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Introduction Creating the Level Changing the appearance Populating the level Extra Fluff Objectives The scripts Finishing Touches Back to TheNextGame |
| Creating the Level |
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So, you created your new mod. Now you need to create a level... Don't try to think of an awesome level name from the getgo, you can change this as you like later. What you DO need is a general idea for a level. To sum it up, the basic objective types you can have in Darwinia at the moment is, turn a building on, or move a unit to a place. I'm going to call my level ubermcsuxland, because that's just the sort of thing I call stuff...
In this level, my objectives are going to be bring a trunk port online, capture some research and clear out an infestation of Virii. Don't start simple, do I? Right, so, now I know I need 4 areas in my level, a place to start, a place to capture a trunk port, a place to get the research and a place to whomp some Virii... so, to the level editor! Move the camera over the axis, there's nothing more annoying than realising the size increases in the other direction and that the whole of your level needs to be moved to add a little bit on the end... Don't try to make your whole level out of one Land Tile, my method is to make a fairly big (eg half the level size) and click random until I get something that resembles something useful... Unless you find an AWESOME land tile that has everything you want...
Right, I think this tile could be useful, if it were bigger, taller, and less lumpy... Hence!
I increased the size to 1500, the height to 300, and increased the noise period (if you don't know anything about waves, a longer period basically means less variation) But, that's not enough, this tile looks like it'd be a good link between the 4 areas, or if I wanted a smaller level, links to 3 of them and includes one. For once in this how to, let's keep things simple, let's make this area the area between the two peaks a virus nest that the player must assault with squadies or Darwinians or similar, so we need 3 tiles around the outside. Let's make the world size a bit bigger, 3000x3000 should easily accomidate everything we'll need...
Tada! a bunch of discreet areas! However, we're not quite finished yet... You may've noticed it looks like it's trying to emulate the Darwinia Case, so, it's time to manually edit the map text file Now, make sure you save your level! |
