official Map Editor Tutorial - Creating a Map

[R4bitF00t]

 

In this part of the tutorial, we will go over how to create your first map, save it and make it playable.

It may seem like a pretty lengthy post for something so simple, but I just wanted to make the tutorial foolproof and cover some additional not well known things.
In reality, this step in the map creation takes about one or two minutes.

If you encounter any issues, don't hesitate to ask in Skylords Reborn Map Making Discord.

 

• Content

• Creating a Map
  • Saving the Map
• Making the Map Playable
  • Map Name and Description
  • Team Setup and Player Kits
  • Starting Location
  • Starting Monument
  • PAKing the Map
  • PvP Maps
• Next Chapter

 

• Creating a Map

Now that we have the editor open, let's create our first map, shall we?

In the top left of the editor window, click on File -> New...

Now we can select the size of our map. To start with, we'll go with the smaller 256x256 map.

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Note: In the future, it's generally better to create a larger map than you think you need, you cannot change the map size once you've selected it, but you are able to shrink the playable area. 512x512 is the golden standard that will suit most needs - maps larger than that may feel extremely long a sluggish if the players need to interact with large parts of the map.

Also, never make uneven sized maps like 256x512 or 1024x256 etc.
This will break the minimap.

 

• Saving the Map

Now that we are greeted by an empty map, let's first try saving our map. (this step is optional, you can save the map at a later stage)
Since we haven't done anything with the map yet, we'll need to save the map as.
You can either open the File tab, or press Ctrl+Shift+S keys (notice the shortcuts next to the actions in the File tab)
In the future, you can save the map after every edit you make with the Ctrl+S shortcut - this will be your best friend.

You can save the map wherever you want on your computer, but the default save location is best. The reason is that the editor will pak our map into that same folder, so we have everything together. Be sure to follow the naming convention (see quote below).

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Note: It is important to name your map correctly. While you can choose any map name you want, it is important to avoid certain characters in the name of the map file.
The map name should not contain any dots "." or special characters. It is also best to avoid spaces in the name.
The malicious thing is the editor will let you save the map with wrong naming convention. But after saving, you will not be able to open the map again.
Editor crashing and corrupting your maps is very common! I'll try to point out any common map corrupting things as I go along.

Example of a wrong naming:
Extreme Menace v2.0
Example of a correct naming:
extreme_menace_v2
Extreme_Menace_v2

Unfortunately, the map editor is full of traps for map makers that crash the editor. I will try to point out any known crash or corruption causing issues as I go along (you can also check the FAQ).

SAVE AS OFTEN AS YOU CAN - EVEN AFTER ONLY A COUPLE OF CHANGES

 

• Making the Map Playable

To actually see the map in the game, we first need to go through several steps:

• Update map name and description
• Setup teams and player kits
• Place and assign starting location for each player
• Place and assign starting monument for each player

Let's look at the individual steps now.
 

• Map Name and Description

Now that we have saved our map, we can add an in-game map name and description.

Open Map Settings -> Edit Map Description

 

In here, we need to fill in the in-game map name and description (shown on loading screen and in map selection) for all languages.
You don't need to actually translate the name and description, I used Google Translate for this example, but you can leave everything in English. Then click OK - you will get a pop-up that the map description has been successfully updated.

    

 

• Team Setup and Player Kits

After we've saved the map name and description, it's time to decide what type of map we'll be making - PvE / PvP and how many players.
We do that by going into Map Settings -> Team Setup & Player Kits.

In here, we can select if we want the map to be PvE or PvP, and how many players there should be.
We can adjust the fog of war (FOW) settings for the players.
And set the individual players starting power and void power (AI doesn't work with power, so there is no need to set the starting power for the NPC enemies).

Ideally, choose one of the available presets!
Fiddling with the teams can prevent the map from being playable.

You can add more players to the teams, just don't change the team order.

(Tip: Usual sweet spot for starting power and void is 200 / 200)

   

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Note: Clicking the preset buttons for PvE and PvP on the right side will reset any and all team changes you made to the entities on the map. That means you will need to assign all the squads and buildings on the map to the correct team again.

 

If you want to fiddle with the settings, you can manually add more teams with the New Team button. And add Computer players to a team selected in the list with the New Player button. Adjusting the teams and players manually comes with some risk though.
Be sure to be familiar enough with the basics before experimenting with teams.

For each player, you also need a player kit - that is actually what determines which players control which entities. These can be created with the New button under the Player Kit section.

  

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Note: You can also set up individual team relations in the Aggro Table - but we won't be covering that in this tutorial, as the game mechanics don't work that well with multiple teams.

An example is the nature healing spell Surge of Light - the spell will heal other players in the same team BUT will not heal players from another team, even though their relation is set to Friendly in the aggro table. The fire spell Ravage can be cast on squads from that friendly team, leading to an inconsistency.

Let's go with the PvE 2P preset, so we can have a friend to play the map with us.

After we are done making changes, click the Save button at the bottom of the window.

 

• Starting Location

Now it is time to set the player's starting position.

For that, we'll need to open our first tool - Entity Placement.

We can find it under Windows -> Entity Placement or Shift + E shortcut.

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Note: The windows tab includes all the tools you will be working with when making your map. You can experiment with the different tools freely. But stay away from Cutscene Editor for the moment.
The most important tools to create the map are:

• Entity Placement
• Entity Properties
• Terrain Cliffs
• Height Tool
• Texture Tool
• Water Tool
• Blocking Tool
• Scripting Tool

A new window will open up - for now, we'll need the Misc tab and under the root folder, we can select the Starting Point.

Now we'll have this little object following our cursor around, we can place it by left-clicking the mouse.

Congratulations! You've placed your first object on the map. But we still need to make it functional.
For that, we will need another tool - Entity Properties.
Open it again through the Windows tab.

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Note: You can make the windows stick to the sides of the editor, or make them free-floating by double-clicking the window's name bar.

      

With the Entity Properties window open, you will notice that it is completely empty. Also, that you cannot click the Starting Point you just placed, you will instead place another one.
That is because we are in the Entity Placement mode, and we need to get to the Selection mode. You can do that by pressing the blue "0" button in the editor toolbar, or by pressing the Q shortcut (remember this shortcut, it will be your second-best friend).
If you need to delete any extra placed Starting Point, use the Ctrl + Z shortcut for now (already on our third-best friend, let's stop counting for now).

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IMPORTANT NOTE: If you Alt + Tab out of the editor - coming back, you might not be able to select anything. If that happens, simply press Alt key again and you should regain control.

Now that we are in the proper entity selecting mode, let's select the Starting Point we just placed by clicking on it. The Entity Properties window will now show some information about the selected object. We need to assign the correct Player Kit to the Starting Point. Do that by clicking None and selecting the pk_kit1.
Why pk_kit1? If you look into the Team Setup & Player Kits, you will see that the pk_kit1 is assigned to our Human pl_Player1. You might remember that I mentioned that the player kit is actually what determines who controls what squad/building.

Setting up the first Starting Point is a good time to make a quick-save (Ctrl + S).

Instead of selecting the Starting Point from Entity Placement again, you can select our first starting point, press Ctrl + C to copy the object and then Ctrl + V to paste the object to the location of the cursor.
Under normal circumstances, copy-pasting entities preserves their team setup and their player kits. But due to the nature of the Starting Points, the player kit gets reset to None - a player cannot have multiple starting locations.

So let's select our new Starting Point and assign it to our Player2 (pk_kit2).
You don't need to place and assign Starting Points for the computer players.

Setting up the second Starting Point is another good time to save the map.

 

• Starting Monument

We could actually see the map in-game and play it at this point, but without any structures or monuments, the player will lose instantly at the start of the map - so let's fix that!

In the Entity Placement, go into the Token Slots tab and select TokenNormal.
This is a standard monument. All the monuments are functionally the same, the only difference is visual - so pick whichever you want.

Place one monument near Player1 Starting Point (or right under it) and another near the Player2 Starting Point.
Now, we will need to assign the players to the monuments - simply click them with the Selection tool active (Q) and set it up in the Entity Properties window, same as we did for the player Starting Points.

This is another great spot to save the map - by now you certainly get the message.

Awesome! 

 

• PAKing the Map

Saving the map is not the same as PAKing it. The editor works with .map files - that is what you save with Ctrl + S. But the game only sees a PAKed version of the map.

When PAKing, the editor takes all the files associated with the map - the .map file and the map's folder - and merges them into a new file (think of WinRAR or WinZip). This PAK file can be seen by the game as the final map.

Lucky for us, the editor can PAK the map - simply go to File -> PAK Map

If everything is set up correctly, you will get a pop-up saying the map PAKing was successful.

The PAKed map can be found in Documents/BattleForge/map folder.

Now we can start the game, go to the User Generated Maps node (remember, we made a 2P PvE map) and search for the map name that you set in the Map Description step.

 

We can actually start our map now and have a look around, exciting!

Notice that when playing solo - the monument we set for the other player is missing. That is because the game automatically deletes all entities set to a human player that is not present at the start of the map.

 

 

• PvP Maps

Creating a PvP map is just as simple.
Set up the Map Description and in the Team Setup & Player Kits step - choose whichever PvP preset you want. Place the starting positions and monuments for all the players and PAK the map.
You will find your PvP maps in the Sparring Grounds node.

We will not be going into further detail about PvP maps in this tutorial.

 

 

• Next Chapter

Now you have everything you need to get to map making.
In the next chapter, we'll talk about placing and working with entities.

 

• Working with Entities •

 

Edited Wednesday at 10:31 AM by R4bitF00t