The Homeworld Map Makers Primer v2.1 FINAL

 
HW Tutorial 8.0 Tweaking

 

Part Eight: Overview

In this
section you will edit the local player resources and add a huge cloud of dust motes and dustclouds in the centre of the map.

8.1

Edit the ResourceSphere_1.misspherelocal player resourcesphere lines.

8.2

Edit the local player resourcesphere lines by using cylinders to make a better 'Sphere'.

8.3

Create a huge central dust cloud from dust motes and dustclouds.

8.4

Part Eight Summary.


Quick Links Relevant to this Chapter

 

8.0 Tweaking Resources

We are going to make each of our local player resource spheres as dense as possible. We are going to add a second sphere in exactly the same place as the last, but to retain (or even enhance) the spherical nature of these starting spheres we are going to reduce the size of both spheres, making one smaller than the other as well. 

 

8.1 - Edit the ResourceSphere_1.misspherelocal player resourcesphere lines.

Copy both resource lines in the ResourceSphere_1.missphere, paste them directly underneath. For each cluster we want a sphere with radius and diameter to 6000,12000 and the second as 8000,16000; 

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,50000.0,0.0,Sphere,Asteroid.dist,20,6000.4,12000.8,0.0,0.0,2048,1

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,50000.0,0.0,Sphere,Asteroid.dist,20,8000.4,16000.8, 0.0,0.0,2048,1

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,-50000.0,0.0,Sphere,Asteroid.dist,20,6000.4,12000.8,0.0,0.0,2048,1

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,-50000.0,0.0,Sphere,Asteroid.dist,20,8000.4,16000.8, 0.0,0.0,2048,1

Take a look at them in the game. Nice and dense, dense enough to hid our opponent in, but they don’t look very spherical do they not? Well there is a property that can address this; the shell property and we could feasibly add a shell, which seem to retain their shape better for the larger spheres. But, were not going to do that, instead we are going to use a better method first devised by TAKER, we are going to use two cylinders at 45° angles to one another. These changes can be simply done by cutting and pasting, (in fact if you havent already realised 90% of making maps is cutting and pasting), I will take you through it;

 

8.2 - Edit the local player resourcesphere lines by using cylinders to make a better 'Sphere'.

Each player is going to start in an asteroid cluster composed of six lines of resources.

8.2.1 - Copy and paste each until you have 6 lines with co-ordinates ‘0,50000,0’ and six of ‘0,-50000,0’ (posx,posy,posz).

8.2.2 - Next rename the layout to ‘Cylinder’ for them all.

8.2.3 - The first two lines in each cluster we want to have numResources value of 16, radius and length of 6000 and 12000 respectively,

8.2.4 - For the second line only, change the roty and rotz to 45. 

8.2.5 - The next two lines (lines 3 and 4 from each sextuplet) again will have numResources of 16 but this time we want the cylinder to be slightly larger, set the radius and length to 8000 and 16000 respectively.

8.2.6 - For the second 8000 line only, (line 4) change the roty and rotz to 45. 

8.2.7 - The last two lines of each cluster will be there purely for aesthetic reasons and will be composed entirely of dust motes, the distribution file for this is called Tiny.dist. If you open it up and take a look you will see it is composed of 15 asteroid0’s only.

You know what your doing now yes? For these lines, rename the distribution to ‘Tiny.dist’, change the numResources to 30, radius to 10000, length to 20000 and change the roty and rotz to 45 for the last line.

Your lines should look like this when you’re finished;

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Asteroid.dist,16,6000.4,12000.8,0.0,0.0,2048,1

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Asteroid.dist,16,6000.4,12000.8,45.0,45.0,2048,1

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Asteroid.dist,16,8000.4,16000.8,0.0,0.0,2048,1

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Asteroid.dist,16,8000.4,16000.8,45.0,45.0,2048,1

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Tiny.dist,30,10000.4,20000.8,0.0,0.0,?,?

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Tiny.dist,30,10000.4,20000.8,45.0,45.0,?,?

 

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,-50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Asteroid.dist,16,6000.4,12000.8,0.0,0.0,2048,1

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,-50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Asteroid.dist,16,6000.4,12000.8,45.0,45.0,2048,1

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,-50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Asteroid.dist,16,8000.4,16000.8,0.0,0.0,2048,1

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,-50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Asteroid.dist,16,8000.4,16000.8,45.0,45.0,2048,1

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,-50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Tiny.dist,30,10000.4,20000.8,0.0,0.0,?,?

Resources    Asteroid,0.0,-50000.0,0.0,Cylinder,Tiny.dist,30,10000.4,20000.8,45.0,45.0,?,?

Take a look at the results in Homeworld, a lot, lot better huh?

 

8.3 - Create a huge central dust cloud from dust motes and dustclouds.

Ok, we will now finish of the 2 player map by adding in a central region of asteroids with its CPU defended station to make it a dangerous place to go.

The central sphere will be a huge cluster of dust in an overlarge ball, this time we will follow Hellhawk666’s example on how to create these and retain large spherical shapes.

8.3.1 - First lets add a DustCloud sphere in the centre to hide our Station in. Copy a resource line and rename the ‘Resources   Asteroid’ to ‘Resources   DustCloud’.

8.3.2 - We want this cloud in the centre of our map so posx,posy,posz will be 0,0,0. Next rename the layout back to ‘Sphere’. The Distribution of the file will be ‘DustCloud.dist’ because we have named the resourcetype (the first parameter in the line) as ‘DustCloud’. Drop the resourceNum to ‘16’, we don’t need it too dense. The radius and diameter change to ‘3000’ and ‘6000’ respectively. We have no need for any axial tilt so set them to ‘0’ and we don’t want them to regenerate so lets make sure that the properties all are set at ‘?’.

8.3.3 - Copy this line and in the second line we will make a slightly larger sphere, all we need to change in our second line is the radius and diameter, change them to ‘10000’ and ‘20000’. 

The last thing you need to do is make sure you have the relevant distribution file in your Revelations2 folder, so just make sure you really do have 'DustCloud.dist' in there, if not it can be found in the Tutorial Map files folder.

8.3.4 - Next; the dust ball that will comprise our central region. Ok you know what you are doing with this so rather than talk you through it all I will explain what I did:

I created 12 spheres all centred on the dead centre of the map at co-ordinates 0,0,0, then I made sure they were all spheres of Tiny.dist distribution with a resourceNum of 250, this whopping number was needed because the spheres are so big. I made the radius for each sphere slightly larger than the one before it and to retain the spherical shape I made the last 6 spheres shells using property ‘2’.Here they are in full;

Resources    DustCloud,0,0,0,Sphere,DustCloud.dist,16,3000,6000,0,0,?,?
Resources    DustCloud,0,0,0,Sphere,DustCloud.dist,16,10000,20000,0,0,?,?

Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,10000,20000,0,0,?,?
Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,12000,24000,0,0,?,?
Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,14000,28000,0,0,?,?
Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,16000,32000,0,0,?,?
Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,18000,36000,0,0,?,?
Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,19000,38000,0,0,?,?
Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,20000,40000,0,0,2,?
Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,22000,45000,0,0,2,?
Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,24000,50000,0,0,2,?
Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,25000,50000,0,0,2,?
Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,26000,52000,0,0,2,?
Resources    Asteroid,0,0,0,Sphere,Tiny.dist,250,27000,54000,0,0,2,?

 

8.4 - Summary

So how did I come up with the numbers, sizes etc? Sheer experimentation my dear reader, you can happily access and modify every file that makes up a map, Alt-tabbing between Homeworld and desktop is a doddle and you only need to reload the actual game (as opposed to Homeworld loading up your map) when you change something that causes a fatal error, or you add a new folder in.

Working in small increments and constantly checking and tweaking is what its all about.

So that’s the resources completed for our 2 player (1v1) map. I created these by jumping in and out of Homeworld and tweaking them until I was happy. Go take a look at them for yourself in Homeworld. All that remains to add is our station and its defending weaponry, the large and small guns found in the singleplayer junkyard mission ‘The Karos Graveyard’. Everything you need is here, there is nothing stopping you going and doing it for yourself but fear not, I will talk you through the addition of CPU controlled ships in Multiplayer missions.

 

 

Quick Links:

HW Primer:
Chapter Five - The Resource Spheres Files

Quick Jump to Relevant Areas in the Primer:
5.2 The Resouce Line
5.8 Distribution of Resources; the *.dist files
5.10 On the Placement of Resources

Quick Jump to Relevant Appendices:
Appendix A: Relic Resource List

Appendix A: The Resource File Parameters

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