## CREATING ASSAULT LEVELS...

# By: Sliencer

# utcity@planetunreal.com

# UT City

FOREWORD:

I am suspecting that you have the geometry and lighting ready, and that you know how to use pathnodes in a level. You must also know how to put tags on objects such as pathnodes.

DIRECTIONS:

    Part I    :  Teams
    Part II   :  Fortstandards
    Part III  :  Defense Points
    Part IV   :  Other

Part I - Teams

The first thing you want to add to your assault level is teams because without them, it's not an assault level, it's a deathmatch. Place playerstarts in two seperate areas, one for the attackers, and one for the defenders. Assign the attacking team's team number to 1 and leave defending team's team number to 0. (If you don't know what this means please read the "How to Create Teams" tutorial on this site.) Good, step 1 done, now you've got your teams. Note: You can add secondary starting points for both teams, please read the "Secondary Playerstarts in Assault Maps" for more information.

Part II - Fortstandards

Fortstandards play a key role in making assault levels. Fortstandards set off events, they tell the computer where to go and defend, they tell the attacking team what to do, and they help in explaining the mission objectives with the AssaultInfo object. The Fortstandard object can be found in the Classes Menu, under Pawn, then under StationaryPawn(See picture below.)
Place the fortstandard(s) in the locations where you want the attacking team to reach in order to complete a certain objective. Starting with the last one you've placed right click on it and go into it properties box. Now under the Collision properties section go down to Collision Height and Collision Radius. This is the area in which the player/bot can either come into contact with it or the area in which a weapons projectile can hit it. For example, if you made a hallway that was 256 in hieght and 256 in width and you wanted the attacking team to reach that hallway. You would put the collision height to about 128 - 256 and the collision radius to 128 - 256. Ok, now if you want your Fortstandard to have an event when it is either activated or destroyed set the Event under the Events attributes to whatever it is that you want the Fortstandard to trigger. For example, if you wanted to make a player/bot activate a button or a switch by running into it, you would create the usual mover and place a fortstandard right in front of it. Then you would set the mover so that it would be TriggerOpenTimed and you would put a tag on it. Then on the Fortstandard you would set the Event under the Events attributes to whatever it was that you set the mover's tag too. You would also have to set the bTriggerOnly attributes under the FortStandard's attributes section to true, meaning that the attacker would run into it and not have to destroy the fortstandard to activate it. Now away from that example and continuing on, go into the Fortstandard properties box and into the Fortstandard attributes area. You'll notice a lot of properties appear. The following explains what most of them do:

##### bFinalFort

##### This is set to True when this is the final objective that must be reached by the attacking team. This is only set to True on one of the Fortstandards in the level.

##### bFlashing

##### When this is set to True, the Fortstandard will flash blue lights on and off showing the attacker where to aim or get too.

##### bSelfDisplayed

##### When this is set to True, the Fortstandard is visible in the level during the game.

##### bTriggerOnly

##### If this is set to False, the fortstandard must be shot. If this is set to True, the fortstandard must be activated in some other way.

##### DefensePriority

##### This is a key property when dealing with more than one fortstandard. The higher the number is the earlier it is defended and attacked. For example, if you have three fortstandards, one at 2, one at 1, and one at 0, you would put the final fortstandard in the level at 0 and the first one at 2 because the attacking team will go after the fortstandard with the highest DefensePriority first and the defense team will gaurd that one first as well. Once that is conquered, the attacking team will go after the one that has a DefensePriority of 1 and the defense team will then defend that one next, and so forth.

##### DefenseTime

##### This is the amount of time given to both teams to attack/defend the level. The final fortstandard is the master fortstandard, this meaning that whatever you set the DefenseTime here is what it will be in the game. The default setting is 10 minutes.

##### DestroyedMessage

##### This is the message displayed during the game following the FortName after the attacking team completes it. For example. if you had a FortName of "The Gate" and a DestroyedMessage of "has been opened!", when that fortstandard has been completed, the message displayed to all players will say "The Gate has been opened!".

##### EndCamTag

##### This is related to final scenes or views after the assault level is beaten. It takes all the players/bots to the final cam view (which is a spectator cam object.) at the end of the mission. This property is set to the tag of the final SpectatorCam object tag assigned to it. (Since this could take forever explaining go to the "Creating 'Movie Scenes' in Assault Maps" tutorial located on this site.

##### FallBackFort

##### This property is assigned to the FortName property you put in you Defense Points. For example, an attacking team reaches the fortstandard and it has a FallBackFort tagged "F3", the defending bots will then go back to all the DefensePoints with the FortName tag in their Properties box set to "F3". Normally the defense points are placed at the next fortstandard where they should be guarding.

##### FortName

##### This is the name of the FortStandard that the defending team is currently defending. When you die while on the defending team, you see that under Orders or something it says, "Defending ______". For example "Defending The Gate". This shows you what your team is currently defending. It also relates with the DestroyedMessage property. (Read what that does to see what I mean.)

##### NearestPathNode

##### This is the tag of the pathnode that is nearest to the current fortstandard. You must tag the nearest pathnode first.

Below is an example of a fortstandard with assigned properties.

Part III - Defense Points

Defense points are used for the defending team to wait and stand for an attacking team to come and then hold that specified area as they defend. Defense points are where you can put stragtegic points for the defense team to guard. Near every fortstandard there should be at least one defense point. Also you must assign the FortTag property something unique. This way, when attackers breach an earlier fortstandard, the defending team will go the the defense points that the Fortstandard tells it too by using the FallBackFort property which is related to the FortTag. For example, you have two defense points with the FortTag property set to "zoo". The attackers then breach an earlier fortstandard that has the FallBackFort property set to "zoo". The bots will then fall back to all the defense points with the FortTag labeled "zoo". Now of course you don't have to label it zoo because I just picked that out of the blue. Every fortstandard has a FallBackFort property even though you don't have to put a FallBackFort tag. I reccomend that you place the defense points near the fortstandard that you have to defend because that's really dumb if you have defense points on the other side of the base that bots are going to defend when the fortstandard is on the other side. Ok, I think you get the picture. Any further questions email UT CITY.

Part IV - Other

There are a lot of little things that make up a good assault level. One thing that helps humans to understand where to go to complete the objectives is the AssaultInfo object. You may have noticed that in the beginning of every assault game it says "Press F3 for Objectives" or something like that. This is really, really helpful to humans when playing your map because the objectives may sometimes not be too clear. You can find the AssaultInfo object which allows you to place descriptions and screenshots of each objective in the Classes area, and under Info. You'll see a thing called AssaultInfo. Select it and place it anywhere within your level. Now right-click on it and go into its properties. Then go into the AssaultInfo attributes section. Now count up how many objectives there are in your assault level and write that number in the NumObjShots property. (I believe the maximum is 8.). Now go into the ObjDesc attribute section and expand it. You'll notice a set of numbers with brackets around them from 0 to 7. Put a description of how to reach and complete your first objective in the property area tagged "[0]". Then continue on to [1] with another description of the next objective, and so forth until you've provided descriptions of every objective in your level. Now go into the ObjShots and you'll notice again the numbers 0 - 7 with brackets around them. Here is where you place screenshots of where the objectives are located. To make the screenshots for each objective, do exactly what you did in making the main screenshot for your level but this time name every objective image Obj1, Obj2, Obj3, and so on. Placve them in the MyLevel texture package and click on use for each one. The number [0] corresponds with the first objective, the number [1] corresponds with the second objective, and so forth. (For more information on how to make objective screenshots and how to do what I just said go to the "Adding Screenshots to your Level" tutorial on this site.) Below is an example of an AssaultInfo object with properties. (Note: Not all of the objective screenshots are there because the map I was working on wasn't finsihed and therefore didn't have screenshots.)

If you've somehow understood what I've said then good, otherwise email me and I'll answer any questions of yours that I can. Another thing besides this tutorial that can help you is to look at some of Epic's assault maps in UnrealED and see how they constructed their's.

CONCLUSION:

You should now know the basics of creating an assault level using UnrealED.

OTHER:

Questions/Comments email utcity@planetunreal.com.

-=[ Copyright / Permissions ]=-

This tutorial is copyright (c) 1999 Matt Murphy.
This tutorial is not supported by Legend Entertainment or Epic Games.