Mission Editor

[Phantom Six 25]

A history toolbar like in photoshop would be nice and an easy method to place units inside buildings would also be nice. Waypoint across buildings too would be nice. Well, so far for building placements, I just preview the mission, go in game, and have a trigger in radio that makes me to this to find the buildings position of where I'm standing to give it to the unit I want to start inside a building

copyToClipboard format ["this setPosATL %1;this setDir %2;",getPosATL player, getDir player];

[CarlGustaffa 4]

You could embed something like that into the debugger, which should be standard in Arma3. Example from a slightly modified version of Gaia's (dev) debug console mod for Arma2:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8431/7746419486_578194a69a_b.jpg (109 kB)

[liquidpinky 11]

You could embed something like that into the debugger, which should be standard in Arma3. Example from a slightly modified version of Gaia's (dev) debug console mod for Arma2:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8431/7746419486_578194a69a_b.jpg (109 kB)

I am sure this is a standard feature in Take On already. I remember, possibly during the beta, being requested to get information from it to help the devs with some triple display issues at the time.

Hopefully will remain for the Alpha.

[Lucky44 13]

I have not found this anywhere else after looking, so I'll ask here: what is known about importing Arma2:OA (or CO) missions into Arma 3? Will .sqm files work? Will A2 units be possible in A3, without addons? Will it be a possible but difficult "translation"? Or just impossible?? Will map elements be copy/pastable, even in a script editor, working with .sqm files?

And more fundamentally, is it true that SQF will still be the base scripting language, but that others (Java friendly? like Python??) will be usable?

[KEVINMGXP 20]

I have not found this anywhere else after looking, so I'll ask here: what is known about importing Arma2:OA (or CO) missions into Arma 3? Will .sqm files work? Will A2 units be possible in A3, without addons? Will it be a possible but difficult "translation"? Or just impossible?? Will map elements be copy/pastable, even in a script editor, working with .sqm files?

I don't think it is allowed to do so, as per the Aula of bis, I think it will be somehow in the line of Arma armed assault and Arma2, in this case Bis will most likely release some sample models to use for modelling and editing units in arma3. However it would be great that Bis decides to make DLC's with Arma2 conversions or maybe integrate parts of Arma2 to Arma3 but this might be wishful thinking from my part, on the other hand we have also the community for that to do so in the end... so aether way we always have options to have conversions one way or the other as long if the rules are applied ..

kind regards

Edited August 16, 2012 by KBourne

[onlyrazor 11]

I don't think it is allowed to do so, as per the Aula of bis, I think it will be somehow in the line of Arma armed assault and Arma2, in this case Bis will most likely release some sample models to use for modelling and editing units in arma3. However it would be great that Bis decides to make DLC's with Arma2 conversions or maybe integrate parts of Arma2 to Arma3 but this might be wishful thinking from my part on the other hand we have also the community for that to do so in the end so aether way we always have options to have conversions one way or the other as long if the rules are applied ..

I think he's talking about mission files ie. User made missions, and how they would port from Arma 2 into Arma 3. However, they would require content from previous games, which would violate the terms.

[KEVINMGXP 20]

I think he's talking about mission files ie. User made missions, and how they would port from Arma 2 into Arma 3. However, they would require content from previous games, which would violate the terms.

Ah o.k. in that case it will violate the terms and that's a no go unless bis will do it for them selves for the community ....

kind regards

[luizsilveira 5]

I can't help but to second most requests here.

When even writing a few words on a briefing needs scripting you know user interface has gone massively wrong. Why do they advertise the mission editor as "easy to use" I don't know. It's easy to build a scenario but I bet most average computer users can't make a mission from start to end, setting up tasks to be completed with task hints etc. And this is a big shame, as all that could - and should - be very easy to do with any minimally user-friendly interface.

[W0lle 1052]

And in the OFP days you had to use html to create a briefing. And I bet most average computer users back then (and even today) also had no clue about html. But still there were thousands and thousands of missions made.

There's just on difference between back then and today: Back in the OFP days people were working together and helping each other discovering new things and help each other.

Today the majority wants all on a silver platter and preferably not requiring more than 4 clicks to success.

There are excellent briefing scripts around, with them I make briefings in less than 15 minutes. Including taskhints and whatnot.

But this script has also one disadvantage "You need to put a little work and time into it to understand what is required.

And the editor interface is easy to use. The briefing is just not part of the "easy to use" mission editor.

[liquidpinky 11]

And in the OFP days you had to use html to create a briefing. And I bet most average computer users back then (and even today) also had no clue about html. But still there were thousands and thousands of missions made.

There's just on difference between back then and today: Back in the OFP days people were working together and helping each other discovering new things and help each other.

Today the majority wants all on a silver platter and preferably not requiring more than 4 clicks to success.

There are excellent briefing scripts around, with them I make briefings in less than 15 minutes. Including taskhints and whatnot.

But this script has also one disadvantage "You need to put a little work and time into it to understand what is required.

And the editor interface is easy to use. The briefing is just not part of the "easy to use" mission editor.

Tools over generations improve, including software tools.

If they didn't I would be chiselling this into a rock next to you instead of typing it out.

Ass long as you don't turn it into a POS like all the recent updates to Word etc with their dumbass click so many time you get RSI just to print a frikken document.

[Lucky44 13]

OK, so I hear that any game content won't carry over to Arma 3. Makes sense.

But what about the scripting languages? What's the word on that?

EDIT: Aha, this helps explain, but it's too long to read it all... http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?128800-Take-On-Java/page1

Edited August 17, 2012 by Lucky44

[luizsilveira 5]

[...]

There's just on difference between back then and today: Back in the OFP days people were working together and helping each other discovering new things and help each other.

Today the majority wants all on a silver platter and preferably not requiring more than 4 clicks to success.

When the game is advertised as containing an "intuitive" mission editor, I think it's quite legitimate that people who buy the game expect to find an intuitive mission editor. No? And sorry but the mission editor is anything *but* intuitive.

If it wasn't advertised like that my guess is that many people would see the mission editor as a bonus and would be more willing to resign to the need of dedicating vast amounts of time to learn the basics. The community suffers because there will be many less mission-makers (and possibly less players) but other than that there is no real problem in the mission maker being a conundrum which needs long-term community work to figure out - as long as the advertisement which sells the game doesn't state exactly the opposite, that is.

There are excellent briefing scripts around, with them I make briefings in less than 15 minutes. Including taskhints and whatnot.

Agreed. But the briefing was just an example of what, for me, is mind boggling. It can be just a bit of text, which would deserve just... a text box to edit the text. Want to leave the door open for more advanced users to script the thing? Fine. But I'm sure a great number of players out there would benefit from having a simple text box to edit/add a briefing, which can't be too much of a trouble to add to the editor in the first place. Back when I quit dealing with it, keeping simple things simple was a virtue in computer programming. Granted, one couldn't build a marvel like Arma but I think the baby was thrown away with the bath water.

But this script has also one disadvantage "You need to put a little work and time into it to understand what is required.

Yes, it has that disadvantage. And the advantage is...?

We clearly have two different conceptions of what "a little work and time" is. I'm not saying I can't do it but I don't think the work is so little to an average user. Let's face it, many many people (if not most, nowadays especially with DayZ) have a really hard time only to sort out the patches and mods so they can play online. Just that. I've seen a few players give up, even when I was on TS with them and trying to help, because they couldn't do just that. How much work do you think they would take to make a briefing? And tasks for completion?

Now... if the goal is leaving the Arma game to be enjoyed by just a small computer-gifted few who share their missions and mods among them and have fun, then I'm wrong and apologize. But my opinion is that it would be great to let more people enjoy the marvel Arma is, and I'm sure there are many more people out there who would do just that if the interface allowed them to.

And the editor interface is easy to use. The briefing is just not part of the "easy to use" mission editor.

Nor are the task creation and their management. Nor are taskhints. Nor is weapon loadout. Nor is the creation of dialogues, radio messages, ... nor are most of the modules (the medic is one example where there could be a simple on/off switch but instead there is a really bloated system). And all the rest. (not to speak about the user-unfriendliness of not having any tooltips, nor an undo button, etc.).

The only easy (intuitive!) thing on the editor interface is unit placement. Provided you don't place them close to buildings of course, or they risk falling from the sky and getting killed at mission start.

Yes, the community is great and there are tons of resources. But most of them are only needed because the original software has a huge gap to be filled between its power and the average user who wants to play a bit with it.

That is all IMHO of course

[NoRailgunner 0]

W0lle sounds a bit like a old fossil (no pun intendet!) who just don't want a change because making missions out of the box could be different or even more userfriendly. Somehow similar to those people who think or claim that a better interface/GUI could harm their own build "throne & privileges" or dreams of it..... Guess how fast those "old" people are cool with new stuff if you just let them use it ? Guess how long it will take to hear something "If only we could have this back in the days...." ;)

[Sniperwolf572 758]

The thing is, entire current mission editor is a fossil aswell, where not much changed since we first got our hands on it in OFP.

Good thing about it is that many things are possible if you know how, bad thing about it is that the learning curve for using it really effectively becomes very steep, very fast.

Basic understanding of scripting and some logical thinking become necessary, but there are some things that can really be made to be much more simple and accessible, like units starting distance from ground and basic unit gear setup.

It's all down to how much time BI wants to spend improving the editor experience and how far are they willing to go. It's not cheap or easy making interfaces that make sense. But it's also too much to expect that everyone can create super high quality missions without improving their skills regarding scripting and logical thinking. Some things require a bit of investment on the side of the mission maker, because they simply cannot be made with a few clicks and drags.

I'm familiar with this because I've spent evenings explaining in detail and with simple examples on how and why much of the editor and ingame stuff works and how to get desired results by thinking about a problem and using the BIKI as a reference. But the thing is, they wanted to get results without investing 1% of their time in learning how to do it. So after a few evenings teaching the infamous skill of adjusting height of objects, the only knowledge that the other person came out with is knowing the setpos getpos line by heart. How and why does it work? Not interested. It makes things float. And every now and then my chat window pops up from that person with the question "how did that setpos thing go again?"