how to develop a scenario?

[who cares]

I know this is a question that has been asked time and again. But I need help on some specific questions.

 

1)Do I need to learn scripting? Or can simple scenarios be created without scripting?

 

2)How difficult is scripting? I know a decent amount of C++ (arrays, loops, pointers, functions classes, polymorphism,etc). Will I find it difficult to learn scripting for BOA?

 

3)Where should I begin? I found the tutorial that comes along with BOA a little too lengthy. Is there any other tutorial available?

 

4)How long does it take to (somewhat) finish the learning part?

 

Thanx.

[Kelandon]

You need to learn some basic scripting to make a scenario. If you found the tutorial that comes with BoA too length, you may not have the patience for much of any tutorial. There are a few (I wrote an article , and there's the Cookbook ).

 

If you know any C, then BoA scripting should be relatively a piece of cake. Without any knowledge of any programming, I learned BoA scripting in a few months, but I think that could've been shortened to a couple of weeks if I knew anything about C first.

 

One of the best ways to learn is to look at examples. VoDT is a simple, basic scenario that will show you most of what you need to know to start out.

[DreamGuy]

Err, yeah... the tutorial that comes with the BoA editor documentation is so short it's nearly nonexistent. I really don't see how anyone who hopes to design scenarios could consider it too lengthy. It needed to be at least 10 times longer and actually cover scripting to some extent to be of much use.

[Donald Hebb]

1) The BoA Editor Appendices are a much better tool once you know basic syntax

2) Playing around- that is, making a scenario that exists just so you can test what you know- is a terrific way to learn

[who cares]

Thanx for the help.

 

And the only reason I found the Editor documentation too lengthy was that I never actually read it completely.(I hope you understand what I mean) Plus, I wasn't (and still aren't) planning to learn scripting anytime soon due to terribly hectic schedules. I was just wondering if I could have a little fun with the editor without learning any coding right now. I'll try learning scripting in the summer vacations.

[Lilith]

You don't really need to read the editor docs at all; most of what you need to know you can learn by osmosis by opening up scenarios by other people and browsing through their scripts. (It's probably a good idea to read up on custom object scripting yourself, though, since scenario data scripts aren't very informative to look at.)

 

As for the appendices, they're meant to be used as a reference, not memorised. You'll get a feel for the basic calls pretty quickly on your own, and the other calls are used uncommonly enough that they aren't worth memorising.

 

And of course, you can use the map editor without knowing any scripting at all. The map editor is a bit of a pain in its own ways, though.

[Notus]

Quote:

The map editor is a bit of a pain in its own ways, though.

We are making a new "map editor" now. Please let us know when or to what you feel pain on "map editor". We may be able to ease part of them.

And beginner designers, please let us know when and to what you feel difficulty on the original or 3D BoA Editor. We need wide spectrum of user's opinion to improve its user interface.

[Drakefyre]

Pain with the map editor:

 

Difficulty in heights.

Difficulty with walls.

Pain switching between the three menus.

[Kelandon]

Ah yes, walls. Placing walls in BoA still annoys me a bit. I know exactly where I want them to go, but switching between the dozens of potential walls gets annoying after a while. Not of immediate concern, but eventually, a better wall-placement system would be nice (as Khoth's BetterEditor was moving towards, I think).

[Notus]

Thank you for straight answers.

 

Quote:

Difficulty in heights.

Does this mean input method for heights, or hill formation with cliff terrain?

 

Quote:

Difficulty with walls.

Quote:

a better wall-placement system would be nice (as Khoth's BetterEditor was moving towards, I think).

As Khoth allowed us to equip his smart wall tool in our new editor, we'll implement it. Thanks, Khoth.

 

Quote:

Pain switching between the three menus.

Does this mean switch between "floor" - "terrain" - "height" mode?

The icon for this switch is not easy to understand. Though the shortcut for this switch is assigned to "space bar", the explanation is buried in the other documents.

We plan to remove this switch itself adding independent tools.

[DreamGuy]

Just off the top of my head, the editor needs:

 

Tooltips for all those tiny buttons (you know, so a description of what it is pops up if you hover over it). I am only now after weeks of playing with it starting to get the hang of it.

 

The option for placing items from the item and creature menus to be stickly and continue placing the same thing until you choose another tool... Or just a better selection process for those in general. They don't seem to be grouped logically (I'd love to have all the non-weapon, no value junk tools in one place, all the undead in the same area, and so forth), and the menus are a pain to scroll through.

[Isaac]

Quote:

Originally written by DreamGuy:
and the menus are a pain to scroll through.

Choosing among a large number of things with a mouse is always annoying, although menus are particularly bad. I'd like to be able to type the name instead (I'm a keyboard person).

[Notus]

Quote:

Tooltips for all those tiny buttons (you know, so a description of what it is pops up if you hover over it).

Yes, popup hint will be implemented on each Tool Palette button.
And we'll change tool icons to be easier to understand.

Quote:

Or just a better selection process for those in general. They don't seem to be grouped logically (I'd love to have all the non-weapon, no value junk tools in one place, all the undead in the same area, and so forth), and the menus are a pain to scroll through.

We plan to make a customizable palette, My Palette, for floor/terrain/item/creature. I showed Mac version, Windows version will have also almost the same appearance.
Palette design plan 2
written February 21, 2005 12:00 PM by Notus

This palette can hold selected objects in the order you set. It can switch several panels for another category. So, you can make a panel titled "All star undeads". Also you can import/export "My Collection" as a file to exchange it with other users.

Quote:

I'd like to be able to type the name instead (I'm a keyboard person).

On palette design plan2, floor/terrain/item/creature palette has a search function. When you enter the first several characters of the object name in the search field, it'll match the object.

[Drakefyre]

Also, I'd like to get a message when I place a monster where I can give it a script and personality. Maybe just pull up the monster info page upon placing the monsters.

 

As for the problems with heights, it's too hard to individually adjust each space that you want to change heights and then add the graphics, etc.

[Lilith]

Well, there's an auto-hills feature. It doesn't work very well except for relatively simple hills, though.

[Notus]

Quote:

Also, I'd like to get a message when I place a monster where I can give it a script and personality.

Umm.., it is case by case. For example, when you add town NPCs, you won't need to add a script to them. I'll consider on it for any smart method.

Quote:

As for the problems with heights, it's too hard to individually adjust each space that you want to change heights and then add the graphics, etc.

3D mode is powerful, but surely sometimes it becomes difficult to select objective squares, when north-west side (upper screen) is lower than front part.
We will add next method for height adjustment.
1) Select objective squares with selection tool. As the selection is maintained between 2D/3D mode, you can confirm it on both view. Moreover, selected squares is added/reduced by shift-click.
2) Switch to Height tool with clicking Height tool icon.
3) Increase/decrease height of selected squares by arrow keys. Each push of an arrow key increases/decreases the height of selected squares by one.

Anyway, a dedicated height display may be useful like ordinary map, in which the altitude is displayed as color scale. I'll consider that this map style display is implementalbe or not.
Thank you for suggestion.

Quote:

Well, there's an auto-hills feature. It doesn't work very well except for relatively simple hills, though.

Hill formation bores us most. We'll change it as follows.
1) Select squares to apply hill formation. You can select large area roughly including the target hill. The target hill is made by previous procedure.
2) Select one of the cliff terrain from terrain palette or "My palette". If no cliff terrain is selected, the editor applies the default type cliffs according to town/outdoor, surface/underground.
3) Push automatic hill button on the tool palette. The editor add appropriate cliff terrains to the appropriate square within selection automatically.

Optional procedure
4) If you want to change a part of cliff terrains to another one, like snow-crowned mountains, select that squares.
5) Select one of the cliff terrain to change to.
6) Push automatic hill button.

[Edit]
We got a more obvious image of our new editor through this discussion. Thank you for helpful suggestions.
And we'll hear your advice any time. If you feel some difficulty, or get some idea, please tell us. Discuss together how to resolve the difficulty or how to implement the idea.

[Lynkfox]

Another thing to add - the rectangle paint seclections - i can never remember where i selected the top corner. Something that highlights the squares selected would be nice

[Notus]

The drawing method for the rectangle tool will be changed to that of ordinary drawing application. That is, a bound rectangle is actually drawn along with mouse movement by thin line. In 3D mode, a diamond shape is drawn.

 

However, we know that the current method in which two diagonal corner points are selected has also several advantage. So, we may implement both methods so that user can select one of them from preference setting dialog.

 

Certainly, some visual feedback indicating the start corner is desirable on current method as you suggest. We'll try to implement it. Thank you for suggestion