Making para Maps

Winters

Allright. Heres all that you need to know on making Para maps:
(Ill attach the FGD file to this post)

From waldo's post on www.dayofdefeatmod.com
Now, a few quick pointers on stuff in there and how to use it...


New INFO_DODDETECT
There is a new entity called info_doddetect. Place one of these in your map. When you open up it's properties in WorldCraft, you'll see how you can use it to control several things, including...

• whether axis are paras or normal soldiers
• whether allies are paras or normal soldiers
• whether axis spawn once (1 life) or multiple times (normal)
• whether allies spawn once (1 life) or multiple times (normal)
• whether to use the new built in round timer
• what team wins if the round timer runs out
• how many points the timeout winners get
• points given if the allies wipe out the axis
• points given if the axis wipe out the allies
• what to target if the allies get wiped out
• what to target if the axis get wiped out

New DOD_CAMERA
These are used for the new cutscenes. This is basically identical to the trigger_camera entity. I won't go into detail about how the basic camera idea works, but will leave it to that link (click it!) to Valve-ERC to help you out with cameras.

That said, dod_camera does have the following extra abilities...



Instead of being a camera that just one person views through, it is a camera that an entire team (or all players) view through

• Zoom FOV sets the field of view of the camera
• dod_camera view sets if the view looks like it's through binoculars, a sniper scope, or that "widescreen movie" look
• dod_camera Fade sets how the camera fades in or out initially
• Subtitle is used to indicate a subtitle number. More on that later...
• Hold time is the total time the camera holds the players view
• Trigger on start is what gets triggered when the camera FIRST is activated
• Trigger on end is what gets triggered when the camera's timer (hold time) runs out
• Team that is bound to controls what team watches the camera view (axis, allies, both)

By the way, I intend to "open source" the whole C47 sequence in hedgerow here. It should be a good aid for mappers to learn how cuts are put together, and i'm sure someone can make it better than I did. You'd laugh if you saw how simplistic that airplane is.

New DOD_LOCATION
This is a new "information" entity that's tied into the new ability of players to put "%l" in their message (talk) text, and have it replaced with the name of the closest location to them. Basically, just sprinkle these entities all around your map at key locations that should have names. Then, using the "%l" thing, players can easily report their positions.

By the way, note that the dod_location has a master. You could have two sets of location names based on the state of something in your map, and have the location text change based on the master. So for example in hedgerow, I could have (but didn't) put two dod_locations by 88 #1. One is named "88 #1" the other named "Destroyed 88 #1". Then by some clever master work, I could make the "Destroyed 88 #1" dod_location be active after the 88 is blown up.

New ENV_MODEL
This is from the Spirit of Half-Life Mod. It's a vastly superior entity for placing models in your map. It should be fairly self explanatory by looking at the entity attributes. One really useful attribute is the "Sequence when on/off" values. These are the names of the animations the model will play when on, or off (assuming the model has some animations). These are used extensively in cutscene animations. The three germans around the campfire in the Hedgerow cutscene for example are all env_models. They all have an action animation (standing up and looking, coughing then waking up sleeper, sleeping) and an idle animation (just crouched by fire warming hands, just sitting, just sleeping). The other thing you can set is what happens when the env_model is set to be on or off. You can have your model just perform the "on" animation once when turned on, or continue to loop through the on animation until turned off, or just play the on animation once and then go back to off. You have the same basic control with the off state as well.

A bit confusing maybe, but just play with it. It was fantastic for doing the cut scenes. Don't forget you can actually use the player models for your models - and call the animations they have. They won't actually run/move if you use a run animation, but you still get all the other animations while standing still.

Changes to DOD_CONTROL_POINT
You can now choose from a number of new HUD flag symbols to show instead of the standard flag. You can see this in action in all three of the para maps, the 88's and radio antenna in Glider, the 88s in Hedgerow, and the trucks in Kraftstoff. The symbols you can choose from include Flag, Artillery, Bridge, Radio, Documents, Truck, and several holders for custom hud sprites.

Ask me in here some time how to do custom and I can explain how, or I will write something up.

Changes to DOD_CAPTURE_AREA
Now, you can require a player to be carrying an object from a particular group in order to cap the area. This is used in all three para maps to make it such that the players must occupy the zone for a bit of time before actually starting up the 88s blowing up, the radio being blown up (in Glider), or the trucks being captured.

Weapons and Ammo
You'll find a collection of entities that allow you to put weapons and ammo in a map. Be pretty careful with this as you can do some whacko stuff (like give a soldier a rifle and an MG). It's in there "because you can do it" not because we think it's a good idea in a map. But this should let those clever chaps in the mapping world do ALL SHOVEL MAPS (woot!). Hit the players with a weapon strip and give them a pile of shovels!

Experimental Entities
Down at the bottom of the FGD, you will find a number of entities that we put in from Half-Life single player. These were originally intended for use in cut scenes, but not used very much. However they are there, and you are free to experiment. You'll find a monster_allied_grunt, a monster_axis_grunt, and a monster_allied_barney. They behave pretty much like the normal monster_grunt and monster_barney. They are pretty buggy, and the the grunts don't care what team you are on, they will all shoot at you (axis or allied). You'll also find various entities such as scripted_sequence to use for controlling these "monsters". This kind of mapping is way beyond the scope of what I could put in here, so I encourage you to go to a site such as Valve-ERC for more information.

The FGD file is in a .txt form so just save it as halflife-DOD3.fgd

Also you can find mapping stuff here: http://mapping.dodhq.com/

They have a few tutorials up.. here are some good ones:

• Adavancing Spawn Tutorial
• TNT and Objective Map Tutorial

Anima

wtf is a para map?

Winters

Ill like to point out that a para map is in DOD! If you dont map for DOD you probably will not find this interesting.

DRakE

Very informative (sp?)

The dod_camera entity looks cool, as well as the env_model.. very helpful from a mappers point of view.

Winters

Anychance you could make this a stickey? I dont plan to reply to anyone if they ask how to make a para map later...

DRakE

I'm not sure that we have enough people who map for DoD to make this a sticky... but I'll sticky it for a week or so

banquo

the camera sounds cool... make it a sticky

Winters

Good news for anyone trying to make a para map! Waldo has released an "Open Source" version of the allied para cut from Hedgerow. Its 4.5MB's big and im currantly 55% done. If you want to download it to see how the whole camera system works you can find it here:
http://www.dayofdefeatmod.com/holtt/allied_plane_cut.zip