MAKING BETTER ENVIRONMENTS - A how to post

shadoewrayth

You most likely won't need a ton of pots for mine... There is 'some' combat, but the combats are strategically placed on my current campaign's quests... I also use very few NPC's for dialogue/etc, instead, I use that budget to flesh out an area. For instance, if I want it to look like the woods are crawling with orcs, I'll place a lot of NPC's in orc costume set to wander or patrol, then throw in some combats. This makes it so it 'looks' really dangerous, but actually really is not. I love illusion, misdirection, scenery, staging, etc... I am more about the experience than the rest of it. If they allowed me to us my own cutscenes, or add my own voice-overs and sounds... oh I'd be happy! lol

eldarth

apocrs1980 wrote: »

Once a path is established make a smaller playable area on that map, and then pull out every asset you want to use in a non playable area and use it as your “palette” from here I will go in to 3D edit mode and copy the assets I want to place and paste them in the locations I want them.

OMG! Are you telling me I can copy/paste INSIDE the previewer/3D editor?
I have to try that -- if so, this is the best tip I've seen yet.

apocrs1980

eldarth wrote: »

OMG! Are you telling me I can copy/paste INSIDE the previewer/3D editor?
I have to try that -- if so, this is the best tip I've seen yet.

Yes you can, however be warned, once you have place a object and make copies from it, any manipulation of the room that the original placed object was in, will cause the other objects copied from it to be manipulated in the same way, ( I move my room 10 ft to the left , and all copied objects from the asset in that room moves to the left 10 ft.) So, make sure where ever you are setting up your "palette" that your not going to change the room location. ( this only happens on indoor maps and it is okay to delete original objects you copied from.)

crimsonkimber

cuddlesmacheese wrote: »

Good stuff. You are an asset to the community.

I finished part one of "The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh U1" if you want to try it.

NW-DB9Q7NCWR

i'm sorry, but you can't convince me you didn't make alt acct's to rate that...

first off, saltmarsh wouldn't have looked like the middle of boston, then i spent forever "talking to locals' to no avail.....i quit, then restarted it thinking i missed something. yeah, time.

and according to the comments you didn't even get to the ship, with an avg time of 34 minutes ?!?!?

sourcreamking

Requesting sticky!

vuelhering

apocrs1980 wrote: »

Maps have “kill volumes” (A volume of space located at the bottom of the map which instantly kills anything that touches it.) this is great for jumping puzzles and environmental hazzards.

How do you set up an insta-kill zone? I couldn't find anything in the editor.

zahinder

Look at details and get creative. Floors can be roofs, or walls, and vice versa. Maybe the top of a wall would make a great rail or path, submerge it.

One mission that goes hog-wild with creative detail is Bonderleaf's Thorough Aggregator. Seriously, go play it.

vuelhering

zahinder wrote: »

Look at details and get creative. Floors can be roofs, or walls, and vice versa. Maybe the top of a wall would make a great rail or path, submerge it.

One mission that goes hog-wild with creative detail is Bonderleaf's Thorough Aggregator. Seriously, go play it.

I assume that's not answering me, or else you didn't understand the question.

zahinder

Er, no, I was speaking in the vein of the overall thread.

The kill zone is basically 'down a bunch.' I don't know if there's a consistent y value.

sominator

Great stuff all! Nice to see some tips from the pros!

raphaeldisanto

vuelhering wrote: »

How do you set up an insta-kill zone? I couldn't find anything in the editor.

Alas, you can't set one up yourself. They're at a negative -Y value, so you can only access them from things like the indoor cave maps.

ellindar1

vuelhering wrote: »

How do you set up an insta-kill zone? I couldn't find anything in the editor.

The kill zone is the bottom of the particular map you've selected. For instance the C Cave empty room is -80 I believe. Take an item best way is to put a platform at -y value, spawn on it, jump off if you don't spawn in dead. Adjust the platform accordingly to get the measurement.

Unless I'm wrong (feel free to correct) different maps have different kill zone -y values particular to that map.

lovepeas

I really wish as a community, we had a way to vote up threads like this one and Zovya's that we'd like to see stickied. Some of the threads floating around below are so much more helpful (or current) that some of those that are currently stickied.

Or if there was just one sticky thread that linked to great helpful threads like this one, that would be cool too.

vuelhering

Thanks for the answers guys ... I was testing out a drop timer. I just used the cave intersection with a hole. I had tried spawning things in at -100 but that didn't work. Seems the cave zones might work better.

chili1179

lovepeas wrote: »

I really wish as a community, we had a way to vote up threads like this one and Zovya's that we'd like to see stickied. Some of the threads floating around below are so much more helpful (or current) that some of those that are currently stickied.

Or if there was just one sticky thread that linked to great helpful threads like this one, that would be cool too.

This blows my mind as well. Zovya's thread is by far the most informative thread on this entire forum for authors yet it remains unstickied.

BTW when I read your typing, I hear your voice in my head. Just sayin'.

zovya

chili1179 wrote: »

This blows my mind as well. Zovya's thread is by far the most informative thread on this entire forum for authors yet it remains unstickied.

BTW when I read your typing, I hear your voice in my head. Just sayin'.

Thanks "peas & chili". Yup, the over a month old [FAQ] Foundry Tips, Manuals, Tutorials, & Bugs thread links to this thread as one of the helpful links in the Manuals and Tutorials section. It would be a big help to the community for these things to be stickied.

ovaltine74

Earlier in this thread I said to think of your environments as real places. I said to design with that in mind. Now I am going to tell you that you also want to design certain parts of your environment to be unrealistic.

???

That sounds like conflicting advice, and it is, but let me explain.

Art for entertainment must be entertaining. Many artists get hung up on realism and forget that people are expecting to be entertained. It is possible to craft a realistic environment and bore people to tears at the same time. Sometimes you need to stretch reality a bit so that it looks cool. Some artist will admit that something looks cool, but will refuse to leave it in if it looks unrealistic. That is a huge mistake when you are creating art for entertainment.

Think of a movie that was based on historical events that looked very realistic but bored you to tears. I am sure everyone has seen a movie like that.

Now think of a movie based on historical events where they spiced it up a bit and exaggerated reality for the sake of entertainment. That is what you want to do!

How much realism and how much exaggeration?

Here is simple rule I follow on how I decide whether or not to exaggerate the environment.

If something is not directly related to the story, it must look realistic. If it doesn’t look real, it will be a distraction from the story.

If something is directly related to my story, I can exaggerate it to enhance the story.

See, a pretty simple rule.

Hope this helps.

neverwinter1776

zahinder wrote: »

Er, no, I was speaking in the vein of the overall thread.

The kill zone is basically 'down a bunch.' I don't know if there's a consistent y value.

I believe in another thread the "kill zone" is -81 y

eldarth

neverwinter1776 wrote: »

I believe in another thread the "kill zone" is -81 y

I think that's only for Cave Rooms (so far as I've seen).