Dragon Age Toolset Wiki - User contributions [en]

Creature tutorial

2009-11-14T23:22:14Z

TheFawz: /* Creating a monstrous creature's template */

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). You might also want to add a head and eyes. Set them to whatever you find suitable (in this case "Hurlock").

[[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.

Creatures in Dragon Age have a level range that scales to the player's current level. For example, if a darkspawn had a level range of 3-8, then it would be around level 4 if the player encountering it was level 4. The level range defines the creatures minimum and maximum levels for these encounters. The default level range is 0-0, and must be changed to a positive number if the creature is hostile to the player at any point.

== 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]]

Area tutorial

2009-11-08T04:29:52Z

TheFawz: /* Setting the start point */

Once you have created a new module (see [[creating a module]]), the first thing you will likely want to do is create one or more areas where your adventure is going to be set.

== Creating the area ==

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

There are several ways to reach the "new area" command; you can right-click on the resource palette window, or select "new" from the file menu.

<br clear="all" />

Areas are represented with the [[Image:IconArea.png]] icon. When you select it you'll be presented with a "Create New Resource" window:

[[Image:Create new resource.png|center|]]

{{sidebox|
* Resref names should be useful to the designer
* Set the "area layout" property to assign terrain to an area
* "Resource Name" and "Tag" are only seen by developers
* "Name" may be seen by players
}}

Most of the fields are already filled in with good defaults for the module you're working with. You'll need to supply a "ResRef Name", which is the name by which the resource will be known internally to the toolset. (This is the "Name" field on the "Create New Resource" dialog box.) You'll probably want to use a name that will remind you, the module designer, of the purpose or important features of the area. Changing a resource's name is difficult to do later. We're going to call the first area of the tutorial "hut_exterior".

After creating the area you'll be presented with a completely blank area editor. There will be no environment or objects of any kind. To specify what environment you'll be placing objects into, open the object inspector and select the "Area Layout" property. There will be an ellipsis button ([[Image:ellipsis.png]]) in the property's data field that will bring up a resource selection window where you can select an environment to use for this area. The environment we wish to select is in the area layout file "ost101d.arl". Once we select it, the area layout appears in the main area window.

The resource's internal resource name is hut_exterior but the player will not see this when he's playing the game. To give the area a name meaningful to the player we'll set the "Name" field to "Deep in the Swamp". All of the other defaults are fine for now, we will leave them as is.

[[Image:Area tutorial 1.png|thumb|600px|center]]

== Area Basics ==
{{sidebox|
* See [[3D control]] for camera and movement controls
* You can double-click on an object in the area's object list to zoom in to it.
}}

Moving the view around inside the area layout can be somewhat non-intuitive and frustrating at first. The toolset has a number of different control schemes it can be set to; see [[3D control]] for a summary of the various options. By default, you can:

* zoom in and out by using the mouse wheel
* rotate the camera around the target it's focused on by holding the middle button down or by holding down the Ctrl key and the right mouse button while moving the mouse
* translate the camera by holding down the Ctrl key and the left mouse button while moving the mouse

To see where you are a bit better, it is helpful to deactivate real lighting or turn on full brightness. Above the area viewer, the sun-like button should be toggled so that it isn't highlighted; see [[Area]] for a more complete summary of various options within the Area Editor.

Before we move along to placing a starting location, it is important to touch upon Pathfinding points. All BioWare areas include walkmesh or pathfinding information. To view pathfinding information for your area, goto View, then Environment, and then toggle Pathfinding Points on. The green dots represent areas where characters can walk. Note, in this map, the area that is walkable is quite small compared to the entire area. When placing your starting location, you should ensure it is in a walkable portion of the area.

== Setting the start point ==

{{sidebox|
* Create a waypoint to mark where the player starts the game
}}

This is going to be the starting area for the adventure, so we're going to want to define a spot within the area where the player will first appear. This is done by setting a [[waypoint]]. Waypoints are very simple objects that mark locations in an area that other objects in the game can refer to; they are not normally visible to the player. To create a waypoint, right-click somewhere in the area and select "Insert Waypoint" from the resulting menu. A waypoint will appear at the location of your mouse pointer and follow it around along the area's floor; move it to the approximate place you want to have the player appear and left-click to place it. By default the waypoint is named "Waypoint".

The waypoint will be automatically selected, indicated by a yellow wireframe box surrounding it. You'll also see the waypoint listed in the area's object list, to the left of the display window. If you lose track of the waypoint later a good way to find it again is to right-click on the waypoint in the list and select "Zoom to Object" in the resulting menu or double click on its tag to center the object in the display window. The waypoint's properties will be shown in the object inspector. We want to change the waypoint's name to something more informative, in this case to "start". More importantly for the game itself, though, we'll also want to change the waypoint's tag to "start" (it defaults to blank). An object's tag is how scripts and other resources will refer to the waypoint. Since this particular waypoint is never going to be visible to the player it's likely that the waypoint's name will never be seen at all.

The player will also start out facing in the same direction that the waypoint is facing (indicated by the arrow-shaped base of the waypoint object). If we don't want the player to start out facing in the default direction, we'll want to rotate the waypoint to point in a new direction. To rotate an object, use the toolbar to switch from standard selection mode ([[Image:Standard selection mode.png]]) to 3-axis rotation mode ([[Image:3 axis rotation mode.png]]).
When you select the waypoint in this mode you'll see a set of circles around the waypoint's base with various orientations; clicking and holding the mouse button on one of them will allow you to rotate the waypoint around its center.

[[Image:Waypoint rotation.png|center]]

Now that we have an area and a waypoint to start at, we can now tell the module that this is where the player is to appear. Reopen the "Manage Modules" window (available via a command under the File menu), select your module, and click the "Properties" button. This opens the module's properties. For the "Starting Area" property, click on the ellipsis button ([[Image:ellipsis.png]]) and select the starting area from the areas available in the module; since we've only put one area in so far "hut_exterior" will be the only available option. Once the area has been selected we can then select the starting waypoint from the waypoints currently placed in the area. Again, we've only put in one so this will be easy. You can also set the player to appear at the origin of the map (coordinates 0,0,0), but this is generally a poor choice and available only as a default in case there are no waypoints defined yet.

== Area transitions via doors ==

Adventures almost always have more than one area in them, so we'll create a second area to demonstrate travel between the two. The area "hut_interior" will use area layout ost102d, which is a cosy little room that represents the interior of the small hut present in the hut_exterior area.

{{sidebox|
* [[Door]]s are special placeables
* Doors can attach to "hooks" pre-built into the area layout
* Area transition doors use a different "appearance" than within-area doors
}}

Next we will need to create some doors. We'll create a default door placeable using the "New Placable" command, reached in a similar way as the "New Area" command explained earlier (placeables will be covered in the [[Placeable tutorial]], but the core game resources will come with a variety of default doors usable in many situations like this) and place it in the area near the empty doorframe built into the hut's exterior. For an area transition, use one of the "Area Transition" appearances for the door. To place the door, click on it in the palette; the mouse cursor will turn into a crosshair; then click in the area viewer near the doorframe.

As a side note, if you accidentally use one of the standard door appearances it won't work as an area transition: the door will simply swing open when clicked on instead. Each standard door appearance has a matching area transition door appearance in the resource database so this can be an easy mistake to make, but it's also easily correctable - just go back to the door's placeable resource and swap in the correct appearance, and all copies of that door in use throughout your game will be updated.

You may notice that when the door you placed in the area is selected a small blue sphere will appear at one edge in addition to the yellow wireframe bounding box. This is the door's "hook". Area layouts come with hidden "hooks" pre-installed to place doors on, and doors have matching hooks of their own. If you click on the blue sphere it will turn red, and all of the compatible door hooks built into the area's layout will appear. The following image illustrates this:

[[Image:Door with door hook selected.png|400px|center|thumb|Drag the red sphere near to the blue sphere to automatically position the door]]

To hook a door up with its frame, simply click and drag the door's hook to a location very close to the matching frame hook. You don't need to get the positioning exact; if the two hooks are close enough together when you release the mouse button they'll automatically snap together. The door will be positioned and reoriented to fit correctly into the frame. Make sure you're still in the 'Standard Selection' mode ([[Image:IconStandardSelection.png]]) for the snap to occur, if you're in the more advanced 3 Axis Movement tool, the snap will not happen.

Note that door hooks are only there to make it easy to get exact matches on frames and walls that need a snug fit, to ensure that Artists and Designers don't have to spend a lot of time putting it in place. Doors will function just as well off of hooks as on them.

{{sidebox|
* Area transition effect is defined in the door's "Variables" property
}}

Next, we'll tell the game engine that the door is an area transition door and that when the player clicks on it he will be transported to another area of the game. This is done by setting two of the door's [[variable]]s. Select the door (either in the area's object palette or directly in the main display window) and right-click on it, selecting "properties" from the resulting menu. This will open the door's properties in the Object Inspector window. Select the "Variables" property and click on the ellipsis ([[Image:ellipsis.png]]) button. This will open up the variable browser for that particular instance of the door object.

There are two key variables in this list that we'll need to set:

*PLC_AT_DEST_AREA_TAG - tag of the destination area
*PLC_AT_DEST_TAG - tag of the destination waypoint within the destination area

Once we've set these the door will become an area transition door, and when the player interacts with it they'll be transported to the target area.

The destination area is "hut_interior". We'll create a waypoint just inside the hut's interior door, tagged "hut_door_interior", to serve as the place where the player appears.

Here is how the exterior door's variables should look:

[[Image:Area tutorial door variables.png|frame|center|Area transition door's variables]]

And here is the interior door, with the destination waypoint:

[[Image:Area tutorial interior door.png|frame|center|Interior door with destination waypoint]]

The interior door is set up in the same manner, with a destination area of "hut_exterior" and a matching destination waypoint of "hut_door_exterior".

{{sidebox|
* Use invisible area transition "doors" when the transition is already built into the area layout art
}}

If you want to create an area transition that doesn't look like a door, or is otherwise already represented by the level art, you can use an invisible 'door' instead. Appearances for these invisible placeables are named "Area Transition, Invisible". Set its variables the same way as was done for the visible door.

[[Image:Area Transition, Invisible.png|frame|center|Invisible area transition]]

The player won't see this 'door' in the game, but when he moves the mouse pointer over it it will change to signify that an area transition lies there and it can be right-clicked to be activated just like a visible door.

== Area transitions via triggers ==

{{sidebox|
* Triggers use variables with a different prefix for setting their area transition effect
}}

Finally, you can also create an area transition that triggers automatically when the player walks into a predefined area. This is done using [[trigger]]s. ([[Image:IconTrigger.png]]) You'll first have to create a trigger resource, much like how you had to create a placeable door earlier, but trigger resources are much simpler and for area transitions you won't need to change any of the defaults. Create a default trigger with "New -> Trigger" (either by right-clicking the resource palette or from the File menu) and give it an informative name such as "trigger_area_transition".

Go back to your area map, select the trigger from the resource palette, and then click on the map to define the corner points of the area the trigger will occupy. Double-click the last vertex to complete the polygon. A trigger can have any number of vertices, and vertices can be moved, added, or deleted after the trigger is created so don't worry if you don't get it exactly right. Note that the blue plane the trigger uses to show the enclosed area will pass through the ground and may not be entirely visible in the toolset, but it extends infinitely upward so the trigger will still take effect if the player enters its boundaries.

To set the trigger's destination, you'll find a familiar pair of variables in the trigger's default variable table:

*TRIGGER_AT_DEST_AREA_TAG - tag of the destination area
*TRIGGER_AT_DEST_TAG - tag of the destination waypoint within the destination area

(Note the prefix "TRIGGER" instead of "PLC")

Below is an example where we've placed both a trigger and an invisible door across a pathway. Note that this is redundant, only one or the other is really needed. For most purposes a placeable area transition is probably best. (''It is worth noting that placeable area transitions prompt a popup asking the player if they want to transition when bumped, but not when clicked upon - effectively acting as either a door or a trigger.'') The waypoint shown is the arrival spot for the player when coming in from the other side; note how it's placed outside the trigger area, allowing the player to immediately back up and retreat through the area transition if he chooses.

[[Image:Area Transition, invisible with trigger.png|center]]

== Grouping Placeables ==

{{sidebox|
* Two or more placeables can be grouped together using Associations.
}}

Often the placeables within an area are related. For example, a firepit placeable probably has an associated sound emitter. The toolset needs to be told that these two objects are related.

# Create a new Placeable and change its "Appearance" to "Firepit (Dialog)", then place it in your area.
# Next, click on the musical note icon in the Palette for "Sounds".
# In the folder tree, go to global_amb_fade > 3D_placeables > 3d_emitter and select the amb_ext_smfire1_lp and place the emitter in your area.
# Right-click on the firepit to bring up the menu and choose "Add Associated object." The cursor changes to a cross-hair.
# Click on the sound emitter placeable.

Now when you drag the firepit placeable around the area, the sound emitter will automatically follow. Use the "Managed Links" menu item if you want to remove an association. Note that associations are uni-directional; you can still move the sound emitter without moving the firepit. Examples of other useful associations: a table and all of the items on top of the table, a table surrounded by chairs, etc.

[[Category:Areas]]
[[Category:Tutorials]]