IWTE - World editing - (General Discussion)

[Arkay]

Arkay - could you send me the .world/collision/animinstances for both of those

& do you mean they don't work even if you re-do them with latest version?

two other things that make the game not 'see' collisions;
try re-do the 'structures' 'World B sphere recalc' and re-save just to check that's not way out...
also view world 2d and 'structures' 'view table 1 blocks' check the table 1 blocks do at least cover most of the settlement area - they're the sort of bounding boxes for it

World B sphere recalc fixed the problem, thanks mak! I set it to Ultimate just to be sure and now collisions work in both settlements.

I am using the latest version by the way, not sure what went wrong..

[leo.civil.uefs]

One of my recently created settlements has a problem.

Its a clone from Osgiliath, so the defender deployment zone has a half circle format. The problem is, when I attack the settlement (campaign), the defender deployment zone lines are still there, but the attacker deployment zone is set over it, so that there is a intersection area between both deployment zones! The attacker can place his soldiers insnide the defender's deployment zone.

Any idea?

[leo.civil.uefs]

One of my recently created settlements has a problem.

Its a clone from Osgiliath, so the defender deployment zone has a half circle format. The problem is, when I attack the settlement (campaign), the defender deployment zone lines are still there, but the attacker deployment zone is set over it, so that there is a intersection area between both deployment zones! The attacker can place his soldiers insnide the defender's deployment zone.

Any idea?

UPDATE:

I Just tried adding an invisible gate like in Black Gate, it did not work.

I also tried deleting the bridge (there is a real working bridge path over the river), but still dont work.

Reducing the deployment zone of the defenders "fixed" the problem. I tried it before but now I reduced it to really far from the map border and it worked well. but I'm having to reduce it too much, its not doable for gameplay.

I have no idea why this is happening, and it is odd since osgiliath ruined has a the same layout and works well.

[makanyane]

I have no idea why this is happening, and it is odd since osgiliath ruined has a the same layout and works well.

Can you post similar pic of osgiliath with the mini map at start?

[makanyane]

Looking at the mini-map I'm guessing that because the defender deployment zone ends up so close to the top of the battlemap - and that's where the attackers have come from - it's decided it doesn't have enough space to deploy the attackers and has opted for 'stupid' as an option

does that have gates? it's gates that tend to determine where the attackers deploy - having them on the sides might force the attackers round to the side where there's more space


EDIT: there doesn't seem to be any way of manually setting the attacker deployment that we've found

[leo.civil.uefs]

Looking at the mini-map I'm guessing that because the defender deployment zone ends up so close to the top of the battlemap - and that's where the attackers have come from - it's decided it doesn't have enough space to deploy the attackers and has opted for 'stupid' as an option

No. I tried this, reducing the defenders deployment zone and making its line more far from the terrain border, the problem remained.

[xHolyCrusader]

It looks like you removed all wall and gate objects from the settlement and as mak said those are what help define the attacker deployment zone.. not sure if its an option but you could try adding river crossings (fords) on both sides of the settlement so units can walk/deploy all the way around it, maybe that has an effect on the deployment zones:

[leo.civil.uefs]

there is no gate or perimeter in osgiliath ruined, and still works.
Here it is:

[makanyane]

Is your new map an exact 90degree rotated version of osgiliath? From the mini-map it looks like the battle map is rectangular and osgiliath therefore has more room to the east and west... but I'm not sure if that's just it stretching the view.

and erm, anyway Osgiliath looks like it has the defenders deployment set to surround the city on both sides of the river, that might actually help on your new one if you try to include the full circle, it might shove the defender area back out to the edges.

[leo.civil.uefs]

Is your new map an exact 90degree rotated version of osgiliath? From the mini-map it looks like the battle map is rectangular and osgiliath therefore has more room to the east and west... but I'm not sure if that's just it stretching the view.

Yes. 90 degree. But is there a way to check this? I mean, maybe I've put 91 by mistake.
And yes, I used a widescreen monitor so everything in M2 look stretched.

and erm, anyway Osgiliath looks like it has the defenders deployment set to surround the city on both sides of the river, that might actually help on your new one if you try to include the full circle, it might shove the defender area back out to the edges.

That seems confusing. Could you please rewrite?

"...looks like it has the defenders deployment set..."

you mean attackers?

[makanyane]

Yes. 90 degree. But is there a way to check this? I mean, maybe I've put 91 by mistake.
And yes, I used a widescreen monitor so everything in M2 look stretched.



That seems confusing. Could you please rewrite?

"...looks like it has the defenders deployment set..."

you mean attackers?

No I meant the defender's - the line you can alter in IWTE - it looks different on Osgiliath. Try changing the other one... either so it's the same as Osgiliath - or by leaving the front of the defender's area where it is and also enlarging it back over the river to include all the city area (I thought that's what you had on Osgiliath originally but now realise it isn't - might be worth a try anyway. By actually giving more area to the defenders it might get the message that it's not meant to overlap


Ignore the bit about the 90degrees - I've remembered now that the battlemaps are square - it's just your wide screen making it look stretched! (I've forgotten most of this stuff)

[leo.civil.uefs]

OK, I tried some things:

deleting the bridge path and creating a terrain "bridge" like in osgiliath. No results.
deleting the water plane. no results.

In the end I played again with deployment lines and finally got the results I wanted:



Though I think I will not extend the square that far back to the other side of the river because I dont want the defender to be able to deploy there. I will create a long, thin extension of deployment area, thin enough to avoid any unit being deployed inside it but still good to delimit the attackers zone of deployment.



A suggestion for future versions of IWTE:

This is a problem I knew since long ago but I'm not sure if I ever commented it. Selecting the deployment nodes can be painful if you zoom out too much, because the nodes will remain the same size, and depending on how much you zoom out, they can get invisible. Zooming out is somehting really necessary when you need to see the entire settlement while adjusting your deployment zone.

My suggestion is, make the nodes' size change depending on how zoomed the view window is, so that you will always be able to find the nodes and click them when adjusting the deployment.

[leo.civil.uefs]

I'm a genius and the smartest modder this community has ever seen
(thin deployment area extension over the bridge fixed the problem)

[makanyane]

I'm a genius and the smartest modder this community has ever seen
(thin deployment area extension over the bridge fixed the problem)

A suggestion for future versions of IWTE:

This is a problem I knew since long ago but I'm not sure if I ever commented it. Selecting the deployment nodes can be painful if you zoom out too much, because the nodes will remain the same size, and depending on how much you zoom out, they can get invisible. Zooming out is somehting really necessary when you need to see the entire settlement while adjusting your deployment zone.

My suggestion is, make the nodes' size change depending on how zoomed the view window is, so that you will always be able to find the nodes and click them when adjusting the deployment.

Noted; but probably will be done by making the node selectable by 'drawing' a box round it with the mouse - bigger blobs might start overlapping each other if there's a lot round circular towers etc.

[leo.civil.uefs]

Noted; but probably will be done by making the node selectable by 'drawing' a box round it with the mouse - bigger blobs might start overlapping each other if there's a lot round circular towers etc.

[leo.civil.uefs]

Another suggestion.

A create collisions for all objects in structure button.

Sometimes adding one by one can be very boring and time consuming.
A good example is when I add 40 braziers an then need to add their collisions one by one.

By the way, after adding the collisions to the braziers I need to add the fire effects one by one too, which makes me wonder if a Change collision effects for all objects in structure would also be useful.

[xHolyCrusader]

A create collisions for all objects in structure button.

Eventhough you should be reusing collisions where possible I think a feature like this could still be very useful and save a lot of time, same goes for a "select multiple structures and delete" button so you can just walk away from the pc and let it process instead of having to sit there and tediously click through it for hours

By the way, after adding the collisions to the braziers I need to add the fire effects one by one too, which makes me wonder if a Change collision effects for all objects in structure would also be useful.

I think if you assign one of your braziers a collision and add the fire effect and then reassign that collision to the other brazier objects (instead of creating a new object collision) it will also keep the fire effect on those.

[makanyane]

Eventhough you should be reusing collisions where possible I think a feature like this could still be very useful and save a lot of time, same goes for a "select multiple structures and delete" button so you can just walk away from the pc and let it process instead of having to sit there and tediously click through it for hours

there is the delete everything except first complex/structure buttons in the specials tab, (keep first complex.etc) if you just want to reduce to the bare minimum - assume you're aiming for something to just keep outer walls though? Will pass on to WD as an idea... but not sure how the selection process works in python.

I think if you assign one of your braziers a collision and add the fire effect and then reassign that collision to the other brazier objects (instead of creating a new object collision) it will also keep the fire effect on those.

yup - that's the main point for re-using collisions



and Leo - I'm older than you... so it might take me a while to remember!

[leo.civil.uefs]

Mak can you explain me what exactly battlemerge, terrainmerge files, and the merge distances (vertex count) are responsible for?
How do they work?

I know you probably explained this to me before but... after all this years, Im getting old. Sorry.

[makanyane]

Mak can you explain me what exactly battlemerge, terrainmerge files, and the merge distances (vertex count) are responsible for?
How do they work?

I know you probably explained this to me before but... after all this years, Im getting old. Sorry.

Terrain Base - which you didn't ask about... is the one that's the equivalent of an ms3d model, and represents actual heights - so if your building starts at +12m high in milkshape you need that to have the bit under it at +12m too... you can sort that in the 2d edit view or in milkshape if the terrain is small enough to export.

Terrain Merge - is the equivalent of an alpha layer for that (from the days when we just did this with 2d images) - so if it's pure white (on the image) or 100% in the 2d edit window, you'll get exactly the height specified in the Terrain Base section. If it's pure black (image) or 0% (2d edit) then you'll get exactly what the terrain would have been without the settlement. Shades of grey / other values will get you a blend between those values (whiter/higher values closer to the terrain base - blacker/lower closer to the without settlement situation)

Battle Merge thingy - is only used for settlements not ambients or techtrees - it was CA's way of flattening a large area to make sure that the area around a settlement is workable, e.g. the deploying armies don't end up stuck up a cliff or in the sea. If left at pure white/100% values it will impose a large flat area which flattens the battlemap and then the Terrain Base sits on that.

The merge distances applies to the Terrain Merge only and can be used as a way of making sure you've got a blend on that (instead of cliff edges) in case you don't want to manually adjust it. Manually adjusting it is the better option...