Lesson 8

By: Deathbliss

Deathbliss

    Boy we get to have some fun here! I think item placement is one of my specialties. By now we all should have found there area we excel at (or think we excel at). I'll put myself to the test here, and you get to sit back and enjoy the ride with me. By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

1. Add weapons and pickups (health, armor, ammo, and various items).
2. Add baddies and living creatures to the level.
3. Add a title and music to you level - as I'm sure after hearing what I have done on the UnealED Exordium Lesson Map you've been wanting to learn how.

    So without further ado let's add some weapons, ammo and armor. To start open up the last save of the map you have been working on with me (lesson 7). I have decided I wanted some of the weaker armor in the hallway to the side of the TELEORTER. You'll actually need the FLASHLIGHT on to see it when your first play. So this would give us a reason for the FLASHLIGHT now wouldn't it? So open up the CLASSES BROWSER, find INVENTORY, click on the - next to that, and then click on the - next to PICKUP. In that list find ARMOR and select it. Place the ARMOR on one side or the other at the end of the Hallway (the area with the windows in it - our second room). I've rotated mine to fit right in the space, and placed it one darker gray grid square above the floor. Now for the other side. What should we place there? Health? No, because you don't need it yet and why would you want to run all the way back for it. A weapon or ammo perhaps? Not exactly - you see you should have the players work a little before you get the next gun, yet going after some of the baddies with just a blaster isn't cool either. So I placed a WEAPONPOWERUP on the other side of the TELEPORTER, and this time I decided that since it's taller than the ARMOR it should be placed even with floor. Here's the end result:     Now for the Pool Room. It seems to me as maybe something should be placed in the pool, and that we should have one baddie in here at least. I'm going to add 2 and see what the effect is. Open up the CLASSES BROWSER and look down the list for PAWN. Click on the - next to PAWN and look for SCRIPTED PAWN in that list. Now find some baddies to add. I've played single player a bit but I'm still not completely sure of what baddie is what. So I am placing a BRUTE on either side of the upper TELEPORTER in the Pool Room. No, check that, the BRUTE looks a little big for the ledge and our upgraded DISPERSION PISTOL. So I clicked on the - next to BRUTE and chose LESSER BRUTE from the list. Here's how I placed them:     Now we'll definitely need some health, so I am placing a HEALTH on either side of my lower Pool Room TELEPORTER. Get to HEALTH by opening up the CLASSES BROWSER, clicking on the - next to INVENTORY, then the - next to PICKUP. In that list you'll see HEALTH and this is what we want. If you click on the - next to HEALTH you see the various other kinds there are. Now if you survive these guys (I hope they're as tough as they look) you should get a reward, so I am placing a FLAK CANNON and FLAKSHELL AMMO in the pool and placing as below. Get to them by following the steps we took to place the WEAPONPOWERUP,  and for the ammo look under INVENTORY/PICKUP/AMMO. I decided everything should be a darker gray square above the pool floor, and I've placed like below:     At this point REBUILD, SAVE, and try it out. I noticed a lot of slowdown so I again deleted the fancy water texture that moved and switched to a non-moving one that looked about the same. If you aren't having slowdown don't worry about this. The two LOWER BRUTES are kinda wimpy with the weaponry at hand, they fight each other and the enter the TELEPORTER. So I may replace them with BRUTES later, and I have moved them to either side of the room on the upper walkway. Now I can focus on our Outdoor Area. I wanted a school of fish in the water so open up CLASSES/PAWN/MASTER PAWN and find BITTERFISHSCHOOL there in the list. Select it and add it somewhere in the middle of the pool in the Outdoor Area. You'll get something that looks like this:     Now there are a few unknowns at this point - I.E. do the bitterfish hurt you? Do I need to define a path for them to follow? Will the water force affect them and should it? I'm just slopping this in and we'll see what it does together. How about some birds? I always wondered if you could add a bird flock in your SKYBOX so you could see them out of the windows. I'm trying this now. Ok, I take it back - the BRUTES can be tough when they get you cornered. I may increase their intelligence. The BITTERFISH SCHOOL finished me off, so I am making them INDIFFERENT. The same applies to the birds, although I'm trying FRIENDLY for now. To get to these settings merely RIGHT CLICK on the PAWN, go to it's PROPERTIES, and under AI you'll find the various settings for intelligence and their attitude toward you. Play around with these at will. Right under AI there should may be a more specific option - in the case of the BITTERFISH SCHOOL you can determine the aggressiveness, color, radius, and size of the school. I increased the radius to 200, made them non-aggresive, and decreased the size down to 10. On the birds I increased the FOV to 128, and under DISPLAY I cut the DRAW SCALE in half. If you are following along take a break, REBUILD, SAVE and try it out. Keep adjusting things until they are the way you want. I have concluded that the birds aren't quite realistic enough in the SKYBOX so I am removing them to the "ceiling" of the outdoor area. I will still try FRIENDLY to see what they do. The BITTERFISH SCHOOL I am going to decrease to 4 then I will duplicate and add 3 schools at different locals. Here's a pic from in the level:     At this point we may want to sprinkle some vegetation around the level - so open up the CLASSESBROWSER and find DECORATION. Open it up and a REALLY long list opens up. Find SEAWEED and add it to the floor of the pool in our Outdoor Area. In that list are also various plants and trees - add accordingly until it looks like you what you want. My map is as always available for download off the main page should you need a reference. Well I'm happy with everything, however we will need more ammo later on in the level. We also need to cover things like TRIGGERS and SWITCHES but I have to read up myself  some more too. Need to learn how to build secret rooms, and we'll need to design a Deathmatch map so we can learn about BOTPATHING - another thing I specialize in. Once we've covered everything the best I can then we'll become a little more interactive and design concepts together. I have an idea for a room that has a fan in the floor. In any case, go up to OPTIONS, then LEVEL PROPERTIES, and click on the + next to level info. Here you can input your name, the level's name, and a few other things. Under AUTHOR I have Deathbliss and under TITLE I have UnrealED Exordium Lesson Map - input what you will. Close up that list for now and look further up the list until you spot AUDIO. Click on the + next to it to reveal a few options. Under SONG I have SACRED. Open up the MUSIC BROWSER and LOAD up whatever you want (.UMX are the music files in Unreal). You can preview the track by clicking on play. Once you find one you like leave it highlighted in the list and go to AUDIO/SONG and click on the box next to SONG. Now click on USE and when you enter the level you will now hear the music you have chosen.

    Well aren't things getting pretty cool? Yet we really haven't even scratched the surface yet. There are SO many things that can be done in UnrealED. As usual e-mail me if you have any questions, comments, etc. and I hope to see you in Lesson 9 soon. Good work everyone!