Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => The Babylon Project => Topic started by: cloneof on October 25, 2008, 03:38:12 pm
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Hi and sorry for the title, I looked like an idiot, I know.
First I would thank the creators of TBP greatly for making TBO, you can`t tell how many hours I have tried to beat all of the campaigns (in which Dark Children is lucky to be bastardly hard and thus yeat un-defeated), but then I stopped and realized, that was it, there is not going to be next Soul Hunters, Earth-Brakiri War 2 or Earth Civil War for some time and in all truth, I had ideas.
So I started the TBP FRED and started placing ships for my idea of a first mission of a campaign, however, it would seem that I find it difficult to understand concept such as "SEXP" "coding" wich pretty much runs the mission and gives it it`s magic. I tried to make my way trough the Karajorma`s tutorial within the game folder wich didn`t help too much and FRED forum section mostly suggested to look into other missions to realize this, however, I don`t own or have the hardrive for Freespace 2 and I any day prefer TBP over Freespace 2.
So now i`m a little stuck, could someone please at least give me, I low little newcomer to the great world of FRED, at least some guidlines what I`am supposed to do. Within my knowledge of people in this subsection, I know that you will help me into a contributing member of the great TBP society.
Thank you for lissening my plea for help, Cloneof.
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http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Retail_SEXPs
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/SCP_SEXPs
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Thank you, I truly appreciate your guidance and help in my problem.
I hope I can make it up to you someday :).
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we always welcome new fredders among the community ;7
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It is prounouced SEX-Pee.
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So I started the TBP FRED and started placing ships for my idea of a first mission of a campaign, however, it would seem that I find it difficult to understand concept such as "SEXP" "coding" wich pretty much runs the mission and gives it it`s magic. I tried to make my way trough the Karajorma`s tutorial within the game folder wich didn`t help too much and FRED forum section mostly suggested to look into other missions to realize this, however, I don`t own or have the hardrive for Freespace 2 and I any day prefer TBP over Freespace 2.
My tutorial? I'm not aware of having written one for TBP. :D
The tutorial you want is actually the second one available from the help page, the one by Lady Rose. I've not tried it personally but it looked pretty good. The FS2 documentation is there to read after you've done that one as it explains a lot of stuff that the TBP one doesn't. You can read and understand most of the FS2 stuff even without a copy of FS2 once you've grasped the basics.
The same can be said for my FAQ. There is a lot of info there but I've assumed a basic understanding of what SEXPs are.
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Thanks, I hope that someday I hope to grasp this thing and become the ultimat Pòkemon ma... a guy who is good enough to make people emmjoy his campaigns.
Thanks for all the support, you are all good people, you know :nod:.
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Its not sex pee. It's sex-puh. As in s-ex-puh-ression.
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So good they wrote a song about it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP_2qjzj73Y). :p
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Sex pee? I'll google that over the weekend, my work (i) won't want that showing on my work comp search history.
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The youtube link is work safe. As long as your boss doesn't have a irrational hatred of 80's dance music. :D
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Youtubes banned, facebooks banned, the only worthwhile site allowed is the one i'm posting on now. :nod:
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I followed the links, but I think they still miss something like a sympathetic word to the beginner.
Here it is :
It is quite easy to make own missions :)
This is how a sexp works :
Example :
(-) The attack begins !!!
(+) When
(+) send message
(+) warp effect
(+) clear goals
(+) add goal
when you open a sexp, you have 2 or more entries
The first ( and only the first is the CONDITION ). Here , it is a WHEN condition. When the condition has been fulfilled, the other entries come into effect.
This sexp for example seems to incite some chatter, opens a jump vortex somewhere and changes the behavior of certain AI craft(s).
NOTE :
Another important thing about SEXPS is : the order of the entries matter !
This is especially important with cutscenes ( where you have to set camera positions BEFORE you set camera direction ) or with orders ( you have to clear previous orders BEFORE giving new ones, otherwise the vessel doesn't do anything )
Another important thing is that you can CHAIN sexps.
That means, the computer doesn't even look at a sexp before the one right above it in the list is fulfilled.
I just thought we may write a new tutorial with better introduction for complete newbies.
We explain the basics, and provide along some TBP-specific know-how
Like : How to create cutscenes, hyperspac vortexes, how to incite distant battle effects ( hehehe ), and so on....
This wouldn't distract me from EACW much, would others here like to habe something like that or like to contribute ?
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Thanks Skullar, that helped much and yeah, having you find the time to make a new tutorial with other pros would be awesome if you ask me.
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Its not sex pee. It's sex-puh. As in s-ex-puh-ression.
Well. I pronounce it SEX-Pee.
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Its not sex pee. It's sex-puh. As in s-ex-puh-ression.
Well. I pronounce it SEX-Pee.
Even the help from (unknown) says "and no, it's not what your thinking" or similar.
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The :v: tutorial and FRED Help says it's Sex Pee, and tells you to stop snickering.
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Gah! It's canon now, :eek2: i'll have to rethink my entire fredding life up until this point.....
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I have spend the weekend at the first mission what is supposed to be the first mission for my campaign. Althoguht the dialogue is still in works, I seem to have some problems with events, with msg timing :/.
Take a look and laugh
http://rapidshare.com/files/159931634/Riku_s_mission.zip.html
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Message timing is fairly difficult. You you can do it either using send-message-list or by chaining events containing single send-message sexps. Either way it's a case of tweaking the numbers for hours on end until they feel right. It helps if you have voice acting or computer generated speech to get a feel for how long each line takes.
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The art of timing messages.....
1. First of all, you need to rund FS2_open AND Fred simultaneously. It speeds up things pretty well.
Check your fs2 launcher for the "run in window" checkbox, in the feature list. I think its is listed under DEV TOOLS or something like that. Change in fred, save, goto FS2 and just restart mission , and you can instantly check out the changes you made.
2. Messages come either as "SEND MESSAGE" or as "SEND MESSAGE LIST"
If you are not afraid of loosing overview it's more convenient to use SEND MESSAGE sexp, chained. Use the MESSAGE LIST only for small portions. It's faster to copy/paste the SEND MESSAGE sexp and to make the small changes, and you are more flexible if you want to add/remove messages inbetween.
3. Voice Synthesis has a drawback. As IPAndrews told you, you DO get an impression of how much time your chatter takes, but it is only an impression. I found my actors being faster than SAM.
4. Especially when you use cutscenes you will want to be very precise with timing. Cutscenes are a very able method to improve gameplay.
First of all, the cutscene itself is a small highlight on its own.
Second, ever since cutscenes use exactly predefined camera positions and angles, you can use a cutscene to change the mission setup. For example, you can use cutscenes to mask the use of the COORD MANIPULATION SEXPs. Instead of letting the player fly all the way to the next point of interest ( lots of km ) you can just change the positions with a sexp. When done with a cutscene, you'd get a wing commander-like autopilot cutscene or something similar, and it really helps keeping the gameplay fluent.