Tips, hints & shortcuts for the Med.
 

I thought I would start a thread to help those using the DFX MED.

This will help those just starting out mapping and may also help those who have been mapping for awhile use shortcuts and tricks for making maps easier.

Anyone who might have any hints, tips or shortcuts for mapping is encourged to give their advice in this thread.


I'll start off by giving this little trick that I use:

Use the "ABSOLUTE HEIGHT" box as much as possible ! The absolute height allows objects to be copied and pasted at the same absolute "Z" height throughout an area. This works great for placing fences at the same exact height and putting objects inside buildings along the floor line. What I do is for placing objects inside buildings, I place the first object (like a chair or table) inside the building at the "Z" height of the floor. Then I copy the chair or table, then paste it back into the building then change the table or chair into another object like a file cabinet or tech equiptment. The copied item will automatically be at the floor level after being pasted back in!

And if you want to copy an entire building with all the items inside, then press shift and drag your mouse across the building then everything inside the building will be highlighted so you can copy and paste the building with all it's contents in another area! Even if you move an entire building and it's contents to another location on the map, with the "ABSOLUTE HEIGHT" box checked, the items will remain at the same "Z" level!


You'll find this makes the placement process much easier and faster!

Another tip:

Does your map scroll too fast when moved up, down, left & right?

Decrease the grid size!

Learn the keyboard shortcuts.

There are some functions (such as the area insert function) that are not useable without them!

Tired of grass sticking up through the floors of your buildings ?

Place a tile(s) on the area where your building is and the grass will disappear!

Want to put Bad guys on top of buildings and not have them move ?

Change all their attack & engagement ranges to the same number.

Change Group 7 AI : Red Alert
Change Group 7 AI : accuracy to 80
Change Group 7 AI : set Attack Distance to 175
Change Group 7 AI : engagement range (175m - 175m)

Oh Dave!!!... so many so little time,....

1/ Spend 5 minutes and learn too and use the much underused LAYERS and LAYER NAMES
later once you are proficient, you may wanna build really big, complicated maps

2/ I use the 3d wireframe to move assets accuratly within millimeters of each other
using the kb, shift and ctrl along with -,+ and arrow keys of the numpad on your kb
it may or will crash the med so get ready to save as a .mis first

3/ Lazy I know!.. but once I've PLANNED OUT the map first on paper, I often open a pre-made template, with all the 'SAME STUFF' already inserted, ie the 3-6 waypoints the player will use, the x-fil chopper, the 2-3 waypoints for the Red team vehicles
not to mention the 80-100 reds on allocated waypoints, this allows me time to mess around with art a bit longer, as the enginerring is ABOUT the same for each map.

4/ By many members of this site many, many of my missions are huge, I mean BIG
you will be required to spend 6-18 hours on each mission, those with some experience of mapping and want to try this, will need to be familier with
1/ map linking
2/ teleporting reds, blues, and greens
3/ additons of other elements and assets (including MODS)
4/ have the guts to 'TELL A GOOD STORY'
5/ LOTS OF COFFEE

Layers! Yes, good one "M".

Orginize by layers (Trees, buildings, vehicles, powerups, AI, etc...)!
It's easy to just turn off a layer when your map gets too clutered with objects.

Use the snap feature to create perfectly flat areas.

Raise the water level to fill a small valley , then reduce the grid size to about 2 meters. Next, place concrete Dock, center pieces within the grids to cover the water filled valley. Then snap the concrete dock pieces to the grids and to the water.

Once the concrete Dock, center pieces are in place, remove the water and you've got a flat area to work with !

You can send your teammates or enemies to ssn's like trees bushes or rocks instead of using waypoints.

You can make the player temporarily spawn inside a rock or building in the air to give an over view before the action starts by the use of the player start marker and then teleport
to the true starting point on the ground or wherever.

Ihave a Question.What is autonomous behavior?

If you set Autonomous to (1) the AI will freeze, default is (0) not frozen...
so you can set event 0 so. (event 0 being the first event in this case.)


Event 0: Event 0

Triggers:

SSN 10000 is within area 1
Actions:

Change SSN 1 AI : use Autonomous Behavior

this will freeze ssn 1 when the player enters Area 1.
You set this in
Change AI single
Set Autonomous Behavior

Make sure you set 0 or 1 to give the desired effect.

Before you ask...you can use it to have dead bodies laying around the map either at the start or as they die.
if past(0) then//time past in game
killssn(1)
use autonomous behavior(1) wait(0)//kill ssn 1 wait 0 seconds

ssndead(1) then
use autonomous behavior (1) wait(10)//this gives 10 seconds of time for the AI to die and lay down

Thanks Stomp.now i know what is autonomous behavior.

No problem, if you have any more questions about the MEd at all just post them here. :gj: