[Alpha 0.606] FA Forever Map Editor

[ozonex]

I've been playing around with the editor and I've encountered one major issue, it may be due to me missing something thats extremely important, however, whenever I spawn units that are associated with a player (ARMY_1) ect or others team such as Neutral, they fail to spawn, or spawn, however all acus fail to spawn instead, am I missing something?

This is what I know about unit placement:
https://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?ti ... _civilians

Not sure if units can be added to "playable" army, but if yes, then probably it need to be in "INITIAL" group.

[ozonex]

v0.602
- Armies: Fixed crash when creating new map and Armies tool is open
- Armies: Added notification in Map/Scenario to remember about setting spawn points to be Odd/Even
- Terrain Type: Additional features for TerrainType (pipet, erase, current layer) [by Zkov]
- Textures: Fixed wrong proportion between map and brush size in some cases
- Textures: Fixed undo for moving layers up and down
- Textures: Fixed undo for albedo and normal size sliders
- Markers: Editor can now load NavalExclude marker
- Props: Fixed clipping area not updated when map don't have any areas
- Props: Removed random scale from props, because it don't work in game
- Props: Fixed error on props without size and mesh
- Props: Props without mesh and material will now render as default white box
- Decals: Added total decal cont and screen decal count
- Units: Fixed unit rotation
- Files: Editor will now automatically change map version to be the same as suffix in folder name
- Files: Editor now not allow for changing map version manually. Use "Save as new version" instead.
- Files: Editor will now fix paths to stratum textures if they are in lower case
- Files: Improved "Save as" and "Save as new version" file version control check
- Files: Fixed crash on creating new map, when other map were loaded before with v60 selected
- Files: Fixed wrong file format in marker presets
- Undo: Rewritten undo system


Sorry for such much releases last days, but there are many new users and they found a lot of new bugs and I want to fix them as fast I can

File versioning
I decided to finally track down everything that cause "four corners" bug to appear. There are many changes in how folder and files are named. From now every map created or saved as next version should never have this bug again. Try to not change folder name, file names or map_version value manually, this can cause "Four corner" bug to appear. Editor gives all tools to do it from it, just use "Save as new version" or "Save as". Limitations are there to make sure it will be correctly recognized by FAF and map uploader.

How to fix "Four corners" bug
- If you have broken map, and you want to fix that bug, then just open your map, and use "save as new version" (no "Save as"!!!) It will create exactly the same map, with higher version and it will be ready to just upload to vault to replace old broken map.
- If you want to change folder name to different then use "save as". If you chosen wrong folder name it will automatically create other folder with corrected name.
- When using "save as" you can add version in folder name (".v0001" or any higher) and map will change its version into that from folder name.
- If you have map with version 1, never uploaded to vault and it's somehow broken, and you want to repair it without changing folder name, then:
* "Save as new version" (it create duplicate with higher version).
* Clear files from folder with v0001.
* "Save as" and select that folder with v0001
* Remove folder with v0002

Undo system
With help of Zkov i rewritten Undo system. It's nothing big for users, but code is way more clean and elegant.

Decal counter
Added decal counter under Decals. It allow to see how many decals are total on map, and how many of them are currently visible on the screen. This is usefull, because game limits how many decals can be rendered on screen.

Download
https://github.com/ozonexo3/FAForeverMapEditor/releases/tag/v0.602-alpha

[bigcrap757]

I'm not really sure how to use the AI markers like expansion area and such, can you give me a general overview? also, do you plan on adding the ability to put in structures?

[ozonex]

I'm not really sure how to use the AI markers like expansion area and such, can you give me a general overview?

I also not sure how to use them I need to make some more research to be able to write Wiki page about them.

Base thing for AI are path nodes, and there are 4 types: Land, Amphibious, Naval and Air. You need to define which points are connected to tell AI from what places of the map where it can go for different type of units. In editor go to Markers/Layers and enable marker connections layer to be able to see connections. Then place some path node markers and connect them by pressing C or to disconnect press D (you need to be in Marker/Markers tab).

Here is old video tutorial using old tools, but process is simmilar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDO8zf2afhc

also, do you plan on adding the ability to put in structures?

structures are units, so they can be found under Units menu.

Read this about units:
https://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?ti ... itor#Units

and this (old):
https://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?ti ... _civilians

[zergui]

I'm not really sure how to use the AI markers like expansion area and such, can you give me a general overview? also, do you plan on adding the ability to put in structures?

There are many AI markers, though I am not familiar with 100% of them, this may help you:


• Combat Zone: Tells the AI(s) where there could be a fight happening. It will scout it frequently and may go fight if needed.
• Defensive Point / Naval Defensive Point: The AIs will set defenses there.
• Protected Experimental: Area for experimental construction.
• Expansion Area: When the surrounding is considered safe, the AIs will build some defenses/factories...
• Large Expansion Area: The same as the previous with a larger scale this time.
• Naval Area: Tells the AI where to build naval factories.
• Rally Point/Naval Rally Point: The units will rally at this point. Be sure to not place them in the middle of the base
• Path nodes: ozonex already replied. It is the paths for the AIs. (What even is "Auto Path Nodes"?)
• Naval Link: I don't know ):
• Transport Marker: AIs will drop units there.
• Island: Not sure, I think it's some kind of expansion area.

You can try put some markers down on a map and try to see how AIs react to them in-game while you observe them. Use Ctrl+Shift to see their paths.

[Sprouto]

That pretty much sums it up. Of course, if you want to get complicated, you could go into some detail about how the markers work, and the best method of using them. This would be especially true of the basic movement markers (Air,Amphibious,Land & Naval), since there are some do's and don'ts that make all the difference. Spacing is of particular importance as it can make a large difference is the performance of a map. Essentially - less markers is better game performance, but the AI may have trouble moving effectively from one point to another.

A great deal depends upon the AI being used, but I will assume you want to refer to Sorian AI, it being the most widely used.

Naval Links are not used by the stock or Sorian AI.
Transport Markers are only used when the AI cannot find a suitable movement marker near it's goal.
The Island marker also has no effect in stock or Sorian that I am aware of.

I wanted to take a minute to ask you for a tool that would greatly help those placing AI markers - both of them are grid line overlays - one is a simple 1km by 1km grid pattern. The second would be the intel map grid overlay which would be a 16 x 16 grid over the entire map. Those two overlays would really help those marking maps not only better judge distances between markers, but also how they relate to the way the AI 'sees' the map in terms of threat.

Again - thanks for your tremendous work.

[ozonex]

I wanted to take a minute to ask you for a tool that would greatly help those placing AI markers - both of them are grid line overlays - one is a simple 1km by 1km grid pattern. The second would be the intel map grid overlay which would be a 16 x 16 grid over the entire map. Those two overlays would really help those marking maps not only better judge distances between markers, but also how they relate to the way the AI 'sees' the map in terms of threat.

So, if i understand correctly, you want 2 new types of grids.
1. 1kmx1km - working similar as current grid, but with cells of size 1km. How it should be named? What is its purpose?
2. AI Intel grid - splits map with 16x16 grid

Or maybe it should be one overlay, as AI grid, with them both visible?

Right now game has 2 grids - standard grid and unit building grid. I can just add switch in menu.


I appreciate if someone finds time and help me write wiki page about AI markers in editor. I don't know them well, so someone with more experience will help a lot
https://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?ti ... _Editor#AI

[Sprouto]

Thanks for your reply.

The 1km grid is for general distance - since many markers are best placed at a certain distance from each other (it differs between the types) and from certain terrain features. With proper spacing, the most common problems, like units clumping up at the top of a mountain, or at the edge of a river, or trying to collect in a formation too close to a base marker, can be easily avoided.

The intel grid is to help the person marking visualize how much access the AI might have to each block of the grid. This is important as the AI 'sees' the map with this grid and needs to be able to move to those areas. This can help decluttering areas that might be overmarked or those that aren't marked at all.

This grid is always 16 x 16 on any map, and because of this, a marker layout that works well on a 10km map may not work very well on the same map at another size (we do a lot of map resizing for LOUD so we're well acquainted with this).

[ozonex]

v0.603
- Terrain: Added Tab, num1, num2, num3 and num4 shortcuts to switch between brush type
- Terrain: Fixed terrain control textures not updated in some cases when painting
- Textures: Editor now don't allow to assign normal maps as albedo, and albedo as normal
- Skybox: Fixed skybox not correctly updated when loading map
- Brush: Changed brush strength shortcut from M to V
- Brush: Added new shortcut for brush size: W
- Brush: Added new shortcut for brush strength: S
- Brush: Added Q or + and A or - shortcut for changing target value
- Props: Fixed crash on props without LOD levels
- Props: Force props scale to 1 when map is loaded
- Props: Fixed error at loading DevTest props
- Decals: Fixed occasional crash when hiding decals
- Units: Fixed crash when undoing placement, when these units are selected
- Units: Selection now shows real size of the unit
- Units: Selection box is now loaded from blueprint
- Selection: Added double click to select all objects of the same type
- Files: When selecting same folder in "Save as" as current loaded map, editor will now just save it
- Files: When selected folder for "Save as" is not empty, but contains map files, editor will ask if we want to override map
- Resource browser: After drag is finished, memory about dragged object is now cleared.
- Debug: Fixed build grid
- Debug: Improved Slope view
- Debug: Added General Distance grid, that shows kilometers
- Debug: Added AI Intel grid, that splits map into 16x16 grid


File versioning
More "Save as" improvements. Now it should behave as expected in all cases.

Debug
Some fixes and changes in debug views. I rewritten slope algorithm after analyzing how old editor calculate that, in its now very similar.
Added General Distance and AI Intel grids to help with creating AI markers on map.

Key shortcuts
Changed some keys and added few new ones, to improve workflow. All keys are now mostly on the left of keyboard for easier access.

Download
https://github.com/ozonexo3/FAForeverMapEditor/releases/tag/v0.603-alpha

[ockey]

This program goes only on x64?
I have x32