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mecharius

[Release] Anvil Mission Editor and Framework

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Anyone know if this can used along side an ALiVE mission?

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Question about improving map appearance... The moire effect that is seen with the grid lines in the editor... I don't see this in my photo editing programs... but those are specialized programs for just that. Is it possible for me or other map providers to improve the quality of maps to alleviate it or is this an effect that is an unavoidable rendering limitation?

Yeah I think its a limitation of the .NET compression of zoomed images (I'm using an ImageBrush if that makes sense to you). A random thought - I wonder if making the map image dimensions 2^n might help? What happens if you make your images 8192x8192 or a smaller base 2 number?

Anyone know if this can used along side an ALiVE mission?

In theory Anvil and mods should be able to work together nicely. I'm not really familiar with the inner workings of Alive though, having not used it since soon after its release. Let us know if you have any luck.

---------- Post added at 18:00 ---------- Previous post was at 17:42 ----------

Hello again.

I have already given to the problem of the zoom (not using the zoom too - using the default zoom -l . The default zoom is generated one of the last known position of the pointer, this makes constantly jump .

You have to make the zoom does not change the position until the pointer moves with the mouse.

<snip>

Zoom tool:

I see that the zoom tool has behaviour using the mouse wheel - moving to the last position of the pointer - it be more useful that have the same behavior that using the left-right mouse button.

Yes, I have a github issue for the zoom. Your last sentence is not quite correct however. Zooming with the mouse SHOULD re-center the map slightly (for instance try it in Google Maps and see what happens). The issue is that Anvil currently puts where the mouse cursor was at the centre of the screen on zoom which is not ideal. What it should do is keep the same position under the mouse and keep the mouse at the same relative x/y in the new zoomed coordinates. I hope that makes sense! This is some straightforward maths but its not high on the priority list. I haven't zoomed with the keyboard since I implemented mouse wheel scrolling so to be honest I have no idea what/how/if that works :D

The state of the editor does not look good at the bottom of the screen, it would be more useful to appear reflected in the top bar as a comment.

Status bars have been at the bottom of screens since the dawn of computer time. I'm not going to change that.

Not seen at a glance that objective'm editing and are created directly with a click.

This produces frequent errors in editing, to avoid propose a double click to insert the point and a rectangle to mark the point to edit

Think of the controls a bit like a typical RTS. Left click places, right click drags the map, scroll wheel zooms. I'm happy with the way it works.

It would also be very useful to move the objectives of position.

Currently I use the ArmA editor to do this and then the EDIT >> Update from SQM command to pull the changes back into Anvil. You can also manually change the coordinates using the property editor on the right hand side. I'll consider adding drag and drop movement in the future.

I'd strongly recommend you watch this video:

which shows you how a number of these things are done. Its for version 3.2 so the UI has changed and some bugs have disappeared but the basics are unchanged.

Editor windows:

I dont understand what is the pourpose of the downright script menu, and advice about that will be useful.

Not 100% sure what you mean. If you are talking about the list of scripts in the bottom right of the window then these are "included scripts" that can be added to a mission by selecting them in the list. All the init.sqf code will be created for you and the script files will be added to your mission on export. You can generate your own included scripts using the "EDIT >> Add Included Scripts" menu option. I'll need to add some documentation about this at some point as its not entirely clear.

Again, watch this video -

as it shows how included scripts work. Edited by mecharius

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Yeah I think its a limitation of the .NET compression of zoomed images (I'm using an ImageBrush if that makes sense to you). A random thought - I wonder if making the map image dimensions 2^n might help? What happens if you make your images 8192x8192 or a smaller base 2 number?

Challenge accepted. I'll give the 2^n idea a run and see what happens.

I have no clue what an ImageBrush is. I'm quite embarrassed that I do not know how to script/code much.... and I really should be able to because it would be a professional boon for me. I just haven't put in the time or effort. I did Fortran77 and Pascal back in the 90's and then never had a great use for it any more.

---------- Post added at 03:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:46 PM ----------

The 2^n idea with a little bit of extra image tweaking "improves" the situation.

Idea for interface improvement.... the rose colored bar at the top.... when the map is zoomed this bar is wiped out by the image leaving the icons at the top right well camouflaged. Can you make it so that the bar is not dominated by the map? I know I am just being picky now but that's the kind of thing that lets you know you are really getting somehwere.

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Been searching around but can't find an answer. Is there a place to put in custom enemy classnames or units?

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DoRo, anvil uses EOS to manage enemy spawns. Search how to customise EOS classnames on this forum then edit the eos files in the anvil application folder to suit your needs.

Make sure you edit the files in the Anvil application folder not the exported mission folder otherwise your changes will be overwritten on the next Export

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Granted this does not fall under the perview of EOS.... but how about a convoy mission type? I love EOS, made a lot of missions with it but it is limited to a fixed location conflict.

Just an idea.

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how about a convoy mission type?

You can make a "friendly" convoy mission (aka drive the convoy from A to B through C, D, E and F) by using the "move" and "move through" objective types. I have though about but haven't worked out how to cleverly do an "enemy" convoy mission type (i.e. destroy convoy as it moves from A to B). It might be possible to do something with prerequisite objectives (i.e. have a convoy start and linked convoy end objective and the convoy travels between these two markers).

However a current limitation of the framework is it can't handle "failed" missions. What I mean by that is that if you destroy the convoy for objective A then objective B opens up, but if you fail to destroy the convoy for objective A before it gets to its destination objective C opens up instead. This is a bit complicated to implement without making some breaking changes to the framework which has held me back to date. That's why you may notice none of the current objectives can be failed!

Let me add a github issue for the convoy stuff and I'll see if I can work it out at some point.

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Yeah, I was thinking more along the lines of enemy convoy.

I'll put up Isla Duala and Panthera maps if you are interested in adding them to the list.

Speaking of EOS, you were wondering about an alternative... Team up with Zenophon or F3?

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I'VE JUST WORKED OUT WHY TOPOGRAPHY DIDN'T WORK. Ahem sorry... was a bit excited. I turned off numlock and the topography cheat now works :)

Yeah if you want do send through the EPFs I'll happily add them in for editor v7. Personally I'm about to export Celle 2 so I can make a copy of Tactical Advance that works there :D

P.S. oh yeah got distracted from your last point. As I commented on the GH issue, I'm leaning towards keeping the main parts of EOS but potentially rewriting the caching side to use something like ZBE_Cache. Either way its a long term prospect.

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Would I be mistaken in thinking that regardless of a maps inclusion in Anvil that a mission could simply be ported to a different map and the markers arranged as appropriate? Reason I ask is because to this point, I have been merging a map template mission (base arrangement and such) with my anvil missions.

I guess I'll just give it a try but I cant think of any reason that the framework would balk at simply utilizing another map.

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Would I be mistaken in thinking that regardless of a maps inclusion in Anvil that a mission could simply be ported to a different map and the markers arranged as appropriate? Reason I ask is because to this point, I have been merging a map template mission (base arrangement and such) with my anvil missions.

I guess I'll just give it a try but I cant think of any reason that the framework would balk at simply utilizing another map.

It should be possible in theory with a bit of mucking about. Without trying it I would say export the mission then change the folder name. You may need to edit the mission.sqm to play around with the addons sections.

If you want to edit in Anvil after that you may run into some difficulties with the folder name because Anvil checks the path to prevent incorrectly named folders.

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Hello, I love the work you have done on this project. As a mission builder I have always wanted this kind of flexibility without all the background scripting involved. I was wondering if there is a way to execute a custom SQF on task completion? if not is this something that you could add?

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Hello, I love the work you have done on this project. As a mission builder I have always wanted this kind of flexibility without all the background scripting involved. I was wondering if there is a way to execute a custom SQF on task completion? if not is this something that you could add?

This currently isn't possible without a bit of scripting and some hacking in the framework. Its certainly something I would consider adding in the future, although I won't be so silly as to give an ETA :)

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Yes please put it in if you have time. It would definitely increase the flexibility that the mission maker has. For example, on a task for "Capture" on a base/fob, once complete, initialize 3d.sqf for spawning in blufor vehicles / ammo / base defense. Even custom end task's or counterattacks become possible this way.

Also I think this might have been mentioned before but is there any chance that within the main task array you could add faction number coinciding with \eos\UnitPools.sqf, for missions that host multiple factions. Inside UnitPools.sqf custom factions can be made for mixed forces. I might be missing something here but for now I have just been editing the vanilla east array (_faction==0) to get what I want.

Edited by R-o-x
woops

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Yes please put it in if you have time. It would definitely increase the flexibility that the mission maker has. For example, on a task for "Capture" on a base/fob, once complete, initialize 3d.sqf for spawning in blufor vehicles / ammo / base defense. Even custom end task's or counterattacks become possible this way.

This is currently possible using normal editor placed triggers, the basic idea is that the server object has the "objective_n" variable set to true when objective number N is complete. So you can trigger on

this and server getVariable "objective_n"

I'm using this approach in the "Tactical Advance" mission for unlocking vehicle spawns. The mission is on steam workshop and I'll paste in a more detailed example tomorrow if you want.

Also I think this might have been mentioned before but is there any chance that within the main task array you could add faction number coinciding with \eos\UnitPools.sqf, for missions that host multiple factions. Inside UnitPools.sqf custom factions can be made for mixed forces. I might be missing something here but for now I have just been editing the vanilla east array (faction==0) to get what I want.

You can select the friendly and enemy factions for a mission using the friendly and enemy side mission parameters. It defaults to West friendly and East enemy and currently only vanilla EAST, WEST and IND faction spawn pools are supported through the editor.

In version 7 of the editor I will be introducing support for custom EOS spawn lists which should let you do this directly from the Anvil editor (and will mean mods are better supported without having to manually edit the framework files).

I've already completed a similar feature for customising the ammo box rewards and EOS spawns are next! I've not yet decided exactly how the feature will look but it's likely you will be able to keep a set of different spawn configurations and choose which one to apply to any given mission through the anvil editor.

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So I was able to make it work with 2 triggers and 1 pre-placed AI opfor.

Trigger check_1 = opfor is not detected

if (triggeractivated check_1) then {}; this and server getVariable "objective_2";

Trigger check_2 = where this code would go

TY!!

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Hey Rox, you can simplify a bit using a single trigger and no editor placed units, The screenshot below shows how:

vjGJTN7l.jpg

This setup triggers some SQF when objective #3 is completed by using the following configuration:

- There is only a single trigger

- The activation is Game Logic

- The activation is set to Once

- The condition is server getVariable "objective_3"

- The script I want to execute is in the On Act. section.

Here the executed script is unlocking a vehicle respawn location, however you can do any kind of execVM or SQF you want.

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I'm aware of an issue for non-English speaking users of the editor which means it can't export missions. This has been fixed in version 7.6 which I'm hoping to release shortly, once I've squashed one final bug in the framework.

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this is a really nice mission system

only have one problem if i try to build in a revive system if not working. if there some info on it how to do all this in the editor ?

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Thanks ice age. Have a look a few posts back for info about "supported scripts" this is what I use to get revive scripts in missions.

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this is really by far the best mission Editor u can make a damn good mission in less then 10 minutes only thing i have problems this is to bind in other scripts have no idea what i am doing wrong

---------- Post added at 17:55 ---------- Previous post was at 17:54 ----------

Thanks ice age. Have a look a few posts back for info about "supported scripts" this is what I use to get revive scripts in missions.

thanks i will have a look

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I absolutely love this, you guys have made it a pleasure to create missions, I can whip up a TAC mission in and hour or a full blown Domination mission in a day, Good work guys and keep it up.

PS: eagerly awaiting Version 7 to whip up a Isla Duala Dom and bring back some fond memories of the map.

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