Dragon Age Toolset Wiki - User contributions [en]

Creature tutorial

2009-11-13T17:01:55Z

Bebe86: /* Creating an NPC quest giver */

Now the player can navigate around between the various areas you've set up, but he's got nothing he can actually do there. Other tutorials will cover how to add interactive quests, conversations, and other such things, but for now to make things just a little more interesting, we can add a couple of monsters for the player to slay. We'll put them in the hut_interior area so the player won't be instantly thrust into combat.

== Creating a monstrous creature's template ==

{{sidebox|
* The "Group" property determines who is hostile to whom
* "Resource Name" and "Tag" are only seen by developers
* "Name" may be seen by players
}}

First, create a new creature template. You can leave most of its properties at their defaults for starters. To make it fight the player when it sees him, set the "Group" property to "_Hostile". Give it a name in the "Name" property ("Hut Monster" in this example) and change the "Appearance" property to something appropriate (a normal Hurlock in this case).

[[Image:Tutorial hut monster.png]]

{{sidebox|
* Put weapons in inventory and set them as "equipped"
}}

To make our monsters a bit more of a challenge for the player to fight, we'll add a sword to the creature's inventory and set it as "equipped". This will put the sword on the creature's back, where it will draw it from when it enters combat. To prevent the player from being laden down with hundreds of looted swords over the course of the game we'll leave the "Droppable" and "Stealable" flags unset - when the creature dies the sword will be unrecoverable.

[[Image:Tutorial inventory.png]]

{{sidebox|
* "Package" determines what sorts of abilities the creature will have
* "Package AI" determines how it will behave
* "Rank" determines how strong the creature will be and how much loot it drops
* "Treasure category" determines what type of loot it drops
}}

Finally, we'll want to set the creature's stats so that it will be the correct level of toughness to challenge the player when he meets him. The game has two basic parameters that need to be set for this; package (determines what general sorts of abilities the creature has) and rank (determines how good the creature is at what it does, and how tough it is).

We set the general package type to "Darkspawn" (this tells the game what general type of creature it is), the package to "Darkspawn weapon + shield (Hurlock)" since that's the closest match to a Hurlock weilding a one-handed sword that's available, and the package AI to "AIP_DS_WPN_SHLD_Hurlock" (since this is the only AI available for the selected package the choice is obvious. For some creatures there may be other AIs available, for example making the creature behave in a more "cowardly" fashion).

The rank of the creature tells the game's autoscaling system how good the creature should be at using its abilities and how tough it is. Since we want these creatures to be an interesting fight but not a serious challenge for our demo, we'll set the hut monster to "Critter". Rank also determines the quality of the treasure that is automatically generated for the player to loot from the monster's corpse; tougher monsters have higher-quality loot. To determine what ''kind'' of loot is generated, set the treasure category property. Different types of monsters will generally carry different types of loot, for example the Darkspawn are more likely to have vials of poison in their possession.

== Placing creatures ==

{{sidebox|
* See [[3D control]] for camera and movement controls
}}

Now that we have the basic template for the horrible hut monsters defined, we can place some in the hut's interior. The creature we've designed in the creature editor is a template from which many identical copies can be spawned and placed within the area, much like the placeable doors we've inserted previously. Open the area in the area editor, select the hut monster from the palette, and click on the area in the places you want to put copies of the creature.

[[Image:Tutorial hut interior.png]]

We've put three monsters in the hut. If we play the game now the monsters will attack the player as soon as they perceive him, which the small size of the hut will make almost instantaneous. Once slain the player will be able to loot their corpses for a small amount of treasure.

If you want to customize the individual monsters you've placed, you can right-click on the creature (either in the area map or on the area's object list to the left of the area display) and select "properties" from the menu.

[[Image:Tutorial individal creature properties.png]]

{{sidebox|
* Some creature properties can be customized on a per-creature basis, others are fixed with whatever value you set in the creature template it's based on.
}}

This will open the object inspector with a subset of the creature's properties that can be customized on a per-creature basis. Not all of the properties of the creature can be modified; some of them are defined by the template and can only be modified there. The properties that can be modified on a per-creature basis are:

*Active (useful for placing monsters that only "appear" later on when a script changes their active status)
*Interaction Radius (if not zero, overrides the default distance the PC needs to be to interact with this object)
*Platform (used when developing a game that can be ported to multiple different platforms with different capabilities)
*Rank (how tough the monster is, described above)
*Tag (a label the creature can be referred to by with scripting)
*Team (an identifier for grouping several monsters together, useful for keeping track of quests and for coordinated behavior)
*Trackable
*Treasure Category (type of treasure dropped, described above)
*Variables
*WeaponsDrawn
*Orientation (Don't bother manually setting orientation and position unless you need high-precision control, the area editor's positioning controls are generally easier)
*Position

So, for example, we could pick a particular one of these hut monsters and make him tougher than his fellows, or give him a different team ID (we'll see one way team IDs can be used later in the tutorial when we set up a quest for the player to slay all three of the monsters we've put in the hut).

== Creating an NPC quest giver ==

{{sidebox|
* Some humanoid creatures don't have clothing built in and need it to be added to their inventory and equipped for it to appear.
* Some humanoid creatures can have their appearance customized by selecting head [[morph]]s.
}}

The module is now vaguely playable, but not really all that interesting - it's hard to tell a story with nothing but area transitions and meaningless combat. The easiest way to add some depth to the adventure is to include some people that can be talked with. Conversations are complex and will be dealt with in a separate section of the tutorial, but we can lay the foundation here by creating and placing a neutral human to talk to. By putting him in the "_Neutral" group he won't attack the player and won't get involved in the player's fights. If he were in the _Friendly group he'd attack any _Hostile-grouped creatures he perceived, but for now we'll be putting him in an area with no other creatures so that won't make a difference.

The default new creature is human, but is unclothed and unequipped. It also has a very bland default appearance. To dress the creature we'll need to create some clothing as done in the [[Item tutorial]], add it to the creature's inventory, and equip it (if you cannot see your newly-created items in the inventory dialog, try checking them in first).

[[Image:Tutorial quest giver inventory.png]]

Next we're going to want to replace that bland default head with a different appearance. Dragon Age allows head appearance to be customized through the use of head morphs, a process with sufficient sophistication and scope that there's a separate editing tool dedicated to it. We won't cover that in this tutorial, however, and instead simply use one of the prefabricated head morphs that comes with the game.

Under the "Appearance" section of the object explorer is the "Head Morph" property. When you click on the ellipsis ([[Image:ellipsis.png]]) button you'll be presented with a file picker to choose a head morph from. Once you've selected a head morph most of the other options under Appearance will be disabled, since the head morph customizes all of those parameters in a much more fine-grained manner.

Since this NPC is not intended to ever enter or even respond to combat, the package and scaling is not particularly important. It can be left with the defaults.

{{sidebox|
* There are several different ways to make a creature "permanent," if needed
}}

The "Special" section is relevant in this case, on the other hand. Since this NPC is going to be the source of our quest, it wouldn't do to allow even the possibility that he might get himself killed early. If you set the "Plot" flag to true the creature will be immune to damage by any hostile effect. The "Immortal" flag allows the creature to be damaged, but it will never lose its last hit point - useful if you want a creature to get involved in a fight in a realistic manner but guarantee that it will survive the encounter. "No Permanent Death" tells the game engine not to dispose of the creature's body after it's killed and is used primarily for the player's companions.

Here is the NPC in his final form, ready to be placed in the hut_exterior area to tell the player about the monsters inside:

[[Image:Tutorial quest giver.png]]

Next is the [[Conversation tutorial]]

[[Category:Tutorials]]
[[Category:Creatures]]

Creature tutorial

2009-11-13T17:01:19Z

Bebe86: /* Creating an NPC quest giver */

Now the player can navigate around between the various areas you've set up, but he's got nothing he can actually do there. Other tutorials will cover how to add interactive quests, conversations, and other such things, but for now to make things just a little more interesting, we can add a couple of monsters for the player to slay. We'll put them in the hut_interior area so the player won't be instantly thrust into combat.

== Creating a monstrous creature's template ==

{{sidebox|
* The "Group" property determines who is hostile to whom
* "Resource Name" and "Tag" are only seen by developers
* "Name" may be seen by players
}}

First, create a new creature template. You can leave most of its properties at their defaults for starters. To make it fight the player when it sees him, set the "Group" property to "_Hostile". Give it a name in the "Name" property ("Hut Monster" in this example) and change the "Appearance" property to something appropriate (a normal Hurlock in this case).

[[Image:Tutorial hut monster.png]]

{{sidebox|
* Put weapons in inventory and set them as "equipped"
}}

To make our monsters a bit more of a challenge for the player to fight, we'll add a sword to the creature's inventory and set it as "equipped". This will put the sword on the creature's back, where it will draw it from when it enters combat. To prevent the player from being laden down with hundreds of looted swords over the course of the game we'll leave the "Droppable" and "Stealable" flags unset - when the creature dies the sword will be unrecoverable.

[[Image:Tutorial inventory.png]]

{{sidebox|
* "Package" determines what sorts of abilities the creature will have
* "Package AI" determines how it will behave
* "Rank" determines how strong the creature will be and how much loot it drops
* "Treasure category" determines what type of loot it drops
}}

Finally, we'll want to set the creature's stats so that it will be the correct level of toughness to challenge the player when he meets him. The game has two basic parameters that need to be set for this; package (determines what general sorts of abilities the creature has) and rank (determines how good the creature is at what it does, and how tough it is).

We set the general package type to "Darkspawn" (this tells the game what general type of creature it is), the package to "Darkspawn weapon + shield (Hurlock)" since that's the closest match to a Hurlock weilding a one-handed sword that's available, and the package AI to "AIP_DS_WPN_SHLD_Hurlock" (since this is the only AI available for the selected package the choice is obvious. For some creatures there may be other AIs available, for example making the creature behave in a more "cowardly" fashion).

The rank of the creature tells the game's autoscaling system how good the creature should be at using its abilities and how tough it is. Since we want these creatures to be an interesting fight but not a serious challenge for our demo, we'll set the hut monster to "Critter". Rank also determines the quality of the treasure that is automatically generated for the player to loot from the monster's corpse; tougher monsters have higher-quality loot. To determine what ''kind'' of loot is generated, set the treasure category property. Different types of monsters will generally carry different types of loot, for example the Darkspawn are more likely to have vials of poison in their possession.

== Placing creatures ==

{{sidebox|
* See [[3D control]] for camera and movement controls
}}

Now that we have the basic template for the horrible hut monsters defined, we can place some in the hut's interior. The creature we've designed in the creature editor is a template from which many identical copies can be spawned and placed within the area, much like the placeable doors we've inserted previously. Open the area in the area editor, select the hut monster from the palette, and click on the area in the places you want to put copies of the creature.

[[Image:Tutorial hut interior.png]]

We've put three monsters in the hut. If we play the game now the monsters will attack the player as soon as they perceive him, which the small size of the hut will make almost instantaneous. Once slain the player will be able to loot their corpses for a small amount of treasure.

If you want to customize the individual monsters you've placed, you can right-click on the creature (either in the area map or on the area's object list to the left of the area display) and select "properties" from the menu.

[[Image:Tutorial individal creature properties.png]]

{{sidebox|
* Some creature properties can be customized on a per-creature basis, others are fixed with whatever value you set in the creature template it's based on.
}}

This will open the object inspector with a subset of the creature's properties that can be customized on a per-creature basis. Not all of the properties of the creature can be modified; some of them are defined by the template and can only be modified there. The properties that can be modified on a per-creature basis are:

*Active (useful for placing monsters that only "appear" later on when a script changes their active status)
*Interaction Radius (if not zero, overrides the default distance the PC needs to be to interact with this object)
*Platform (used when developing a game that can be ported to multiple different platforms with different capabilities)
*Rank (how tough the monster is, described above)
*Tag (a label the creature can be referred to by with scripting)
*Team (an identifier for grouping several monsters together, useful for keeping track of quests and for coordinated behavior)
*Trackable
*Treasure Category (type of treasure dropped, described above)
*Variables
*WeaponsDrawn
*Orientation (Don't bother manually setting orientation and position unless you need high-precision control, the area editor's positioning controls are generally easier)
*Position

So, for example, we could pick a particular one of these hut monsters and make him tougher than his fellows, or give him a different team ID (we'll see one way team IDs can be used later in the tutorial when we set up a quest for the player to slay all three of the monsters we've put in the hut).

== Creating an NPC quest giver ==

{{sidebox|
* Some humanoid creatures don't have clothing built in and need it to be added to their inventory and equipped for it to appear.
* Some humanoid creatures can have their appearance customized by selecting head [[morph]]s.
}}

The module is now vaguely playable, but not really all that interesting - it's hard to tell a story with nothing but area transitions and meaningless combat. The easiest way to add some depth to the adventure is to include some people that can be talked with. Conversations are complex and will be dealt with in a separate section of the tutorial, but we can lay the foundation here by creating and placing a neutral human to talk to. By putting him in the "_Neutral" group he won't attack the player and won't get involved in the player's fights. If he were in the _Friendly group he'd attack any _Hostile-grouped creatures he perceived, but for now we'll be putting him in an area with no other creatures so that won't make a difference.

The default new creature is human, but is unclothed and unequipped. It also has a very bland default appearance. To dress the creature we'll need to create some clothing as done in the [[Item tutorial]], add it to the creature's inventory, and equip it (if you cannot see your newly-created items in the inventory dialog, try checking them in first).

[[Image:Tutorial quest giver inventory.png]]

Next we're going to want to replace that bland default head with a different appearance. Dragon Age allows head appearance to be customized through the use of head morphs, a process with sufficient sophistication and scope that there's a separate editing tool dedicated to it. We won't cover that in this tutorial, however, and instead simply use one of the prefabricated head morphs that comes with the game.

Under the "Appearance" section of the object explorer is the "Head Morph" property. When you click on the ellipsis ([[Image:ellipsis.png]]) button you'll be presented with a file picker to choose a head morph from. Once you've selected a head morph most of the other options under Appearance will be disabled, since the head morph customizes all of those parameters in a much more fine-grained manner.

Since this NPC is not intended to ever enter or even respond to combat, the package and scaling is not particularly important. It can be left with the defaults.

{{sidebox|
* There are several different ways to make a creature "permanent," if needed
}}

The "Special" section is relevant in this case, on the other hand. Since this NPC is going to be the source of our quest, it wouldn't do to allow even the possibility that he might get himself killed early. If you set the "Plot" flag to true the creature will be immune to damage by any hostile effect. The "Immortal" flag allows the creature to be damaged, but it will never lose its last hit point - useful if you want a creature to get involved in a fight in a realistic manner but guarantee that it will survive the encounter. "No Permanent Death" tells the game engine not to dispose of the creature's body after it's killed and is used primarily for the player's companions.

Here is the NPC in his final form, ready to be placed in the hut_exterior area to tell the player about the monsters inside:

[[Image:Tutorial quest giver.png]]

Next is the Conversation tutorial>>>

[[Category:Tutorials]]
[[Category:Creatures]]

Placeable tutorial

2009-11-13T15:27:37Z

Bebe86: /* Creating A Placeable */

In Dragon Age, "[[placeable]]s" are objects that a player can interact with or are objects simply added to the area to create greater detail. They are added to areas simply by dropping them into the area landscape. Once placed, they can easily be moved into position or rotated on their axis to achieve the look you want.

In general, placeables can serve a wide variety of functions. They can render popup text. They can be destroyed or bashed or hold inventory or treasure within. They can be holders of conversations. In this tutorial we'll mainly stick to the basics, but placeables are an important part of any area design.

== Creating A Placeable ==

Similar to creating anything within the toolset, go to File > New > Placeable or right click in the Palette Window to access the New Placeable option.

[[Image:New resource.png|thumb|New resource menu]]

The first step is naming the placeable. We'll need a door for the tutorial so lets start with a door that will serve as an area transition. Name the placeable "transition_door". Luckily and unluckily, the default object is a door. The lucky part is that it is a door. The unlucky part is that this is a non-area transition door. There are two types of doors, ones that open and allow for an area transition and ones that simply open. For the upcoming [[area tutorial]] we need a door that will allow the player to move from outside the hut to inside the hut.

Doors that allow transitions are all grouped under the Appearance beginning with "Area Transition". Change the appearance to be "Area Transition, Ferelden, Small". The placeable has the exact same appearance it had but now it will be able to function as an area transition. For more detail on doors, please see [[door]]s. They are a bit unique within the placeable world so it is important to understand how the two types function as well as some of the finer options that are available.

As you can see, placeables are straightforward and easy to create. Let's build one more for our module before moving along with the tutorial. Again create a new placeable and let's name it "statue". Any good exterior can always use a statue. For this lets set the appearance to "Statue, Giant" and rename the placeable "Huge Statue". By default, the placeable is "Interactive" so let's toggle that setting to false:
'''Scroll down to Stats; locate Interactive;'''
Use the drop down menu OR just double click on TRUE to toggle the state.
Now our statue is ready to be placed. It is basically an addition to the landscape. It won't be something you can interact with but it can add detail to your area and to your story.

While we are in the tutorial, let's quickly cover checking in and checking out resources which is a new concept for Dragon Age. For a more detailed summary, please see [[Resource palette]]. Briefly, in Dragon Age resources are stored within databases. When you work on a module and alter any existing work or create new work, you are creating an instance of the object (be it a placeable, item, creature, area etc.). There are a number of benefits for this that are beyond the scope of this tutorial but when you edit something, it has to be "checked out" (or never checked in) with you working on an instance.

For example, select your new statue and right click and you will see that many common tasks are NOT available because it has not been "[[checked in]]" to the database. For example, you can't rename or delete the placeable. In order to rename the placeable, we'll need to check in the placeable. Right click and select check in. Check the box for no comment or enter a comment and hit ok. At this point, the resource has been written to the database. Once the object is "checked in" you can adjust the name or delete it if you so choose (assuming it doesn't have other dependent resources).

== Placing / Adjusting your Placeable ==

That is a brief overview of how to create your first placeables. Now let's cover putting them into your module. To place a placeable, simply bring up an area (which we will make in the [[Area Tutorial]]), then highlight the placeable and left-click within the region.

To adjust the position or orientation of the object, you'll need to use the Camera and Movement Toolbar:

[[Image:Camera and movement toolbar labeled.png]]

To adjust the x,y,z position either activate the Local Coordinates button [[Image:IconLocalCoordinates.png]] or use the keyboard shortcut 'q'. With this activated, you can mouse over any axis (notice the change to the yellow highlight) and the object will move only in the selected dimension.

To adjust the rotational orientation, highlight the 3 Axis Rotation button [[Image:Icon3AxisRotation.png]] or use the keyboard shortcut 'e'. In a similar fashion, you can easily selected and adjust the rotational orientation of the placeable.

'R' is the keyboard shortcut to return to the standard selection tool [[Image:IconStandardSelection.png]].

(For much more detail regarding 3D controls please see the [[3D control]] page).

Of course, you can use the Object Inspector to type in exact numbers for any of these parameters you choose. Simply ensure the object is selected within the area viewer and type in your changes.

== Field Notes ==

*'''Character''': Mapping a character to a placeable is done for VO when a placeable owns a conversation.

[[Category:Placeables]]
[[Category:Tutorials]]

Placeable tutorial

2009-11-13T15:11:56Z

Bebe86: /* Creating A Placeable */

In Dragon Age, "[[placeable]]s" are objects that a player can interact with or are objects simply added to the area to create greater detail. They are added to areas simply by dropping them into the area landscape. Once placed, they can easily be moved into position or rotated on their axis to achieve the look you want.

In general, placeables can serve a wide variety of functions. They can render popup text. They can be destroyed or bashed or hold inventory or treasure within. They can be holders of conversations. In this tutorial we'll mainly stick to the basics, but placeables are an important part of any area design.

== Creating A Placeable ==

Similar to creating anything within the toolset, go to File > New > Placeable or right click in the Palette Window to access the New Placeable option.

[[Image:New resource.png|thumb|New resource menu]]

The first step is naming the placeable. We'll need a door for the tutorial so lets start with a door that will serve as an area transition. Name the placeable "transition_door". Luckily and unluckily, the default object is a door. The lucky part is that it is a door. The unlucky part is that this is a non-area transition door. There are two types of doors, ones that open and allow for an area transition and ones that simply open. For the upcoming [[area tutorial]] we need a door that will allow the player to move from outside the hut to inside the hut.

Doors that allow transitions are all grouped under the Appearance beginning with "Area Transition". Change the appearance to be "Area Transition, Ferelden, Small". The placeable has the exact same appearance it had but now it will be able to function as an area transition. For more detail on doors, please see [[door]]s. They are a bit unique within the placeable world so it is important to understand how the two types function as well as some of the finer options that are available.

As you can see, placeables are straightforward and easy to create. Let's build one more for our module before moving along with the tutorial. Again create a new placeable and let's name it "statue". Any good exterior can always use a statue. For this lets set the appearance to "Statue, Giant" and rename the placeable "Huge Statue". By default, the placeable is "Interactive" so let's toggle that setting to false:
'''Scroll down to Stats; locate Interactive;'''
Use the drop down menu OR just double click on TRUE to toggle the state.
Now our statue is ready to be placed. It is basically an addition to the landscape. It won't be something you can interact with but it can add detail to your area and to your story.

While we are in the tutorial, let's quickly cover checking in and checking out resources which is a new concept for Dragon Age. For a more detailed summary, please see [[Resource palette]]. Briefly, in Dragon Age resources are stored within databases. When you work on a module and alter any existing work or create new work, you are creating an instance of the object (be it a placeable, item, creature, area etc.). There are a number of benefits for this that are beyond the scope of this tutorial but when you edit something, it has to be "checked out" (or never checked in) with you working on an instance.

For example, select your new statue and right click and you will see that many common tasks are NOT available because it has not been "checked in" to the database. For example, you can't rename or delete the placeable. In order to rename the placeable, we'll need to check in the placeable. Right click and select check in. Check the box for no comment or enter a comment and hit ok. At this point, the resource has been written to the database. Once the object is "checked in" you can adjust the name or delete it if you so choose (assuming it doesn't have other dependent resources).

== Placing / Adjusting your Placeable ==

That is a brief overview of how to create your first placeables. Now let's cover putting them into your module. To place a placeable, simply bring up an area (which we will make in the [[Area Tutorial]]), then highlight the placeable and left-click within the region.

To adjust the position or orientation of the object, you'll need to use the Camera and Movement Toolbar:

[[Image:Camera and movement toolbar labeled.png]]

To adjust the x,y,z position either activate the Local Coordinates button [[Image:IconLocalCoordinates.png]] or use the keyboard shortcut 'q'. With this activated, you can mouse over any axis (notice the change to the yellow highlight) and the object will move only in the selected dimension.

To adjust the rotational orientation, highlight the 3 Axis Rotation button [[Image:Icon3AxisRotation.png]] or use the keyboard shortcut 'e'. In a similar fashion, you can easily selected and adjust the rotational orientation of the placeable.

'R' is the keyboard shortcut to return to the standard selection tool [[Image:IconStandardSelection.png]].

(For much more detail regarding 3D controls please see the [[3D control]] page).

Of course, you can use the Object Inspector to type in exact numbers for any of these parameters you choose. Simply ensure the object is selected within the area viewer and type in your changes.

== Field Notes ==

*'''Character''': Mapping a character to a placeable is done for VO when a placeable owns a conversation.

[[Category:Placeables]]
[[Category:Tutorials]]

Placeable tutorial

2009-11-13T15:10:17Z

Bebe86: /* Creating A Placeable */

In Dragon Age, "[[placeable]]s" are objects that a player can interact with or are objects simply added to the area to create greater detail. They are added to areas simply by dropping them into the area landscape. Once placed, they can easily be moved into position or rotated on their axis to achieve the look you want.

In general, placeables can serve a wide variety of functions. They can render popup text. They can be destroyed or bashed or hold inventory or treasure within. They can be holders of conversations. In this tutorial we'll mainly stick to the basics, but placeables are an important part of any area design.

== Creating A Placeable ==

Similar to creating anything within the toolset, go to File > New > Placeable or right click in the Palette Window to access the New Placeable option.

[[Image:New resource.png|thumb|New resource menu]]

The first step is naming the placeable. We'll need a door for the tutorial so lets start with a door that will serve as an area transition. Name the placeable "transition_door". Luckily and unluckily, the default object is a door. The lucky part is that it is a door. The unlucky part is that this is a non-area transition door. There are two types of doors, ones that open and allow for an area transition and ones that simply open. For the upcoming [[area tutorial]] we need a door that will allow the player to move from outside the hut to inside the hut.

Doors that allow transitions are all grouped under the Appearance beginning with "Area Transition". Change the appearance to be "Area Transition, Ferelden, Small". The placeable has the exact same appearance it had but now it will be able to function as an area transition. For more detail on doors, please see [[door]]s. They are a bit unique within the placeable world so it is important to understand how the two types function as well as some of the finer options that are available.

As you can see, placeables are straightforward and easy to create. Let's build one more for our module before moving along with the tutorial. Again create a new placeable and let's name it "statue". Any good exterior can always use a statue. For this lets set the appearance to "Statue, Giant" and rename the placeable "Huge Statue". By default, the placeable is "Interactive" so let's toggle that setting to false:
Scroll down to '''Stats'''; locate '''Interactive''';
Use the drop down menu OR just double click on TRUE to toggle the state.
Now our statue is ready to be placed. It is basically an addition to the landscape. It won't be something you can interact with but it can add detail to your area and to your story.

While we are in the tutorial, let's quickly cover checking in and checking out resources which is a new concept for Dragon Age. For a more detailed summary, please see [[Resource palette]]. Briefly, in Dragon Age resources are stored within databases. When you work on a module and alter any existing work or create new work, you are creating an instance of the object (be it a placeable, item, creature, area etc.). There are a number of benefits for this that are beyond the scope of this tutorial but when you edit something, it has to be "checked out" (or never checked in) with you working on an instance.

For example, select your new statue and right click and you will see that many common tasks are NOT available because it has not been "checked in" to the database. For example, you can't rename or delete the placeable. In order to rename the placeable, we'll need to check in the placeable. Right click and select check in. Check the box for no comment or enter a comment and hit ok. At this point, the resource has been written to the database. Once the object is "checked in" you can adjust the name or delete it if you so choose (assuming it doesn't have other dependent resources).

== Placing / Adjusting your Placeable ==

That is a brief overview of how to create your first placeables. Now let's cover putting them into your module. To place a placeable, simply bring up an area (which we will make in the [[Area Tutorial]]), then highlight the placeable and left-click within the region.

To adjust the position or orientation of the object, you'll need to use the Camera and Movement Toolbar:

[[Image:Camera and movement toolbar labeled.png]]

To adjust the x,y,z position either activate the Local Coordinates button [[Image:IconLocalCoordinates.png]] or use the keyboard shortcut 'q'. With this activated, you can mouse over any axis (notice the change to the yellow highlight) and the object will move only in the selected dimension.

To adjust the rotational orientation, highlight the 3 Axis Rotation button [[Image:Icon3AxisRotation.png]] or use the keyboard shortcut 'e'. In a similar fashion, you can easily selected and adjust the rotational orientation of the placeable.

'R' is the keyboard shortcut to return to the standard selection tool [[Image:IconStandardSelection.png]].

(For much more detail regarding 3D controls please see the [[3D control]] page).

Of course, you can use the Object Inspector to type in exact numbers for any of these parameters you choose. Simply ensure the object is selected within the area viewer and type in your changes.

== Field Notes ==

*'''Character''': Mapping a character to a placeable is done for VO when a placeable owns a conversation.

[[Category:Placeables]]
[[Category:Tutorials]]