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new sandbox user - lots of questions, please help.

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haywiresystem
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new sandbox user - lots of questions, please help.

Post by haywiresystem »

I can't tell you how excited I was to find this. I've been thinking of developing a game, which is not your typical shooter but more a puzzle/maze rpg kind of game with a cyberpunk theme influenced by I suppose things like tron or the matrix. A computerized world, where players can explore the digital world they find themselves in, go on quests, find objects, and so on. Not being that great a coder, (I'm more of a digital musician/graphic artist) I knew I needed some kind of help. This is very close to what I'd imagined I'd need, so I was so excited to find it and begin learning it.

That being said, it has many limitations for my chosen theme or style. In the digital world I imagined, there would not be grass, trees, or normal looking objects, everything should
appear cold and digital and synthetic, like a tree wouldn't look like a tree but a crystaline light structure,kind of like what you imagine when reading william gibsons neuromancer and some of his ideas on digital worlds. Things would be made of light and electrons and flowing lines. So my first and most important question is... 1) How can I import more objects available for use in the editor? I saw in the faq you can import blender objects, does someone have a more thourough tutorial on that? Are there sights I can find blender 3d objects that I can just modify or tweak and then import into the editor of sandbox?

2) How can I turn off the default music? When I first started editing I thought... Well this music is not bad, but after 3 days of 18 hour days working with it, the music is graining on me. I would like to define the music played by the area of the world the player is in. For exampler, at player start, gamesong.wav plays. If you enter "the badlands" area of the game, badlands.wav plays. Going down a tunnel? tunnel.wav plays. I know there must be a way to do this but I can't find anything on this subject.

3) How can I import new textures?

4) How can I change the default player avatar? Are there any resources for other player avatars I can check out?

5) how can I important my own sound fx?

6) When I try to save my map, it only lets me save to untitled, when I try to enter text under the save as box, still saves as untitled, somehow this later changed to fps/untitled but still won't let me change the name?

7) Can you link multiple game maps? I'm starting with the biggest map, but it would be nice if someone entered a structure, to be able to build the interior of that structure with a new map, or if someone entered a portal, they could end up in a smaller map which is another "realm" of the digital world or something.

8) I would like to add some light based weapons, like lasers, how can I do this, and whats the key to fire the default "water gun"?

9) Can I add additional skyboxes, cloudboxes and cloud formations?

10) Is there anyway you can add cinematics? For example, if someone steps on a certain area, the system dumps out and plays playvideo.mpg, then returns to the game?

11) Are there websites with more detailed docs or instructions or tutorials?

12) Can I modify the physics of game movement in any way, for example, to get from one end of my big map to the other takes 10 minutes. Is there a key combination to double
speed or triple speed of movement? For now I just set up teleporters and teleport dests on each end. That works for now I suppose.

Very happy to find this, but very frustrating trying to make it do what I need. For now I will just keep building and learning. I would be happy to contribute to the project, or put up
a website with additional resources I find useful in my building. I would sincerely appreciate anyones help, and would be happy to share textures, skyboxes, 3d objects and more as
I continue my quest here to keep building. I think a website with additional resources would be very helpful for this. Thanks in advance for anyones help...

Best regards,

HAYWIRESYSTEM
haywiresystem
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Re: new sandbox user - lots of questions, please help.

Post by haywiresystem »

I forgot, one other thing, I see something about a minimap but can't see how to access it. My map is very large, and a mini map would be very useful to me so I can see where I am on
the map... Big map gets confusing fast...?
chocolatepie33
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Re: new sandbox user - lots of questions, please help.

Post by chocolatepie33 »

haywiresystem wrote: 1) How can I import more objects available for use in the editor? I saw in the faq you can import blender objects, does someone have a more thourough tutorial on that? Are there sights I can find blender 3d objects that I can just modify or tweak and then import into the editor of sandbox?
It's a complicated process, you can import blender objects (these are known as mapmodels), but they must be in a certain format (specifically obj, md2, md3, md5, smd or iqm) and they need to have the proper settings and configuration file set up. You can find many blender models online, I'd start by looking at this blog post and going from there. As for a tutorial, I honestly doubt that there's anything that's up-to-date and relevant enough to Sandbox (or the Cube 2 engine in general) that would work for you.
haywiresystem wrote:2) How can I turn off the default music? When I first started editing I thought... Well this music is not bad, but after 3 days of 18 hour days working with it, the music is graining on me. I would like to define the music played by the area of the world the player is in. For exampler, at player start, gamesong.wav plays. If you enter "the badlands" area of the game, badlands.wav plays. Going down a tunnel? tunnel.wav plays. I know there must be a way to do this but I can't find anything on this subject.
We used to have a jukebox setting for editing music, not so sure what happened to that. As for the music playing, I'm not so sure - you could have each section separated into a different map, and then the music will play when you change maps. However, for individual areas on a map... I guess you could once have used a series of triggers (empty mapmodels which act as signal points) to define an area that would start playing the music if you walked into it.
haywiresystem wrote:3) How can I import new textures?
Take a look at this.
haywiresystem wrote:4) How can I change the default player avatar? Are there any resources for other player avatars I can check out?
If you mean the playermodel, then that's a source code trick which none of us here (save Hirato, likely) actually know how to do completely and properly and can fully explain it. If you want to try, you can look at the wiki page about it.
haywiresystem wrote: 6) When I try to save my map, it only lets me save to untitled, when I try to enter text under the save as box, still saves as untitled, somehow this later changed to fps/untitled but still won't let me change the name?
I'd check out your administrator privileges stuff, it might be that Sandbox isn't being allowed to save in an area restricted by an admin. Otherwise, I need more info.
haywiresystem wrote: 7) Can you link multiple game maps? I'm starting with the biggest map, but it would be nice if someone entered a structure, to be able to build the interior of that structure with a new map, or if someone entered a portal, they could end up in a smaller map which is another "realm" of the digital world or something.
Yes. This is possible in RPG mode.
haywiresystem wrote:8) I would like to add some light based weapons, like lasers, how can I do this, and whats the key to fire the default "water gun"?
In FPS mode (or watergunwars), you just need to click your left mouse button to fire any weapon. To change a weapon, however, you would need to change either the model files or go into the source code to change everything about the weapons.
haywiresystem wrote:9) Can I add additional skyboxes, cloudboxes and cloud formations?
Yes. I'm not sure on how it would work with 2.8+, but I'd try adding stuff into /packages (and the relevant folders) and see how that works out. I think I have custom skyboxes in my version of 2.8, by dumping all skyboxes into the /packages/skybox folder, although it seems to have messed up the cloudboxes.
haywiresystem wrote:10) Is there anyway you can add cinematics? For example, if someone steps on a certain area, the system dumps out and plays playvideo.mpg, then returns to the game?
If you mean cutscenes, then yes, Hirato has been working on a cutscene system for RPG mode for at least a couple of versions by now. There should be a wiki page about it.
haywiresystem wrote:11) Are there websites with more detailed docs or instructions or tutorials?
yes. I'd look up "Cube 2 engine" in google and go from there, seeing as I don't yet have the time to give you a full list.
haywiresystem wrote:Can I modify the physics of game movement in any way, for example, to get from one end of my big map to the other takes 10 minutes. Is there a key combination to double
speed or triple speed of movement? For now I just set up teleporters and teleport dests on each end. That works for now I suppose.
What you're asking for is movespeed. Use /movespeed ### (100 is default) in the console (hit ` (above the tab button) and type in the command) and that should change it. Additionally, there's floatspeed, which is used in edit mode. Use /floatspeed ### or the - and = buttons to change it.
haywiresystem wrote:I see something about a minimap but can't see how to access it. My map is very large, and a mini map would be very useful to me so I can see where I am on
the map... Big map gets confusing fast...?
Minimap only appears in RPG mode.
Julius wrote:Contribute to http://www.opengameart.org NOW!
Save the wiki!
Ghostman Gaming
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Re: new sandbox user - lots of questions, please help.

Post by Ghostman Gaming »

How can I change the default player avatar? Are there any resources for other player avatars I can check out?
That's easy if you are using RPG go here in your platinum arts folder: FILE: [ data/rpg/games/default ] then open the player.CFG file it looks like this

Code: Select all

r_char_mdl "uh/chars/man"
r_char_script 7
r_char_faction 0
r_char_base_points 20
simply replace r_char_mdl with your desired playermodel.

In FPS mode just push 0.
haywiresystem
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Re: new sandbox user - lots of questions, please help.

Post by haywiresystem »

Thanks now I can change the avatar... But about the gun... If I make new map, pushing the left mouse button does nothing...
Nothing shoots, nothing happens... Left mouse button, and tried every key on the keyboard just to be sure, nothing shoots...

I don't understand a fps where no weapons work, very frustrating...

If I could figure out the weapons and avatar, the rest seems to be working out. I've become much better with the world editor in just a few days...

I have to figure out how to import blender entities, but I did figure out textures...

Any help on the shooting, and next up with be getting "bad guys" to attack... But for now, I'm more concerned with building a very insane looking digitally inspired world.

Thanks for everyone's help so far, this thing is awesome and addicting...
haywiresystem
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Name: Stephen

Re: new sandbox user - lots of questions, please help.

Post by haywiresystem »

I tried 0 and its while I am in fps mode its stuck on an elf looking guy. When I started editing this map, it was the superhero looking big guy with a cape...

Maybe the weapon problem is the avatar has no weapons? The big guy with the cape did have a watergun looking thing I think, how can I get back to him and try the left mouse
button? This is very frustrating, I think I found the cycle through avatar before and ended up on the elf guy, I get rid of that perspective with the 9 key usually so I didn't realize it
was still on the elf guy, and apparently still stuck on him and I can't change it... 0 key does nothing...
Hirato
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Re: new sandbox user - lots of questions, please help.

Post by Hirato »

your binds sound broken.
I want you to press T or ~, and then enter the following command, followed by enter itself.

Code: Select all

/setdefaults
This is not a url, clicking it is pointless
haywiresystem
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Name: Stephen

Re: new sandbox user - lots of questions, please help.

Post by haywiresystem »

Does not seem to do anything,

Do you mean :

CODE :SELECT ALL [ENTER]

T or ~ again

/setdefaults [ENTER]

or

/CODE : SELECT ALL /setdefaults [ENTER]

Tried both, character does not seem to change...?
Oh please, I don't want to start over again, I've been building this map for 2 weeks!

Anything that can fix this?
haywiresystem
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Re: new sandbox user - lots of questions, please help.

Post by haywiresystem »

Also, where are the mp3's or .wav files for the default new fps map located in the file tree?

If I can just replace those files, with my own, that will work for now.
Please help!
haywiresystem
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Re: new sandbox user - lots of questions, please help.

Post by haywiresystem »

Never mind found them, but my cooledit won't do .ogg files... Thats kinda funny... 10 tracks is fine I will just rename my own music tracks these names, converted from .mp3 or .wav to .ogg... But how to add more to the game?

For now 10 tracks are good while I'm building, will keep me thinking and working if the digital dreamlands music is there while I'm working... and I will pick 10 or more tracks which
fit anywhere in the game I hope...

But I'd still like to learn how to trigger songs in each major area of my build or game...

Hope thats possible, but for now renaming my own preferred audio tracks should work...
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