Creating and Using "Template" Maps

[Daerthe]

Hmm...was mulling around a problem and came up with a solution after reading the first question post in the scripters'/builders forum. Thought this was a handy idea I could share for those who haven't thought of it already...

I am working on an elvish forest that has 20 odd maps in it. All the maps will be in the forest tileset with the same music/lighting settings. Rather than have to change all the settings more than 20 times, I am going to make it once and save it as something like "Forest Template". Then, I just copy the area with the proper resref and I saved myself a couple hours of work by not having to duplicate the settings each time.

Hope someone finds this helpful.

[Orleron]

Yep, we do that with generic houses in the game. If we have to populate a city with houses, we make like 5 house templates and then sprinkle them into the doorways around the city. This way, every doorway has a house. Sometimes we change little things here and there in each one... move a piece of furniture, etc.

[hermyt]

jeez and I thought you guys were using the random interiors scripts for all those houses in Mikona, that you aren't is pretty impressive thats alot of stuff to setup.

For anyone that is interested there is an interesting script set that Jordinn made up on the vault

http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/scripts/da ... 8470.shtml

you can make a set of interiors then have activatable entrances randomly select one of the interiors when a pc enters a home. The scripts there are kinda rough I redid most of it when I used it on my last mod, but the idea is pretty neat and alot of the basics are done there and you can populate a massive area pretty easily with interiors. The best thing to do though is add some checking into that script package so that you don't have pc's from different parts of town walking into the same house, but its not alot to add in.

HerMyT

ps, yaa templates are the way to go, I do alot of custom color settings and sound settings for all my zones and its ALOT of work to do it over again for every area, especially if you're doing like 40 forest zones or something.

another neat tip is using the area transition system

http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/scripts/da ... 7703.shtml

if you set that up for your overland areas then you can just drop those triggers at the four corners of your maps in your templates, then when you make your copies of the templates all you have to do is change the area tags and voila, you have your area done with all your area transitions done already, even quicker that way

HerMyT

[eggyt]

Yep, we do that with generic houses in the game. If we have to populate a city with houses, we make like 5 house templates and then sprinkle them into the doorways around the city. This way, every doorway has a house. Sometimes we change little things here and there in each one... move a piece of furniture, etc.

Have to say I did the exact same thing on Hala when I re built the City of Nagritch, mad ea few different house templates then just reused them. Occasionally added the odd different encounter or furniture to make them slightly different.

[Sarmanos]

I have no problem creating template interiors and such. The part that gets to me is linking all the transitions together afterwards. Need an easier way to do that.

[Daerthe]

I have no problem creating template interiors and such. The part that gets to me is linking all the transitions together afterwards. Need an easier way to do that.

Create a consistent code and use that to name your doors, transitions, triggers, waypoints, map tags, etc. It makes coding these items sooo easy.