Creature tutorial - Revision history

Sunjammer: Fixing image

2011-08-10T22:37:46Z

Fixing image

Mdpaustin: /* Creating a monstrous creature's template */

2010-05-11T19:02:18Z

‎Creating a monstrous creature's template

Proleric1: /* Creating a monstrous creature's template */

2010-01-14T18:29:34Z

‎Creating a monstrous creature's template

Nattfodd: /* Ambient Behaviour */

2010-01-11T21:48:56Z

‎Ambient Behaviour

Proleric1: /* Creating a monstrous creature's template */

2010-01-11T18:05:56Z

‎Creating a monstrous creature's template

Proleric1: /* Creating a monstrous creature's template */

2010-01-11T18:03:28Z

‎Creating a monstrous creature's template

Hunharibo: /* Ambient Behaviour */

2009-11-18T21:52:09Z

‎Ambient Behaviour

Hunharibo at 21:48, 18 November 2009

2009-11-18T21:48:46Z

TheFawz: /* Creating a monstrous creature's template */

2009-11-14T23:22:14Z

‎Creating a monstrous creature's template

Buswolleys: /* Creating a monstrous creature's template */ -- Added a paragraph regarding level scaling

2009-11-14T20:37:55Z

‎Creating a monstrous creature's template: -- Added a paragraph regarding level scaling

@@ Line 90: / Line 90: @@
 Next we're going to want to replace that bland default head with a different appearance. Dragon Age allows head appearance to be customized through the use of head morphs, a process with sufficient sophistication and scope that there's a separate editing tool dedicated to it. We won't cover that in this tutorial, however, and instead simply use one of the prefabricated head morphs that comes with the game.
-Under the "Appearance" section of the object explorer is the "Head Morph" property. When you click on the ellipsis ([[Image:ellipsis.png]]) button you'll be presented with a file picker to choose a head morph from. Once you've selected a head morph most of the other options under Appearance will be disabled, since the head morph customizes all of those parameters in a much more fine-grained manner.
+Under the "Appearance" section of the object explorer is the "Head Morph" property. When you click on the ellipsis ([[Image:ellipsis.png|link=]]) button you'll be presented with a file picker to choose a head morph from. Once you've selected a head morph most of the other options under Appearance will be disabled, since the head morph customizes all of those parameters in a much more fine-grained manner.
 Since this NPC is not intended to ever enter or even respond to combat, the package and scaling is not particularly important. It can be left with the defaults.

@@ Line 9: / Line 9: @@
 }}
-First, create a new creature template. You can leave most of its properties at their defaults for starters. To make it fight the player when it sees him, set the "Group" property to "_Hostile". Give it a name in the "Name" property ("Hut Monster" in this example) and change the "Appearance" property to something appropriate (a normal Hurlock in this case). You might also want to add a head and eyes. Set them to whatever you find suitable (in this case "Hurlock").
+First, create a new creature template. (File->New->Creature) You can leave most of its properties at their defaults for starters. To make it fight the player when it sees him, set the "Group" property to "_Hostile". Give it a name in the "Name" property ("Hut Monster" in this example) and change the "Appearance" property to something appropriate (a normal Hurlock in this case). You might also want to add a head and eyes. Set them to whatever you find suitable (in this case "Hurlock").
 [[Image:Tutorial hut monster.png]]

@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 Creatures in Dragon Age have a level range that scales to the player's current level.  For example, if a darkspawn had a level range of 3-8, then it would spawn around level 4 if the player encountering it was level 4.  The level range defines the creatures minimum and maximum levels for these encounters. The default level range is 0-0, and must be changed to a positive number if the creature is hostile to the player at any point.
-Note that the level of creatures spawned in a given area is further limited to the range specified in [[areadata.xls]]. If there is no entry for the area in that file, creatures spawn at level 1.
+Note that the level of creatures spawned in a given area is further limited to the range specified in [[areadata.xls]]. Unless the area variable AREA_ID is set manually in the toolset to a valid line id in that table, creatures spawn at level 1.
 == Placing creatures ==

@@ Line 104: / Line 104: @@
 [[Image:Tutorial quest giver.png]]
-== Ambient Behaviour ==
+== [[Ambient behaviour]] ==
 If you spawn an NPC using the above technique, he/she will stand still with some idle animations. If you want the NPC to perform some ambient animations like crossing arms, or sitting at a table (these are looped, so no one-shot animations can be assigned here), then you need to do 2 things. Go into the Variables, and look for 2 locals. First you need to set is AMBIENT_SYSTEM_STATE. The default value is 0, which corresponds to disabled, so no custom ambient animations other than the idle animations will be played. Set this to 1, which enables custom ambient animations. The second local variable is called AMBIENT_ANIM_PATTERN. This needs to be an integer that corresponds to an animation ID (first column) in ambient_ai.xls. Just open the spreadsheet, look up the animation you want your NPC to have (they have very descriptive labels), and put its ID into AMBIENT_ANIM_PATTERN. Note: the toolset has no way to show you ambient animations, you will only see these in-game.

@@ Line 36: / Line 36: @@
 Creatures in Dragon Age have a level range that scales to the player's current level.  For example, if a darkspawn had a level range of 3-8, then it would spawn around level 4 if the player encountering it was level 4.  The level range defines the creatures minimum and maximum levels for these encounters. The default level range is 0-0, and must be changed to a positive number if the creature is hostile to the player at any point.
-Note that the level of creatures spawned in a given area is further limited to the range specified in the areadata 2da file. If there is no entry for the area in that file, creatures spawn at level 1.
+Note that the level of creatures spawned in a given area is further limited to the range specified in [[areadata.xls]]. If there is no entry for the area in that file, creatures spawn at level 1.
 == Placing creatures ==

@@ Line 34: / Line 34: @@
 The rank of the creature tells the game's autoscaling system how good the creature should be at using its abilities and how tough it is. Since we want these creatures to be an interesting fight but not a serious challenge for our demo, we'll set the hut monster to "Critter". Rank also determines the quality of the treasure that is automatically generated for the player to loot from the monster's corpse; tougher monsters have higher-quality loot. To determine what ''kind'' of loot is generated, set the treasure category property. Different types of monsters will generally carry different types of loot, for example the Darkspawn are more likely to have vials of poison in their possession.
-Creatures in Dragon Age have a level range that scales to the player's current level.  For example, if a darkspawn had a level range of 3-8, then it would be around level 4 if the player encountering it was level 4.  The level range defines the creatures minimum and maximum levels for these encounters. The default level range is 0-0, and must be changed to a positive number if the creature is hostile to the player at any point.
+Creatures in Dragon Age have a level range that scales to the player's current level.  For example, if a darkspawn had a level range of 3-8, then it would spawn around level 4 if the player encountering it was level 4.  The level range defines the creatures minimum and maximum levels for these encounters. The default level range is 0-0, and must be changed to a positive number if the creature is hostile to the player at any point.
 == Placing creatures ==

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:52, 18 November 2009
Line 105:		Line 105:

	If you spawn an NPC using the above technique, he/she will stand still with some idle animations. If you want the NPC to perform some ambient animations like crossing arms, or sitting at a table (these are looped, so no one-shot animations can be assigned here), then you need to do 2 things. Go into the Variables, and look for 2 locals. First you need to set is AMBIENT_SYSTEM_STATE. The default value is 0, which corresponds to disabled, so no custom ambient animations other than the idle animations will be played. Set this to 1, which enables custom ambient animations. The second local variable is called AMBIENT_ANIM_PATTERN. This needs to be an integer that corresponds to an animation ID (first column) in ambient_ai.xls. Just open the spreadsheet, look up the animation you want your NPC to have (they have very descriptive labels), and put its ID into AMBIENT_ANIM_PATTERN. Note: the toolset has no way to show you ambient animations, you will only see these in-game.		If you spawn an NPC using the above technique, he/she will stand still with some idle animations. If you want the NPC to perform some ambient animations like crossing arms, or sitting at a table (these are looped, so no one-shot animations can be assigned here), then you need to do 2 things. Go into the Variables, and look for 2 locals. First you need to set is AMBIENT_SYSTEM_STATE. The default value is 0, which corresponds to disabled, so no custom ambient animations other than the idle animations will be played. Set this to 1, which enables custom ambient animations. The second local variable is called AMBIENT_ANIM_PATTERN. This needs to be an integer that corresponds to an animation ID (first column) in ambient_ai.xls. Just open the spreadsheet, look up the animation you want your NPC to have (they have very descriptive labels), and put its ID into AMBIENT_ANIM_PATTERN. Note: the toolset has no way to show you ambient animations, you will only see these in-game.
		+
		+	Note: if you set the variables in the creature editor, all instances of the creature will have the custom animations assigned to them by default. You may want to do this in the area editor for this reason where you may assign custom ambient animations to each individual creature instance in that area.

	Next is the [[Conversation tutorial]]		Next is the [[Conversation tutorial]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:48, 18 November 2009
Line 101:		Line 101:

	[[Image:Tutorial quest giver.png]]		[[Image:Tutorial quest giver.png]]
		+
		+	== Ambient Behaviour ==
		+
		+	If you spawn an NPC using the above technique, he/she will stand still with some idle animations. If you want the NPC to perform some ambient animations like crossing arms, or sitting at a table (these are looped, so no one-shot animations can be assigned here), then you need to do 2 things. Go into the Variables, and look for 2 locals. First you need to set is AMBIENT_SYSTEM_STATE. The default value is 0, which corresponds to disabled, so no custom ambient animations other than the idle animations will be played. Set this to 1, which enables custom ambient animations. The second local variable is called AMBIENT_ANIM_PATTERN. This needs to be an integer that corresponds to an animation ID (first column) in ambient_ai.xls. Just open the spreadsheet, look up the animation you want your NPC to have (they have very descriptive labels), and put its ID into AMBIENT_ANIM_PATTERN. Note: the toolset has no way to show you ambient animations, you will only see these in-game.

	Next is the [[Conversation tutorial]]		Next is the [[Conversation tutorial]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 20:37, 14 November 2009
Line 33:		Line 33:

	The rank of the creature tells the game's autoscaling system how good the creature should be at using its abilities and how tough it is. Since we want these creatures to be an interesting fight but not a serious challenge for our demo, we'll set the hut monster to "Critter". Rank also determines the quality of the treasure that is automatically generated for the player to loot from the monster's corpse; tougher monsters have higher-quality loot. To determine what ''kind'' of loot is generated, set the treasure category property. Different types of monsters will generally carry different types of loot, for example the Darkspawn are more likely to have vials of poison in their possession.		The rank of the creature tells the game's autoscaling system how good the creature should be at using its abilities and how tough it is. Since we want these creatures to be an interesting fight but not a serious challenge for our demo, we'll set the hut monster to "Critter". Rank also determines the quality of the treasure that is automatically generated for the player to loot from the monster's corpse; tougher monsters have higher-quality loot. To determine what ''kind'' of loot is generated, set the treasure category property. Different types of monsters will generally carry different types of loot, for example the Darkspawn are more likely to have vials of poison in their possession.
		+
		+	Creatures in Dragon Age have a level range that scales to the player's current level. For example, if a darkspawn had a level range of 3-8, then it would be around level 4 if the player encountering it was level 4. The level range defines the creatures minimum and maximum levels for these encounters. The default level range is 0-0, and must be changed to a positive number if the creature is hostile to the player at any point.

	== Placing creatures ==		== Placing creatures ==