MissionBoySE Map Maker - Current: v1.9

[Delphy]

Hi All,

I've taken the MissionBoy code from IWAssasin (thanks!) and quite substantially changed it.

I don't know how many people still make HW2 maps here but I thought I'd release it anyway.

Here's some screenshots:





The download link is: http://delphy.hwcommunity.com/homeworld2/MissionBoySE/

You need the VB6 runtimes, ComDlg32.ocx and mscomctl.ocx to run.

Have fun and let me know if there are any bugs!

Regards
Delphy

[Homer Jr.]

Wonderful! I can't wait to incorporate this into the pirate mod.

[Crook]

No writing rude messages now.........................

Although for a pirates mod, what about 'Avast, me hearties!' as a map?

[Tel'Quessir]

Holy crap. That is just what I require for the creation of tactical engagement scenarios

[now where do I get the VB6 runtime from]

[DarthVaygr]

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;192461

Think this is it :bandit:

Delphy....I see you took a little break from HWSE2.....ahh well.....we have enough for now anyway hehe.

This tool will rock! You just click and place? Whoa....since I didn't download it yet and people will want to know about the tool before they get it so....

Can you place custom ships? Just click and the thing is placed? Along with GUI? This rox....

[ceejayoz]

/me commences spelling out swear words with battlecruisers

[Skeeter]

Thanks alot u left me out of ur post, that I helped u on ideas and things, i thought i was going to test it first as well.

But considering its done good work delphy

A quick test of the tool showed a couple of bugs. 1.. The exit button never er exited the program. 2.. when i placed a 18000 ru asteroid and tryed moving it up to where the others where it wouldnt move and the others moved fine so when i thought hmm could be a duff one i tryed deleting it and it crashed with a runtime error.

A idea would be to have the option of putting objects like ru groups into a actual group (or pre preogramed option of a ru clumps in the create rus drop down menu) and if possible add a clone tool and have the group movable as in move all at the same time so u can do equal ru groups for all players easily. Also when show labels was on it got kind clutered when doing asteroids so perhaps alter the code to make some filters like either show all/show only asteroids/show only player start positions/ show only xxx. Just another few suggestions.

[Delphy]

Darth,

I actually removed the ability to place Custom ships in the first version, but I'll re-add it back in again later.

Skeeter,

Grouping is a good idea but save it for later
I'll work on the labels thing cuz that is something I noticed too

Delphy

[Delphy]

v1.2 is up:

1. Fixed program not exiting bug
2. Fixed bug when removing last object from map
3. Added back in ability to place custom ships
4. Added ability to show only labels for specific objects (ie turn off
pebbles but show everything else)
5. Turned off showing of pebble labels by default
6. Fixed green colour not saving properly
7. Added loading of maps
8. Removed "Type" and "ArrayID" columns as these where for debugging only
9. Resized Objects list
10. Added random height variance for asteroids and pebbles
11. Added New Map option

Enjoy

[fearing]

Great stuff Delphy! However i've noticed a bug, if you place an asteroid without specifying the type, the program continues forever to repeate the "select type" dialog box even if you click the OK button.

[Delphy]

fearing,

Just tried it - can't replicate here. You using 1.1?

[starfleet]

nice work delphy, hopefully the stuff i sent you helps.. and maybe pedro can get some more of the doco he's working on now i've sent that to him and *graons* i've gotta go over the doco he sent me hehe....

Now if only it could do sp missions once it's bug free :P (already has the answer for that one is just teasing hehe)

[fearing]

Problem solved , i had a bad vb6 library.

[Delphy]

1.3 is up:

Version 1.3
-----------
1. Fixed map scaling bug (size extents are now correct)
2. Fixed crash when trying to add more than one startpos for the same player
3. Decreased size of font in labels on the map view
4. Pebbles are now added to the NonDetermChunk section
5. Removed Pebble_3 type

[FluxX]

Delphy Rulez (the modding VB6 and programming community!)

ThanX! Could never get the origional missionboy working.

[Thunderbolt]

3 patches so far today Delphy i wish the Gameing Inustry would update stuff as fast


(starts tinkering with a new toy errrr Program)

(EDIT: the latest version when you place a single start point and try to place another the "you have allready placed a start point" Box never goes away)


(Edit#2: it seams to be a rare Bug because i have yet to replcate it )

[GingerbreadMan]

woah ive been wanting a nice editor like this for awhile! I wuv wu delphy! :bandit:

and all who helped make it!
:buddies:

[FluxX]

Knocks thread.

Opps, .

So will someone do a tutorial on making a map with this?

PS, I knew the anwser, was just bumbping

[Delphy]

Flux,

Yes - I will. Soon

[scottismo]

I never made a map in HW because Missionman scared me..... I this program easier to make maps with? If so....i may give it a try :-)

[Skeeter]

Certainly is alot easier, i was too scared of using mission manager on hw1 cos it was just too complex. I though at the time and then with this tool it's simple, u pick a object, u put it on the map, set some globals which are very easy and walla save and ur done

Also with load option u can load it back in and edit it to create ur perfect map/level.

EDIT -- Cool 1.4 is out now --

[scottismo]

Right i have tried it out and you're right any old lamer can do maps in this thing!

However there are a few things missing:

Ability to undo/redo actions - saves having to keep saves different versions.
Ability to zoom in/out - makes placing things in a certain position easier.
A ruler or something? OK so the grid helps but when you make the map quite large the grid blocks become too small to help much....

And a question......

Ability to put in custom objects such as backgrounds, music etc - how would this be achieved? Does the program contain predefined items such as dustclouds etc or does it detect and load all items present?

OK thats all the stuff i can think of right now considering i have only toyed with it for ten minutes.

EDIT: Crap! Zoom feature has been implemented within like the last few hours LOL. Well the other points remain

[starfleet]

Last I talked to Delphy, (last night when 1.3 was being released) it doens't support custom objects:

Backgrounds:- Something me and pes and a few others including delphy are working on getting to work right. would still once it work properly require being able to manually edit the line.
Music:- You have to have all the files in yourself, i did mention it to delphy and i'll post it here a little clearer, Delphy could you make the actual music line editable so you can type in your own file line.
Ships etc etc: Don't know if he's implimented it being able to do a look up from the HW2 directory I know the last version i had 1.3 was all predefined items from the core set.

But I could be wrong and delphy's not on line for me to ask atm. So there tentative answers

[BmB]

DA cool thats cool it was updated this morning 4-june 04 cool i have never experienced anything like this before! please dont respond to this as i might never find the thread again...

EDIT: WTF? it wont work it says 'comdlg32.ocx' is not correctly registered...
what happened?

EDIT: Now im starting to get tired of this thing... how do i run the VB6
runtimestuff?

[evillejedi]

quick feature request, ability to place any object at a random height like the asteroids (should be a reletivly easy add)

also I consistantly get a crash when resizing the window, runs fine if maximized.

another possible bug is when placing nebula, I was only able to make 10 of them, after that number any added nebula resulted in a 30 second timeout, I'll see if it's repeatable.

other wise, very nice

[Delphy]

Ability to undo/redo actions - Probably wont be for a while.
A ruler or something? How about sizing the grid for larger maps?

Ability to put in custom objects such as backgrounds, music etc - only custom backgrounds, music and ships in 1.5. Everything else is predetermined.
quick feature request, ability to place any object at a random height like the asteroids - Done
also I consistantly get a crash when resizing the window, runs fine if maximized Couldn't replicate. This happened up till 1.4.

another possible bug is when placing nebula, I was only able to make 10 of them, after that number any added nebula resulted in a 30 second timeout I just placed over 250 on a map and it was very responsive.

Last I talked to Delphy, (last night when 1.3 was being released) it doens't support custom objects: 1.2 enabled the ability to place custom ships but thats it so far.

Music:- You have to have all the files in yourself, i did mention it to delphy and i'll post it here a little clearer, Delphy could you make the actual music line editable so you can type in your own file line. Done.

Ships etc etc: Don't know if he's implimented it being able to do a look up from the HW2 directory I know the last version i had 1.3 was all predefined items from the core set.

All predetermined except for ships.

1.5 is out now.

Version 1.5
-----------
1. Added ability for any object to be placed at random height
2. Added new section in Globals: Grid Size. Allows grid to be changed for larger
maps
3. Added ability to specify custom music
4. Added ability to specify custom backgrounds
5. Fixed bug where "Select Type" would constantly popup

[Tefeari]

Would you allow the ability to place custom dust clouds, nebula, and asteroids? I'm unsure if this is already implicated, I havn't had much time as of lately.

[DarthVaygr]

I gots you a bug....whenever I add salvage chunk_01, it crashes when loading the map. That's all for now!

EDIT!

Turns out any salvage chunk crashes the map.

ANOTHER EDIT!

How do you make ships neutral?

[scottismo]

Thanks for listening to ideas delphy.....and the rapid updates I have never touched HW2 modding since it came out and never even thought about mapping but the simplicity of this program makes it very easy, im considering whipping up a mod while me and my friend talk so we can play it; its the quick and simple.

When possible....i would definately recommened the undo/redo function though

EDIT: Just thought of another small feature. With teh "objects on the map" section on the left hand side, the ability to select multiple items at once or to CTRL-A them all in order to delete a number of them would be VERY useful. If you accidently add too many things you can quickly delete the ones you dont want. This is especially important with no undo feature!

[Bonnet]

If you keep getting the error message "Componet 'COMDLG32.OCX' or one of its depemdieces is not correctly registered: a file i missing or invalid"

go to http://www.dll-files.com/dllindex/dl...shtml?comdlg32 and follow the instructions in the readme. This is a quick fix because the VB6 runtime package does not come with teh common dialog files.

[Delphy]

Version 1.6
-----------
1. Removed ability to apply position/orientation settings when placing Player
Start positions - now has to be done when editing.
2. Added back cross to denote center of map
3. Fixed zooming in inadvertently when in editing mode
4. Added Hide All labels option, allowing you to hide everything in one go
5. Increased size of the object type dropdown box
6. Added ability to specify custom asteroids, dust clouds, salvage and nebulae
7. Program now automatically picks up the HW2 directory and, if you've gotten all
the data files extracted, also picks up all content from the relevant directories
8. Added ability to select multiple items from the objects list and delete them
9. Added ability to set multiple items from the objects list to a specific player
10. Added ability to edit specific objects just by clicking on thier label in the top map view
11. Zoom now ignores clicking on labels, so you can click anywhere and it'll zoom regardless
12. Speeding up loading times a bit by removing some debug code
13. Massively speeded up all map redrawing operations by removing redundant calls to the label
redraw function
14. Fixed bug with delete item crashing the program
15. Renamed "Map Left View" to "Map Front View" since thats what it really is
16. Fixed vertical axis in Front View being upside down
17. Fixed bug with loaded levels having an extra space after the name
18. Fixed bug with saving level even though cancel was selected on save screen
19. Added ability to set font size for labels
20. Added saving of font size and grid size to registry
21. Added link to Mission Boy SE Website in Help menu

[evillejedi]

wow, impressive improvmements to say the least, heh if you jsut add path point positions and volume centers/radius this would start being extremely useful for single player maps just a thought

[Skeeter]

Hey Delphy

Found a few bugs while testing out 1.6 so here they are.

1. Added about 6 asteroids ‘ru’ done it wrong as in planing the things and so quickly deleted them randomly then when I was on last one I got a crash

Runtime ‘35600’ Index out of bounds

2. Can’t add megaliths at all when I click on the radio button for adding a megalith it crashes.

Runtime 380 error ‘Invalid property value’

3. Can’t save sometimes as in overwrite or create multiple saves with naming abit diff each time to indicate a diff version for editing purposes.

4. Saves are always corrupted as in there’s no level info at the bottom of the. level when read in notepad like background, music, size things like this. Think it can’t save certain things or a certain number of things correctly.

5. Deleted a few rus in a loaded map and then was going to replace them. Had asteroid_4 selected and when I clicked on map it crashed

Runtime error 35602 Key is not unique in collection.

6. Won’t save when pebbles are added and possibly same for clouds.

7. Sometimes when hide all labels is selected and I’m map making and delete a single ru and then choose show asteroids it crashes

Runtime Error 35601 Element not found…

8. Saves are always corrupted with 1.6 version.

Sorry Delphy about being the bringer of bad news with these bugs, but I hope u can fix em. As I’ve not been able to successfully make any map with 1.6 version at all without some bug popping up or the saving issues.

A few suggestions as per usual:

Also can u reintroduce the ru amounts in the description’s, (example: asteroid-3 (9000), please as it makes it easier to identify which are what amounts and mostly what sizes they are in-game. Is it possibly to have an indicator of the direction on player positions on the front view as well, as if a player is high up, I’d like to point it towards the centre perhaps and so an indicator for the orientations would be helpful. If it’s possible u can implement a test of it to see how it goes.

Last but not least can u separate the list of objects on the left with either them being colour co-ordinated or perhaps a space for each group like player positions then a space then asteroids then another space, etc… Or into categories, whichever is easier to implement as it can fill up quickly and become messy with it being all clumped in one after the other without any separations.

Cheers…

[BmB]

Hey thx it now works... n u update this thing so fast i have to dl a new every day, good thing it can be measured in kbs.

and i also noticed evillejedi is on this thread... i would certainly appreciate helping on the warlords thing it works out to be cool, though ur meshes will need some cleaning up their way too laggy when looking at many of them.

also u said that u wouldnt make any hero ships... the Executor will be an error there... as anybody whith basic SW knowlegde know that the Executor was a ship and not a class...

i wouldnt mind too much about making some models for u but texturing arent my strong side... so to not starting an off-topic train i will have to ask u bout making a subtle reply to this... i use 3ds MAX so what export formats could u use what can Maya import? o i would also like some concept art cuz my knowledge bout ships could lie on a plate! (please dont consider me as a very active support my time is limited)


Delphy i appreciate ur program i cant wait to make a few great maps...
(phew i couldnt have typed anymore... but what dont do to please the forum guidelines?)

EDIT: mhh... where am i supposed to save the maps to? and sometimes when i delete a object it comes up whith a Error: "runtime error '36500': index out of bounds" and the zooming function will only work when pressing the button
and then place a invalid startpoint... if i just place a invalid startpoint it errors...

[Delphy]

1. Added about 6 asteroids ‘ru’ done it wrong as in planing the things and so quickly deleted them randomly then when I was on last one I got a crash

Fixed.

2. Can’t add megaliths at all when I click on the radio button for adding a megalith it crashes.

Couldn't replicate - either with the hw2dir key specified or without it. Perhaps you dont have any megaliths or something?

3. Can’t save sometimes as in overwrite or create multiple saves with naming abit diff each time to indicate a diff version for editing purposes.

Absolutely no idea why this isn't working for you - it works perfectly for me.

4. Saves are always corrupted as in there’s no level info at the bottom of the. level when read in notepad like background, music, size things like this. Think it can’t save certain things or a certain number of things correctly.

Saves aren't always corrupted - they work fine *and* the level information gets written.

5. Deleted a few rus in a loaded map and then was going to replace them. Had asteroid_4 selected and when I clicked on map it crashed

Fixed.

6. Won’t save when pebbles are added and possibly same for clouds.

Couldn't replicate - works fine for me.

7. Sometimes when hide all labels is selected and I’m map making and delete a single ru and then choose show asteroids it crashes

Probably related to the delete problems.

8. Saves are always corrupted with 1.6 version.

No they aren't.

Also can u reintroduce the ru amounts in the description’s, (example: asteroid-3 (9000), please as it makes it easier to identify which are what amounts and mostly what sizes they are in-game.

No, since if you have HW2 installed it automatically picks up the objects lists from the data directory and *those* dont have RU values.

Besides, you should know by now that asteroids 3 to 5 are RU ones.

Is it possibly to have an indicator of the direction on player positions on the front view as well, as if a player is high up, I’d like to point it towards the centre perhaps and so an indicator for the orientations would be helpful.

I'll look into it but am not promising anything.

...Or into categories, whichever is easier to implement as it can fill up quickly and become messy with it being all clumped in one after the other without any separations.

In case you hadn't noticed it's *already* sorted by object type.

[Delphy]

To Zoom In, click the + button once and then click on the area of the map where you want to zoom into.

To return back to the overall map view, click the - button once.

Edit: Fixed hide label problem

Version 1.7
-----------
1. Fixed bug where deleting items causes a crash
2. Fixed bug where selecting multiple objects to delete would only delete the last one
3. Fixed bug where deleting multiple objects didn't delete them all
4. Changed deleting objects routine to add a lot more checks
5. Fixed bug where hiding labels after deleting objects causes crash

[starfleet]

For the most part to use in SP missions.. it would only need as the doco says.. :

• A player start point, if this level is using persistent fleet. If not, it will require a Mothership that belongs to Player 0 - For any mission OTHER then the first mission

• Ships for the opposition (any ships that belong to a player other than Player0 or Galaxy). - Can already do that if i'm not wrong
• Place resources on the map. - Definatly can do
• Set the Race ID for any of the players that you have created. - Don't know if Can do.
• Set the Background for the mission. - Can do

1st mission needs to be able to do
• An Hiigaran Mothership that belongs to Player0, and belonsg to a SobGroup called “Player_Mothership” - Don't know
• A Vaygr Carrier that belongs to Player1, and belongs to a SobGroup called “AI1_Carrier” - Don't know
• Set the race for Player0 to Hiigaran, and the race for Player1 to Vaygr. - DOn't know

So to do it short wise:
Ability To Set player Race
Ability to Set Player ID 0
Ability to set ships into SOB groups

Outside that, anything i've missed above

The rest is done in the .lua files.

[starfleet]

Delphy: This is while as you know decomp'd wrong hopefully enough to show what a SP has.

[Skeeter]

Sorted it.

I didnt have the lua files extracted into data folder like ships or asteroids or owt as i didnt usually do that. I didnt relise u HAD to have the data.zip extracted to data folder so all the lua files where there for it. Works great now saving and megaliths work great and i made this map with the current release.

4p_Kurn_MAP

[Delphy]

You dont HAVE to Skeet but it helps. If the program doesn't detect the directory it'll work with a predetermined ship list. I tested this by deleting the various directories and seeing what happened.

I just deleted the entire extracted contents leaving only the BIG files and it still works so I'm stumped as to what your problem is.

MBSE can be run from anywhere on the hdd.

As for camera distances, they are editable you know

Coming soon: SOBGroups, spheres and camerapoints

[DarthVaygr]

Camera points? I don't understand

[Delphy]

They are used only in Single Player maps

[Ride]

Hi Delphy

The link is pointing to ver 1.6. Is 1.7 going to be released soon?

Ride

[DarthVaygr]

Delphy, I got something. I find it really important. When you try to save the player teams for ships, they revert back to 0 *player 1* when you reload it. Really annoying when you try to place many different types of ships on a map that are neutral or belong to another player, and doing it over and over again.

[evillejedi]

it's just a silly thing, but hitting the tab key moves the selection in the wrong direction on the menus (the options one)

I think the issue I was having earlier about not being able to place more objects has to do with the labels, I will occasionally be painting an area with somehting and it will stop putting the objects down. Turning off that object types labels allows me to place things again.

feature request: when the random height is checked, it would be useful for the 'set height to' to be the offset of where the randomiztion occurs (random of 5000 and set heigt to 20000 would place object between 25000 and 15000), this would aide making more asymetrical maps.

[Skeeter]

Bugs

I was altering players 1, 2, 3 rotations and then when i clicked on player 4 it crashes.

and the rotations could be looked at as i had a hard time getting ships in the diagonal corners to point to the center a bit of a hastle as if the pointer on player positions were facing the center of the map, ingame they wern't, they were sideways sorta. Please check this out when u have time.

[Delphy]

Ride, The zip file is 1.6, the updated exe is 1.7

Darth, Fixing that now

Evile, I can fix the tab order. Also, the set height *is* offset... at least according to my code. What it does is calculate a random number between -RandomHeightVariance and +RandomHeightVariance and then add the SetHeight figure to it... so it should work. I'll test it more though.

That labels "problem" is becuase click events are only setup on the picture box and if you click on a label while placing objects it doesn't trigger. I could try and modify this but I think if you have that many labels it's best to turn them off anyway.

Skeet, I havent looked at orientations that much - it's not a high priority for now.

[Tefeari]

One of the things I really was dissapointed I didn't find.

When I selected a object (In this case a nebula) and tried to delete it by pressing the delete button on my keyboard, it did not work. This may not sound like much but it allows for rapid deletion and editing of what is already in a map. Please enable it, it shouldn't be much of a effort right?

[evillejedi]

yeah, it's not a problem to turn the labels off, I think I didn't notice the offset because my random range was greater than the offset, so it didn't look like it was working. the only crashes I've discovered in 1.7 so far have been input out of range errors when I mis typed a position or other entry, not a huge issue because it basically amounts to user error.

[FluxX]

Lol Delphy, I cannot keep up with your uber fast programming... hey, if you worked for MS and windows they'd be on Windows 3000 by now...