Help a Noob Help You

[Highway_Chile 1]

Hey all

I know this is a huge post, but mission building in TOH appears to be quite a complexity.

I have exhausted myself searching through lists of script commands, tutorials and figured that if someone helps me build something I have running in my brain, it might soak in a little easier. And ultimately, when I figure out how to do this, I can start providing missions for the community. (I've built several hundreds of missions for the last sim I come from, but scripting is way different)

I've created what I think is a very basic mission and have need to insert four different triggers in total, and can't seem to figure out how to do even one of them. I feel like a drunk in a cornfield.

If ANYONE can help with ANY of the 4 scripts it would please me very much.

Below these pictures is the best way for me to describe what I'm trying to sort out.

Let me get started...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/JG26_EZ/TKOH/IMG_4015b.jpg >100kb!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/JG26_EZ/TKOH/IMG_4012.jpg >100kb!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/JG26_EZ/TKOH/IMG_4011.jpg >100kb!

1. The pilot begins in the air, heading to the LZ (for briefing).

-Along the way, a message comes up on the screen as if it's someone talking to the pilot via the headset.. "Hurry up! The president's about to let us know what the hell is going on"

***Insert Text immediately.

_______________________________

2. Upon landing at the LZ, the pilot notices a large crowd of soldiers and pilots gathered around a small group of doctors, officers, and of course.. the president, about to be briefed. Recieves brief and grabs a chopper to take himself to number3.

-When within a 10m radius, I'd like text to come up on the screen as if the president has begun speaking (text to appear on the screen) "Good Afternoon Gentlemen, We have a problem.. blah blah"

***Insert Text when player approaches trigger radius

_______________________________

3. Pilot arrives at 3rd waypoint and arms himself at an ammo truck and proceeds to number 4 to eliminate all enemy soldiers and ground units on the island.

- I plan on entering another trigger here, but it will be the same type of trigger as number 2

***Insert Text when player approaches trigger radius

_______________________________

4. Pilot destroys all enemy units on the island and then hops into a chopper and proceeds to number 5 after he recieves an "all clear" message.

- When all enemy units have been destroyed, a message appears as if it has come over the pilot's headset (text on the screen).. "all Clear"

***Insert Text when all enemy units destroyed

_______________________________

5. Pilot returns to original LZ, exits chopper and goes back to the president and recieves a "congratulations on a job well done" message when within a 10m radius of the president.

-When the pilot approaches the president, the president tells the pilot he's done a good job "well done! Here's your cookie."

***Insert Text when all units have been destroyed and player reports to trigger radius.

_______________________________

I have pleanty of guesses as to how to activate each trigger, but none work and it would clutter up this post.

Edited February 13, 2012 by Foxhound
rremoved 3 hotlinked images over 100kb!

[Highway_Chile 1]

Well.. I've solved "Number 1, 2 & 3" by myself... (luck I think)

Here's what I have done, incase anyone else is also as lost as I was/am.

I think that I'm going to need help with the 4th and 5th triggers..

Anyone? My brain hurts from solving 1, 2 & 3

I'll show Number 2 for example.

This has been done by creating a trigger, attaching it to the player, and editing the effects.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/JG26_EZ/TKOH/IMG_4017.jpg >100kb!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/JG26_EZ/TKOH/IMG_4018.jpg >100kb!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/JG26_EZ/TKOH/IMG_4016.jpg >100kb!

Edited February 13, 2012 by Foxhound
removed 3 hotlinked images over 100kb!

[Nicholas 5]

If I were you, I'd talk to Mondkalb, kylania, or Demonized. They are very knowledgeable in mission editing/scripting.

[hon0 10]

Hello. I invit you to check this guide.

I think you'll find almost everything you need.

Ps ; Oh and thanks for creating mission for the community ! :D

[kylania 568]

Here's one possible method of doing that. The rearming thing might be difficult since the only reammo truck I found was ambient, so I had to fake the rearming by manually putting the magazines back. I also couldn't get the new customRadio stuff to work properly, I think that would be nice to use. Also couldn't find a nice and small "beep" sound to play along with the radio messages so that's missing. The first MOVE waypoint completes early for some reason too, but it's really late so I ignored it.

But poke around in that file and let me know if you don't understand how I did anything. Enjoy!

Also noticed in your trigger picture... the "Variable Name" is the name of the trigger, used really only for deleting it or referring to it for whatever reason (like checking who's in it). The "Text" field is just the label it'll have in the editor.

To have a trigger print out text when it goes off click on EFFECTS at the bottom. Then towards the bottom of that change TYPE to TEXT and type your message in the TEXT box at the bottom. Click OK and OK and that'll print on the screen when the trigger goes off.

Edited February 15, 2012 by kylania

[Highway_Chile 1]

I just went and opened that file up and have to say.. very cool, Kylania. Even the

fact that you found a heliport not a mile away from where I was looking for one,

and you included the cookies hehe.. nice touch ;)

Let me tinker for a few days to try to learn from what you've given me, and if

something truly puzzles me, I'll be sure to ask.

Thanks a million Kylania.

PS. Hono, I've got that bookmarked now thanks.

And Nicholas... It looks like you were right ;) thank you.

[Guest]

@Highway_Chile

I removed 3 hotlinked images from your first post yesterday which were well over the 100kb limit.

To my surprise today I find those pics hotlinked again while I also find another post breaking this rule:

§15) Do not hotlink images over 100kb (102400 bytes) in size

Do not link images over 100kb using the IMG tags to display an image in your post. If you wish to post an image larger then 100 kb feel free to post the URL instead of hotlinking.

You might want to read the forum rules a bit: http://forums.bistudio.com/misc.php?do=showrules

Since you are new you will get just an official warning for this, but next time please watch the 100kb rule!

[Highway_Chile 1]

Sorry Foxhound..

I went to that thread after it had been posted, and saw all of the images there as I clicked the edit button..

As I was editing some of my images and previewing it, I saw the >100 thing and thought it was something I had done.. (I think you may have edited it just as I went to edit the text in the post)

...Anyways, I reattached the links and went about my way, thinking that I had fixed everything hehe.

I'm accustomed to posting in forums that shrink the image down automatically but I must also be honest and say that I didn't read these particular forum rules as I try to behave myself 99.9% of the time.. I read before posting, I don't double post, use profanity or post stuff that you wouldn't want your kid to see, and thought I'd be in the clear by posting pics regarding a relevant topic..

I see I was wrong.

Sorry.. It won't happen again.

[kylania 568]

I updated my example for you to add in a few major changes. First is that it now includes the use of Tasks and briefing as explained in the BIS Take On Editing example mission 2. Helps to guide the player along better. Secondly I added some sound files for the radio messages and the President's speeches so you can see how those work.

[Highway_Chile 1]

Okay.. I'm back from the "editor's cave" .. I've hit a roadblock.. and need help

I noticed I don't have a Description.ext file, and why my triggers haven't been sending any text..

How does one create that? Outside of the game in notepad or in game? (I have seen what yours looks like)

The offroad vehicle that you have driving when you approach the first LZ. Is that set to start moving once it's in view? (Mine doesn't seem to move, even with the waypoints set up)

The TKOH logo is cool at the start, but I have no idea where you've inserted that.

And I love the "Charlie Brown's Teacher" voice sound bytes you've included in the new version hehe Thanks..

Edited February 15, 2012 by Highway_Chile

[kylania 568]

Nope, it's in there, wouldn't work otherwise. :) Make sure you're filtering for all files and not just *.sqf or something in your editor.

[Highway_Chile 1]

Looked high and low, and can't find it.

ie.. this line

Security Director Mitchell: Hurry up! The president's about to let us know what the hell is going on!

I see the trigger and what you've done to engage the text, but I can't find the text input anywhere.

The effects section of any of the triggers don't have any text entered there either.

So I tried clicking EVERYTHING in the editor and still can't find it.

[kylania 568]

Yup, all the text is being pulled from description.ext. It's being "spoken" by a gamelogic on the map called voice to the global channel. What this allows for is lower case text since it's Radio messages with no silly unit names or anything. Originally I'd used the setIdentity command, but that didn't seem to work properly in TKOH? Then I tried the naming the group, but in that case it would be blue text with: "Security Director Mitchell 1: Bleh bleh" and that one disappointed me. So by making the gamelogic speak on global no name would preface it so I was free to say anyone was talking.

Remember the description.ext isn't visibile inside the editor at all, it's an external file. Here's the text of it:

class CfgRadio
{
// List of sounds (.ogg files without the .ogg extension)
sounds[] = {inc, des, wah};

// Definition for each sound
class speech_incoming
{
	name = "speech_incoming"; // Name for mission editor
	sound[] = {\sound\inc.ogg, db + 0, 1.0};
	title = "Security Director Mitchell: Hurry up! The president's about to let us know what the hell is going on!";	
};

class speech_goListen
{
	name = "speech_goListen"; // Name for mission editor
	sound[] = {\sound\none.ogg, db + 0, 1.0};
	title = "Security Director Mitchell: Finally you made it! Go listen to the President!";	
};

class speech_presBriefing
{
	name = "speech_presBriefing"; // Name for mission editor
	sound[] = {\sound\wah.ogg, db + 0, 1.0};
	title = "President Edison: There are bad guys on an island and you have to fly and kill them.  Take that Little Bird, rearm at the soccer stadium, kill bad guys and come back here for cookies.";	
};

class speech_allDead
{
	name = "speech_addDead"; // Name for mission editor
	sound[] = {\sound\des.ogg, db + 0, 1.0};
	title = "Security Director Mitchell: There are no more bad guys on the island, come back for cookies.";	
};

class speech_presCookies
{
	name = "speech_presCookies"; // Name for mission editor
	sound[] = {\sound\wah.ogg, db + 0, 1.0};
	title = "President Edison: You did well! Here are cookies.";	
};

};

This isn't normally how you'd do text but a neat trick if you wanted to use voice overs. If you have ArmA or ArmA2 you can check out my speech demos there which list all the different methods of presenting text to the players.

Ideally I think you'd want to use the customRadio feature, but I wasn't able to get that working and haven't found a good demo for it yet. I'm fairly certain that's how they are doing the dialogs in the campaign. In ArmA2 using the globalRadio feature made a nice little radio beep, but TKOH seems to have removed it.

[Highway_Chile 1]

Excellent. Thanks again Klyania.

I didn't think that the file was visible in the editor, but the post that

said "It's in there", made me think that it was lol.. I looked and looked.

So this is now understood.

And, just to clarify.. you DID add those sound bytes, correct?

What I mean is.. Did you record them using a mic and save them

into the game, or did you dig them out of a collection that's hidden

somewhere in the game? (I DO see them in the mission files.. but

just wondering where they came from)

I don't have Arma or Arma II ...yet.

I'll be back when, I'm either finished or have hit another roadblock :)

[kylania 568]

I grabbed them from some random sound effect websites :) Took forever to find good ones that would work.

[Highway_Chile 1]

I did it! It's not a real fluid mission, but it works. :) http://www.mediafire.com/?3n8ozos0i7oagf7

Not sure how everything really works, but at least I learned a bunch, and have something of a template to work with. I think there were a couple of complications because I used a Blufor pilot, but everything more or less does what it's supposed to after a tweek or two.

I finally got the car to work after finding a trigger that I had overlooked (was sitting in front of me the whole time). It's cool, got it to appear in the starboard window at the perfect time, the first time I set it up! heh

Couldn't figure out how to add the TKOH logo now that I think of it.

Now, like I said at the top of the post, about this not being a very fluid mission..

I had the pilot take a SUV and drive it to a location and used the "Get Out" waypoint.. later I changed my mind and wanted to change the get out waypoint to a move waypoint, and have the pilot drive closer to the action, but creating a waypoint in the middle of waypoints that are already placed seems impossible, though I'm sure it's just something I'm overlooking.

Next, I'll get busy trying to replicate the second version you've made for me.

Very happy with what you've provided me with Kylania, thanks again.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Highway_Chile

[Master85 1]

..., but creating a waypoint in the middle of waypoints that are already placed seems impossible, though I'm sure it's just something I'm overlooking.

When creating a waypoint there's the "Waypoint order" drop-down menu which contains a list of all waypoints of the current group.

There you can select where the new waypoint should be inserted - by default the last entry is selected.

[kylania 568]

The TKOH logo is from a trigger. I have a trigger placed in the direction the insert helicopter is flying and under Effects -> Type = Resource I selected the TKOH Splashscreen.

[Highway_Chile 1]

Thanks to the both of you, I've now got both the logo and the waypoints thing working now.

[kylania 568]

I don't have Arma or Arma II ...yet.

ArmA 2 Combined Ops (ArmA2 + ArmA2 Operation Arrowhead) is on sale this weekend for $13.52! That's a heck of a deal! It's usually $30-60.