Some questions before getting started

[H-Hour]

Alright, I've gone through the tutorial and I've got my shed and hedges. Got some soldiers, enemies and civilians in the map. I've tested out func_rotate and func_breakable, the materials feature to blend two textures, and I've got a little staircase. Before I start work on something that matters, I wanted to clear up a few questions I had about mapping and UFOAI.

1. I've built a little test thing to see at what heights the soldier can see over walls when standing and crouching. Standing, they can just see over my 44-tall wall, but not the 52-tall. Crouching they can just see over 28 units, but not 36. I know that there are currently new soldier models in development. Does anyone know if the visibility heights will change with the new models?

2. Is it possible to have a func_breakable spawn a misc_particle that loops? I know the entity has a particle key that will call a particle when it dies, but I'm using that for an explosion and I'd like to be able to call fire or smoke to continue going after the explosion. There's a targetname key as well for the func_breakable, but the misc_particle doesn't appear to have a name key. Is this possible?

3. Is the 64-units-as-one-level a technical limitation or a designing "best-practice". For instance, if I have a canyon and I want the floor of the canyon to be level one and the top of the canyon to be level two, can I make the canyon walls 128 units high? I would do this mostly so the player doesn't have to cycle through extraneous levels. But it might also come in handy if I've got a hill outside a house. If a floor at 68 units inside the house is level two, but a hill outside at 68 units high is level one, will this cause any problems? Or is the level system just for the ease of cycling up and down the levels?

4. I believe I've read somewhere that trees do not block sight. Is that correct?

5. And a style question... I've noticed that most of the structures appear as late-20th, early-21st century buildings. Is this is a conscious design decision that's been made by the team to keep things looking current, or is there scope for creating "futuristic" looking buildings (within reason, of course)?


Sorry for the long list. Thanks for any answers anyone's got.

[Mattn]

1. I've built a little test thing to see at what heights the soldier can see over walls when standing and crouching. Standing, they can just see over my 44-tall wall, but not the 52-tall. Crouching they can just see over 28 units, but not 36. I know that there are currently new soldier models in development. Does anyone know if the visibility heights will change with the new models?

No, that will not change. These values will be fixed.

2. Is it possible to have a func_breakable spawn a misc_particle that loops? I know the entity has a particle key that will call a particle when it dies, but I'm using that for an explosion and I'd like to be able to call fire or smoke to continue going after the explosion. There's a targetname key as well for the func_breakable, but the misc_particle doesn't appear to have a name key. Is this possible?

it "should" be possible to spawn every particle with a func_breakable. you just have to select a looping one - not every particle loops. (you can also create your own particles - see the scripting section of the wiki - but be warned, it's a little awk. there will be a particle editor in the future in uforadiant, but it's still missing)

in fact, every entity can have a name - if this is not true for the misc_particle we should update the entities.ufo file - and add it.

3. Is the 64-units-as-one-level a technical limitation or a designing "best-practice". For instance, if I have a canyon and I want the floor of the canyon to be level one and the top of the canyon to be level two, can I make the canyon walls 128 units high? I would do this mostly so the player doesn't have to cycle through extraneous levels. But it might also come in handy if I've got a hill outside a house. If a floor at 68 units inside the house is level two, but a hill outside at 68 units high is level one, will this cause any problems? Or is the level system just for the ease of cycling up and down the levels?

The camera will only increase a limited high with each level. The new tracing code (that is also still in bug-fixing stage btw) should allow and other level height, too.

4. I believe I've read somewhere that trees do not block sight. Is that correct?

yes - you have to add a nodraw brush around then, and weaponclip if they should block shooting - or actorclip if they should block walking (not needed if you've added nodraw already afair)

5. And a style question... I've noticed that most of the structures appear as late-20th, early-21st century buildings. Is this is a conscious design decision that's been made by the team to keep things looking current, or is there scope for creating "futuristic" looking buildings (within reason, of course)?

within reason you can of course create futuristic buildings (within the above mentioned reason ). It should maybe not be totally different from the current style - but a little bit diversity is imo a good thing, too.

[H-Hour]

Thanks Martin, a couple notes.

2. I just checked entities.ufo and it appears that misc_particles does not have a name key.

3. I'm still a little confused. What exactly is the tracing code? Will using abnormal heights interfere with actual game mechanics or just the link between the camera and the map?

[Mattn]

it's just the link from camera to map - if you create a map that needs different heights between level, we can implement something like that as a worldspawn entity parameter.