 Mechstorm's Complete Map Making Tutorial or MCM for Short. Covering Mechwarrior4, Mechwarrior4:BK and Mechwarrior4:Mercs. If you have any questions feel free to drop by our Mechstorm Editor/Scripting help Forum after you have registered on our forums. |
Packing your maps.Introduction.The biggest complaint players have with custom maps is the install method. Either because the player does not know where the files go or the map maker packed the maps so badly the files overwrite each other when extracted. Map makers usually end up answering a flood of installation questions upon release of their map and generally need to write an install guide just to allow players to enjoy their map. Now I am sure you will agree this is insane by anybodies standards. So Mechstorm adopted a tool that allows us to pack the maps in correct folders so they can either be extracted directly into your Mechwarrior 4 game folder or read the registry to find the default install of the game. The two differ only in that one way you still have to find the Mechwarrior folder and the other way you just keep clicking next. Both options are available at install time even if the registery entry if given. Our own official products are packed this way and players have expressed their apprication for the time we took to make our installer so simple. If you would like to release your maps this way then all you need to do is read HGBs guide below. Using Install Maker to Package your Mercenaries MapsDownload & Install the FREEWARE version of Install Maker from Clickstream at http://www.clickteam.com/webftp/files/4/5/IMUS12rf.exe (2.4MB) Right click on your desktop and select NEW – FOLDER.
Rename it to Open that folder. Open that folder. Open that folder Open that folder Stay in the same folder You’ve just created a directory structure that will be used to package up maps. Right click on the BLANK folder and select COPY. Right click in the folder that’s open (the BUILD folder you opened that contains BLANK folder) and select PASTE. Rename Copy Of Blank to your <mapname>. (I.e. testctf) Now open your \Mechwarrior Mercenaries\Resource\Usermissions directory (usually found at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games) and find the map files you created. There are usually 4 files but can be as well as 3 files in this folder. All files start with your mapname and have an extension of .mw4, .nfx, .tga & .dep. DEP files in this directory are not always present. Don’t freak out if it isn’t there. The others are required. After finding these files select them by holding down the Control Key and clicking on each file one time. You should see all files highlighted. When all files for your mapname are highlighted, right click on them and select COPY. Go back to your desktop and open the folders you created till you are in Usermissions. (BUILD/<mapname>/Mechwarrior Mercenaries/Resource/Usermissions). Right click in this folder and select PASTE. The four files you copied should then appear here. Now Take the ‘briefings files and past them into
the following directory. Finally, if your map is based upon a CUSTOM TERRAIN (non-stock) then you’ll need to copy the <mapname>.dep and <mapname>.ww4 files from your maps directory \Mechwarrior Mercenaries\Resource\Maps (usually found at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games) to your project folder (BUILD/<mapname>/Mechwarrior Mercenaries/Resource/Maps) You’re now ready to start building a package. Run Install Maker Click Next on the Wizard Welcome. Use the BROWSE button to open the BUILD/<mapname>/Mechwarrior Mercenaries folder on your desktop. The path you get should be something close to: For NT, Win2K, XP For Win98 Make sure INCLUDE SUB DIRECTORIES is checked. Click NEXT Enter the title of your package. Generally use the map name, version and date for the package. I.e. (testctf v3 10/24/02) The version will help you keep track of what release is being used and the. Click NEXT On the page to enter a file name to create an icon…..skip and Click on NEXT. On the information page enter relative information about the map, revision history, game types supported, Beta – Final, where to send comments / email, Credit to terrain owner, and others who helped in it’s creation. Click NEXT. On this page I’d suggest using the SMALL window format.
If you choose the Large window format you may supply some additional
information that will appear in the upper left hand corner of the window. This page is optional and may be skipped by pressing NEXT. If you have a graphics program and can create a BMP file with 128x280 image you can have the image appear to the left of the installation box as see in the figure below. The second entry point is only if you choose to use the FULL windows size as identified in the step above. Both are optional. You can do one or the other both or none at all. The second image will act as wallpaper and based upon the image size will TILE on the full screen. Big images are possible, but this does add size to your downloads. That’s why I recommend maybe the first image and SMALL window size. You can click on the preview button to see what the image would look like. If you do add images I suggest you save them in the folder related to the map. I.e. For NT, Win2K, XP For Win98 On this page you tell the installer program where to place the files. As Mechwarrior can have custom drives and paths entering a hard path can often install the maps incorrectly. It’s recommended to use registry settings that identify where that product is installed. For Mechwarrior Mercenaries you need to click on the registry button, Select HKEY_Local_Machine as the root key In the KEY field enter: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectPlay\Applications\MechWarrior Mercenaries For the Subkey field you enter: CurrentDirectory NOTE: The data must be entered as identified above to work properly. On the next page, you could enter related information, but I’ve just clicked NEXT. On this page uncheck the UNINSTALL button. Click NEXT. Click On FINISH. Supply/browse to the path where you want to save the ‘packaged’ executable to. I prefer to navigate to the folder C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\<mapname> and save the executable there. Enter the name of the file to be created. I.e. <mapname>
v##.exe The package is created and saved to the path you provided. Now Close INSTALL MAKER. You’ll be prompted to SAVE your settings. Save the settings to For NT, Win2k, XP For Win98 You should now have your executable ready to test and distribute your packaged map sets. We recommend testing the distribution package. The best way is to DELETE your custom map files you created <mapname>.* from C:\Programs Files\Microsoft Games\Mechwarrior Mercenaries\Resource\Usermissions If you followed the steps outlined above, when you execute the new file you created, it will extract the files back into your directory you just deleted them from. If you want to update a package or change the contents simply copy your updated map files from your USERMISSIONS game directory to the USERMISSIONS Build directory. Then in the Build/<mapnam> folder click on the settings you saved. It will allow you to modify the information and adjust anything you selected to start with and then BUILD the file over again based upon the targeted files. Play with it. Now you want to do another map…..just follow the diretions above, or copy the <mapname> folder, paste it and rename it to the new map name. Now you have everything in place but can modify the setting in the .ITS map maker file pointing it to the various folders, files and images and then updating the information to be consistent with the map information you’re providing. At first you may find it wasier to repeat the steps to create instead of modify. If you do more then 2, you’ll quickly see the shortcut to be easier. |