Props make a level come alive and help add detailing.
We've already looked at a lot of things that require a bit
of work to set up. But its becoming obvious that none of this is really
rocket science. Well this is the single easiest way to make your maps
look awesome with hardly anywork at all.
You first set the cursor where you want the PROPTYPE to go.
The placement of the cursor is very important. You might have to adjust
the placement of the object so it fits right and looks right in the
level. Proptypes tend to be set MOVE TO FLOOR=TRUE. But these setting
are semi coded in an specific attributes file.
While in brush MODE, rightclick, and select ADD OBJECT, (you
can also use the Worlds menu and click on Add an object) and then
scroll down the objects list to PROPS, if it is not fully expanded,
click on the PLUS + sign and then choose PROP TYPE. The first proptype
on the list is the default that is placed in the level.
If it's not the one you want don't worry we're going to
change it. Go to the properties TAB, and you will see a model name,
click on the down Arrow and the entire list of available models will be
listed, just go through them. And find those true gems.
Here's where you will find the vegetation and the misc. prop
items and the machines and the ALIENS encased in Liquid. As well as the
vehicles and other models. Everything to bring your maps to life. You
place each one of these in your map and process. and then adjust its
placement relative to location in the map.
There are some issue with any particualr model being solid
or not, and you might have to build an invisible bounding box for the
model so people don't walk through it.
.
PROP and PROP TYPES in general should be set to SOLID=FALSE
with a a TransluscentWorldModel Invisible BLOCKER placed in the same
location so the player can't pass through it.
But use a the MAIN PROP OBJECT for more features?
You should consider using the the PROP object for more
control over your props. You can adjust scale, you can have them play
animations, you can make them non solid, and you can choose their debris
type, you can also adjust their scale and change there textures. There
is considerable more control with them as well. In general use Proptypes
for repetitve, non movig props, and use the PROPS object for animated
type props. That's not a hard and fast rule, but that's how I do it. The
advantage is you can set the model file and the texture file. Why is
this important? Well for example it is the only way you can get the
burnt out APC into the game. And then list the two textures required for
the interior and exterior, and then set the textures to work properly
with the chromakey=true flag , which was a problem I had solved for
Windebieste's Gladiator skirmish map.
Let's take a look at using a prop object. And then secondly, how to make an animated prop:
1. create a prop object
2. name it something - for example, "dropship_1"
3. in the prop object's model property, tell it to use the model file you need - for example, dropshipanim.abc
4. in the prop object's texture property, tell it to use the texture file you need for the model's skin - for example,
dropship.dtx( this requires four .dtx files listed in the field for the dropship)
5. open modelEdit and load the model
6. look at its animations, and remember the name of the
animation you want it to play. It works like vcr, hit the play and
select the animation. The exact spelling of the animation name is
important. Upper/lower case is important.
7. create a trigger object - in that trigger object you can
send a message to the prop object to get it to play its animations. in
this example you might have a trigger with:
msg dropship_1 (anim door_opening);
You could also set up a series on animations. Lets assume
the door opening animation take 8 seconds. After that we would want the
soor of the dropship to remain open so we would set up the animations to
foolow eachother.
msg dropship_1 (anim door_opening); msg dropship_1 (animloop door_open);
anim=animation animloop=animation loop
the animation will continue to loop until a new message is
sent. If you just want an open Dropship like in verloc, there is a
static dropship model with its ramp down, that does not require the
animloop message. This is important cause every animation message will
require processor time in game. They add up. Use the static model
whenever possible.
Here is another animation that could work particulrly well as part of a keyframer. We explain how to attach prop models to Keyframer here.