Just some random foundry tips while the servers are down.

cuddlesmacheese · May 2013

1) You should be spending a quite a bit of your time in 3d mode when working on a quest. It is about 60% for me.
2) Play with the backdrop and lighting effects to give your outdoor maps more life. Rain is also cool.
3) Spend time on polish and details. Nothing bugs me more then a floating barrel.
4) When rotating items in 3D mode pay attention to the rotations to keep them square (90, 180, etc.)
5) If you want an outdoor map with interior rooms, just build them and use portals. All the tools are there. The trick is stairs, but even this can be solved.
6) Don't rush a quest just to get it published. Spend time on it. You don't want your first reviews to be poor.
7) Ask questions on these forums. The people here are awesome and very helpful. Just learn the basics on your own first.
8) Learn how to use fade to black and invisible walls.
9) Test, test and test. Then, when you think your quest is done, test it more.

Just my two cents...

boydzinj · May 2013

My advice, is play your own foundry quest with a level 30+ character. You will be surprised how much of a difference a level 1 character will do versus a level 10 versus a level 20 versus a 30 ... and even versus a 60 character.

nathiest · May 2013

How do you flip a npc? I want to create a Boss. How do I do that?

boydzinj · May 2013

There are no true bosses in the game. You can dress encounters into semi bosses... and you could use smoke and mirrors in fooling people a specific encounter is a boss... there are threads upon threads upon threads on how to do it.

Flipping the NPC?

As in make the NPC look right versus looking left? You can switch their direction from the map... if that is what you are asking.

ovaltine74 · May 2013

I am working on a quest with multiple maps and miles of dialog. One thing that bugs me is that the twinkling path that takes you from one objective to the next does not seem to be working. Will it work correctly once the quest is published? Is it just a editor mode glitch?

boydzinj · May 2013

ovaltine74 wrote: »

I am working on a quest with multiple maps and miles of dialog. One thing that bugs me is that the twinkling path that takes you from one objective to the next does not seem to be working. Will it work correctly once the quest is published? Is it just a editor mode glitch?

It depends on what is wrong. I would imagine you do NOT want the player to know which NPC to talk to for the quest objective?

In the story tab you can actually remove the ability to see the wisps for primary quest objectives. On each quest, there is an option to have the quest object look like a big circle area, a specific blip on the map, or not trackable. (I am not in game so I do not remember the exact names).

cuddlesmacheese · May 2013

Some items (NPC's, portals, etc.) you can't move in 3D edit mode.

ovaltine74 · May 2013

Thanks, i must have that option unchecked on all of them, because there are no paths at all. You would just have to run to the little green diamond on the mini map which is not what I want. I want the player to follow the wispy path of tinkerbells all the way there. You wouldn't happen to know exactly where that option is on the quest panel would you. What its called?

nokturnel · May 2013

cuddlesmacheese wrote: »

5) If you want an outdoor map with interior rooms, just build them and use portals. All the tools are there. The trick is stairs, but even this can be solved.

I wanted to create a cave that wasn't apart of the linear story, but the outdoor map I chose had no room to place extra interior rooms. You mean by creating the cave (walls, ceiling and all) from scratch and placing it somewhere the player normally doesn't go?

Cause the only way I found to transition an outdoor map into an indoor map was by linking it up to the linear storyline.

ovaltine74 · May 2013

Also I would like to make some NPCs untargetable by mobs. It is frustrating wanting non combat NPCs and mobs in the same area because the mobs target them and ignore the player.

ovaltine74 · May 2013

I just made an interior on the same map and put a teleporter linking them together. It is a bit tricky especially if you are trying to teleport from one confined area to another. It seems you appear on the teleport path (little line between the two nodes and the directional does nothing. I fooled with it for an hour before I figured that out.

boydzinj · May 2013

ovaltine74 wrote: »

Thanks, i must have that option unchecked on all of them, because there are no paths at all. You would just have to run to the little green diamond on the mini map which is not what I want. I want the player to follow the wispy path of tinkerbells all the way there. You wouldn't happen to know exactly where that option is on the quest panel would you. What its called?

In the story tab... where your main quests are at... click on one of your quests..

I went to youtube and watch a youtube video about the foundry. When you create a story tab quest... the second option is waypoint. The default option it is set on is area. Area is the large blue circle. You can change that to non or ... specific (again i am not in game... so i forgot the exact names... but there are only three options).

ddsauter · May 2013

Hello:

I'm curious about:
8) Learn how to use fade to black and invisible walls.

Is there reference anywhere on how to do this and applications for it? I'm new to the foundry and trying to learn all i can.

thanks - D

jintortle · May 2013

boydzinj wrote: »

In the story tab... where your main quests are at... click on one of your quests..

I went to youtube and watch a youtube video about the foundry. When you create a story tab quest... the second option is waypoint. The default option it is set on is area. Area is the large blue circle. You can change that to non or ... specific (again i am not in game... so i forgot the exact names... but there are only three options).

Youtube is great for Foundry.

Be advised though there are two types of Foundry programs on Youtube. There is the one we use in game and an older one the devs were demonstrating. Was confused as hell doing my first quest.

Also watch out for ambush nodes. I have an Archer who is so good at evasive hiding that some people can not find him and even myself have looked for him for hours.
I fixed it by having him spawn right in front of the player from the start but even then if he is not taken out he will scamper and turn translucent. Worse he is one of the storyline mobs so he must be taken down.

cheers

cuddlesmacheese · May 2013

nokturnel wrote: »

I wanted to create a cave that wasn't apart of the linear story, but the outdoor map I chose had no room to place extra interior rooms. You mean by creating the cave (walls, ceiling and all) from scratch and placing it somewhere the player normally doesn't go?

Cause the only way I found to transition an outdoor map into an indoor map was by linking it up to the linear storyline.

Just like Ovaltine said, you build the cave using the cave rocks and floors. You setup teleporters back and forth. It will take a few tries for you to get the teleporters correctly placed. I like the sphere teleporter. You can place it on walls or doors, whatever you want.

lonnehart · May 2013

Make sure your encounters make sense. Don't have doors locked for hundreds of years requiring a complex process to unlock them.... only to have a squad of orcs (or other large living beings) waiting for the player inside. And if you do have such beings inside a room locked for that long at least give an explanation as to how they got in there.

nokturnel · May 2013

cuddlesmacheese wrote: »

Just like Ovaltine said, you build the cave using the cave rocks and floors. You setup teleporters back and forth. It will take a few tries for you to get the teleporters correctly placed. I like the sphere teleporter. You can place it on walls or doors, whatever you want.

What I do for teleporters is I place a regular detail object in the location I want it (using 3d edit) and then exit back out to foundry and copy the cords onto the teleporter, the rotation usually doesn't work though so lots of trial and error there.

For example: You can place a cave door detail object that isn't a teleporter where you want the Cave door teleporter to be, then remove it when you're done. (But I actually tied the teleporting cave door to a dialogue choice so the non-teleporting one would block it off and still look good if you didn't choose to go through the cave)

xhrit · May 2013

Is there a way to change the waypoint names on the map? I placed 3 objectives, put them as points, and they are all labeled as '1' in my map.

almostcool · May 2013

Not really a tip but could we stop skinning every single boss battle as ogres? We are limited but there are a lot more mobs to choose from that don't just sit there and swing a giant spiked club at you.

nokturnel · May 2013

almostcool wrote: »

Not really a tip but could be stop skinning every single boss battle as ogres? We are limited but there are a lot more mobs to choose from that don't just sit there and swing a giant spiked club at you.

lol, I see that problem a lot, but with only 5 solo encounters to pick from (basically as boss as a single mob can get in the Foundry atm) there's not much choices. Ogre is also the only one who doesn't use some sort of magic, I think that's the main reason people use him.

torie · May 2013

I've come across 2 problems while trying out the foundry. Am relatively new to it so might be newbie questions:

How can I make a hole in interior rooms? So that I could place a ladder that leads downwards that hole - would be a map trynsition object then.

I wanna make an NPC that commited suicide by hanging herself with a rope from a tree. I've seen such ingame, but I can't find any option how to realize that.

nokturnel · May 2013

torie wrote: »

I've come across 2 problems while trying out the foundry. Am relatively new to it so might be newbie questions:

How can I make a hole in interior rooms? So that I could place a ladder that leads downwards that hole - would be a map trynsition object then.

I wanna make an NPC that commited suicide by hanging herself with a rope from a tree. I've seen such ingame, but I can't find any option how to realize that.

For the first part, you can either use a teleporter if you want the player to teleport somewhere else inside the same map, or just use a map detail object. (Look up like hole or cave in details) Then assign a map transition in the story to leave from that object.

For making an NPC hanging, there's a skeleton hanging from a noose in the details, if you don't want it to be a skeleton, you can use a regular noose and try to find stuff that looks like the human you want to hang and place them in the 3d editor to look as if they're hanging from the noose. (look up noose in details both a noose without anything in it will pop up and a noose with a skeleton will pop up)

Just some random foundry tips while the servers are down.

Comments