects is the same list you see from the weather option in the mission properties. But unlike the mission properties window, this is the correct way to place most of the special effects. You can add any fx you like from here as a map object.

Step 5: Disperse with bitmap (By Mechtech)

Disperse with bitmap lets you add a lot of objects to your map very quickly. Care should be taken not to add to many as Mechwarrior does have an object limit what will prevent your map from loading if you exceed it.

Lets add some trees automatically using the Disperse with bitmap feature of the Overview windows. Load your terrain.tga in to a paint package. Save it of under a different name. Paint all areas you want trees to cover white, paint the rest of the image black. Black is used to tell the editor not to place objects on that part of the map. You can use other colours for other objects but we will deal with just white in this tutorial. There is no object = colour formula so the colours you choose do not really matter. Black should only be used to mask out areas you do not want objects placed on.

Tip 1: The editor places 1 object per pixel of any colour other than black. So be sure to use a spray can or similar tool when painting your map. Avoid creating white solid areas.

Tip 2: You painted TGA can be any size you want as long as it follows the mission creator rules for map sizes. Eg you can have a Disperse image of 256 x 256 or 2048 x 2048, any valid value inbetween will also work.

Save the image as a tga file and go the the Mechwarrior 4 mission editor. Open up the Overview window and select Disperse with bitmap from the tools menu. Go to browse on the Disperse with bitmap window and select your tga file. Choose an Tree object or a group of Tree objects from the list in the Disperse with bitmap window (can be any object), click on add then on ok. The Disperse with bitmap feature will now add the selected object to your map in the areas you have selected in white.

This makes it easy to add lots of trees to a map quickly but you really must check your map to make sure you do not have a tree growing out of a building or a road (Cough Devteam, Cough highlands <GRIN>).

Step 6: Adding custom decals to AI mechs(By Ash).

You can add custom decals to any mech you place on your map in the editor but not for bots you add via the lobby. To do so, close the editor and follow this instructions.

Delete the UserMission files for your map (optional - may avoid errors) and then open up the .contents file. For each 'mech (not mechAI) you want to have decals other than the default, simply edit TeamDecal and/or Pilotdecal with the appropriate value from the chart below. Note unlike skins, they are all numeric. For a full list of decals and examples see the Decals page in the Reference section of this tutorial.