Mapper Tutorial.

[Mulligun]

Hello.
I'd like to create a simple custom map for FT using the official Mapper. Unfortunately i can't find any tutorial. I've created a map using the Level Editor - added some floor tiles, Enemies, lights, etc. But when i load the map by Single Player->Custom Mission->Mission there is only an empty black screen...
Can someone please help?

 

[nadeauhugo]

I think this is what you are looking for : http://jj86tutorials.stgfc.com/EDITOR_README.htm
More general tutorials : http://jj86tutorials.stgfc.com/

Enjoy!

Some additional tricks to know :

★ Use right click + drag to place a group of tiles while avoiding having a single tile added to the tiles you place.
★ Use (from memory) Ctrl + Pg Up and Dwn to move up and down selected tiles horizontally.
★ Use Ctrl + arrows to move selected tiles horizontally.
★ Hold Alt while selecting tiles to select them on ALL LEVELS.
★ Hold shift while selecting tiles or entities on the level to select more than one.
★ Hold shift while choosing tiles on the left pane to select more than one. You will then be able to place them randomly to create variations.
★ Often use the top menu option "Update tiles used" to make ladders work, water use a splash sound and animated tiles animate, for example.
★ Often use the top menu option "New Occlusion Data" to make roofs dissapear while playing and things like that.
★ Use shift + click & drag the hight bar at the right to change the levels of the map shown to edit those if needed (ex: editing tiles under -18 level).

 

[Mulligun]

Thx friend VERY MUCH!
I've made some progress I've set the Player Index to 1 and all i have now is just tiled floor and some walls (fences). Unfortunately there is still no any entities or objects (the player, enemies, weapons etc.) when loading the map (Single Player > Custom Mission > Mission.. > Start Game) although of course I've added them in the mapper!.
Any idea whet to do to fix it?

Thx!

 

[nadeauhugo]

Thx friend VERY MUCH!
I've made some progress I've set the Player Index to 1 and all i have now is just tiled floor and some walls (fences). Unfortunately there is still no any entities or objects (the player, enemies, weapons etc.) when loading the map (Single Player > Custom Mission > Mission.. > Start Game) although of course I've added them in the mapper!.
Any idea whet to do to fix it?

Thx!

Hehe, real pleasure

Hum not sure about your problem, but there are two ways to open a mission, one with and one without any entities. Maybe you used the second option? Normally, if you open a mission maps, all entities are there regardless of if a filename is associated with them. That means that the entities are probably there, but invisible and impossible to select. You can verify this wy checking the View / Show Tile Bounding Box. If you see empty bounding boxes everywhere, that means you don't have any or enough .ent files in core/entities folders.

 

[Mulligun]

It turned out, that the problem was (at least in my opinion) that i've added a SpawnPlayer but it doesent' seems to work! (no player present). Now everything worked when I've added characters->demo->player entity. That was it!. But here is my question. Why is it placed in the "demo" folder and what the SpawnPlayer is for?

 

[nadeauhugo]

It turned out, that the problem was (at least in my opinion) that i've added a SpawnPlayer but it doesent' seems to work! (no player present). Now everything worked when I've added characters->demo->player entity. That was it!. But here is my question. Why is it placed in the "demo" folder and what the SpawnPlayer is for?

My intuition is that SpawnPlayer only works for Multiplayer. I only use SpawnGeneric and SpawnRevisit in my maps. I often added SpawnSinglePlayer too, just in case, but I think it does nothing.