XMP Editing Info
There is currently a FAQ underway by members of the community, but for the time being, I wanted to post some information regarding various editing in XMP.
Setting up a deployment point
Go to the actor browser and select deploymentpoint under hacktrigger. Right click and add it in the world where you'd like it. You must have at least one per team in the level or that team cannot spawn in.
Useful properties :
Under Advanced:
bUsable - Set this to false for base deploy points that shouldn't be hackable. In the normal XMP game, there should always be at least one per team with this on.
Under DeployPoint:
Camera - use a matinee camera to set the view - unique camera views help to differentiate deploy points when looking through them awaiting deployment.
RespawnDelayPct - This is a percentage used to offset spawning so that some deploys happen at a different offset. 0.5 here will indicate that the spawn is offset by 50%. This does not change how long it takes to deploy from the point, it simply offsets the staging by the percentage indicated.
Under HackTrigger
Team - 0 for Red, 1 for Blue, 255 for neutral
Loader
All levels should have a loader. Essentially it just precaches essential actors so there isn't a loading hitch when you first see a new model, effect, or whatever.
Setting Up Power Sources
You can have as many generators per level as you'd like (within limitations of what the UI can display). The HUD will automatically display as many as 16 generators.
Power Sources are located under hacktrigger->hackswitch. You can set generators to a team at the start if you'd like to switch up the gameplay - by default they are neutral.
Be sure to give every Energy Generator a unique Tag.
To link other staticmeshes to the generator (so they will change color when the generator is hacked) add staticmesh->teammeshactors and set their staticmeshactor property to the staticmesh you wish to use. Under display properties you will see an array called AlternateSkins. You will need to add any colored skins here that you wish to switch when the generator is hacked. 0 is red, 1 is blue. The default on the staticmesh will be used as neutral.
If you staticmesh has multiple skins, you will need to put the appropriate material index for the skin in the RepSkinIndex slot. For example, if you staticmesh has 2 skins, and you want the second one to be swapped out, repskinindex should be changed from 0 to 1.
Set the tag on the teammeshactor/s to the tag of the generator and they will be linked up.
Setting up an Arifact Node
For reasons going back a bit, artifact nodes are listed as Icon Node under Decoration->BreakableDecoration. Add one into your level at the appropriate place.
Under IconNode set the team (0 for red, 1 for blue, as always).
Now you set up the artifacts themselves, just set the classes of artifacts in both nodes. These are just visually iconic and have no effect - they can all be the same type if you'd like or a unique type in each of the four slots.
Select one artifact node, and set two of it's slots to have an artifact. Then select the second artifact node and set two of its to also have an artifact. Leave the other slots as none.
You can of course set up one artifact to have 3 and the other 1 or other setups to created pitched battles or change up the gameplay if you want.
Setting up Hackable Doors/Lifts/Bridges/Movers-in-general/other effects
We've only done a few things with hackable doors in the included maps. They could also be used to extend bridges, turn on fans, enable lifts, turn on poison gas, laser grids, etc.
To set up a hackable object, add a mover, particle system, or other triggerable object you'd like to be hackable. From here, there are two basic ways it can work:
A> the door/object/whatever can be triggered automatically when a team of that side is nearby. This is how most doors in the game work currently.
B> the door can be triggered only when its controls are used, this is like the garage doors in Rampant.
For the first method, add a team trigger as if you were setting up a normal door proximity trigger - this trigger will only respond to the controlling team. Set its team to the appropriate team to start (or leave it neutral in the case the the object begins as neutral).
Next add a hackswitch to the level. Set it up to be DT_Staticmesh and set its staticmesh to the appropriate panel or switch for the controls. Set it's event to the tag of the team trigger.
Set it's team to the appropriate team (or leave it neutral).
If the object has more than one set of controls (for example, a door with controls on both sides), add a useproxy and set it up like the hackswitch visually. Set the usemaster property to be the hackswitch.
You can set up teamskins on these meshes (hackswitch and useproxy) just like teammesh actors (see above).
For the second type, use a HackTrigger. You don't need a teamtrigger, as this is only triggered when the controls are used (either it's hacked, or a team who already controls it uses it again). You can set a hacktrigger to not retrigger when a controlling team re-uses it by setting bIgnoreAlreadyHacked to True. Set bTriggerTeam to true to have it properly set up teamskins if you need that.
To Set Up Vehicles
Add an XMPVehicleFactory.
Under vehicle type, type in Raptor, Harbinger, or Juggernaut.
Adding Locations
Add a landmark actor and set its description. Teamsay and Deploypoints will show the closest landmark. You can set the collision radii on these actors if you need to specify exact areas, but generally, this is not needed.
Adding Radar
You need to create your map image. If you want a -really- quick and dirty map, you can skip this step, but your radar will only show game-relevant icons and no topographical info if you don't create an map image.
To create the map image, the easiest way is to go into UnrealEd and enlarge you orthographic top view to fullscreen. Now hide anything that's no appropriate to being in the radar such as ambient sounds, blocking volumes, etc. I usually set my UnrealEd colors to be appropriate to a radar image. You can do this under your preferences under the editor properties. Setting the background to black and various types of brushes and staticmeshes to green will emulate those included in standard XMP maps.
Now you're ready to take some shots of your level. Zoom to an appropriate level so you can capture the entire map. I usually take a number of shots with various things showing or hidden. For example, taking one shot with only terrain (press T to show terrain in the top view), while another has only the geometry. This allows you to seperately adjust the brightness/contrast of each image or make specific changes to something in a layer. For example, FreeFall includes all the asteroids as one color, with the interior areas as a secondary color so they will stand out from one another. Taking these as seperate images allows you to easily alter each one. This of course is optional and often you'll just need one good shot.
The easiest way to capture these is to have Photoshop (or another image editing utilitity) open and printscreen each image and paste it in as a layer. Once you've gotten all the layers you want, you can blend them together as you'd like and do any other artistic stuff you'd like to the image. Crop it and save it at whatever size you'd like. The standard maps are 512x512.
Next you need to bring the radar image into the game. In UnrealEd, open the RadarTemplateT and RadarTemplateM packages. Rename all of the images in RadarTemplateT to the MyLevel package to move them into your level. When you do this, change the name of Map_Generic to match your level (for example Map_Sirocco). Do not rename the other images, just change the package name in order to move them. Don't save the now empty RadarTeamplateT package, you'll want to use this when you create additional radars for other maps. If you created a radar image, now import it into "MyLevel", using the same name you used for the Map_Generic (such as Map_Sirocco), thus overwriting it and updating the rest of the shader to use your new map.
The RadarTemplateM is simply a 128x128 square with no texture. Add this in to the center of your level and change its skin property so that it uses your newly created map (if you skipped the map creation stage, just use the Map_Generic found in RadarTemplateT). Now, using DrawScale, scale the square up until the map image matches that of your actual map (move it around and up and down to make sure your map image matches the actual geometry of the level). You may have to flip the square over using a 3DDrawscale of -1 Y if the image appears backwards. Once you've got the scaling appropriate so that it lines up with your level, check where the upper left corner of the map is. This can be easily done by simply adding another of the radar templates so that it's center lines up with the upper left corner of the big one - then go into its properties and look under movement->location for where it's located in x/y space.
Next, open up your LevelProperties->Radar. Copy the x/y values from the top left corner location into the RadarWorldLeft and RadarWorldTop fields. Now look at the drawscale of the radartemplate. Multiply that number by 128 (the size of this template) and enter that number into RadarWorldSize. (so if you total drawscale is 67.3, your total world size is 8614.4). Find the FinalBlend texture (it has a yellow border around it) called Radar in your mylevel package. Use that for the RadarImage. Finally, you'll want to set up the TeamIndicatorAngle. This is for the Red/Blue semicircles that indicate the general base direction. It assumes by default that the red is on the right side of the map as viewed from above, and the blue is on the left. To change this, simply put in a normal angle (90, 180, 270, etc.) to adjust the general heading of the base indicator.
That's how you add a radar into your map. It sounds a bit complex at first, but it actually only takes a couple of minutes once you know how.
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