What is the minimum required entities to run a map into the game and be able to run around in it?

catcat Join Date: 2009-06-01 Member: 67627Members
What is the minimum required entities to run a map into the game and be able to run around in it? I tried using only a readyroom player and some lights but the game loaded into a black screen with mouse pointer.

Comments

  • HowserHowser UK Join Date: 2010-02-08 Member: 70488Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
    edited January 2014
    ready room start... is the minimal to check it out :D but you'll get console error spam... so to avoid that you need
    two tech points in two seperate locations.
    NS2_gamerules
    Ready room start's
    Two tech points in seperate locations

    To get it full functional for gameplay testing you'll need:

    commander camera - placed off a floor though its actually best to have one for each room if there's height variation
    9-10 Resource nodes
    4-5 tech points
    A powernode in every location
    a SQUARE minimap extents

    Off the top of my head that's your lot
    check mendasps one click map test to get your overviews to work.
    To call up your map ingame the quickest way is to bring down the developer console by press the ` key (left of '1' on the top of your keyboard) and type: map ns2_my_maps_name.
    I think that's all you need....
  • Rudy.czRudy.cz Join Date: 2012-02-13 Member: 145410Members
    Also the Mapping guides contains link to handy FAQ
  • catcat Join Date: 2009-06-01 Member: 67627Members
    I have placed a ready room start, 2 tech points and a ns_gamerules. But the console displays script errors about no tech points for team 1 and the errors keep counting up. I assume the map wont load and the script errors will count to infinity?

    Also what do you mean by different locations?
    I just need the absolute minimum setup to load a map and walk around in it.
  • HowserHowser UK Join Date: 2010-02-08 Member: 70488Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
    Drop a location entity, use the scale tool to encompass the entire 'room' (in all axis's) give it a name (press enter!). Make sure you have a separate location with a unique name for each tech point. You can use multiple ents with the same name to cover your rooms. Each Room (whether its made up of multiple Locations or not) Needs to have a power node. And make sure there is no space on the map that is not within a location or marine structures will not function
  • catcat Join Date: 2009-06-01 Member: 67627Members
    Ok I followed the advice and so far the map looks like this:

    2 large location boxes, each with a different name, not overlapping. Within that there is a tech point and a power node thingy each.
    The only ready room start and the game rules entity are in a neutral area, i.e. not cover by location.
    However the error still persists. "Could not find tech point for team" keeps looping in console


    Is there a sample map that has that minimum needed to successfully load? The FAQ contains a large sample map showing many entities but I cant tell what is the least needed.
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
  • catcat Join Date: 2009-06-01 Member: 67627Members
    Thanks for the link. I followed it but still the map does not load and the console is showing a lot of errors, one of them being "tech_point out of bounds".

    In any case I attached the map file in case someone wants to take a look at it.
    Did I overlook something obvious?
  • BeigeAlertBeigeAlert Texas Join Date: 2013-08-08 Member: 186657Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Diamond, Reinforced - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Pistachionauts
    cat wrote: »
    Thanks for the link. I followed it but still the map does not load and the console is showing a lot of errors, one of them being "tech_point out of bounds".

    In any case I attached the map file in case someone wants to take a look at it.
    Did I overlook something obvious?

    You forgot the minimap_extents didn't you?

    Create a giant SQUARE!!!!!! ( x and z are the same size, y doesn't matter) minimap_extents entity for the whole map.
  • Soul_RiderSoul_Rider Mod Bean Join Date: 2004-06-19 Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
    OK, the techpoint showing no techpoint for team...

    DId you assign the techpoints teams? Normally when this occurs people have placed techpoints and left it on default team, not changed one to the other team..

    Otherwise, if it is set ok, you need to check the minimap extents, although that should error, but not stop the game loading.
  • catcat Join Date: 2009-06-01 Member: 67627Members
    edited January 2014
    I have changed the tech point for one team each, but still the same. I added 2 screenshots showing the console errors. The second one basically keeps repeating to infinity.

    Also is the minimap a cause for tech point errors? Seems a bit weird that you would need so much stuff existing just to prototype a single room.


    EDIT:
    I spotted something odd, the console reports 2 duplicate locations, which are however named with different names. Also could the amount of space around a tech point cause it to fail?
  • dragonmithdragonmith Join Date: 2013-02-04 Member: 182817Members, Reinforced - Diamond
    I've had this on my watch later list for some time:

    Thanks youtube, we still love you!

    Not sure if it will help at all however, its very basic.
  • catcat Join Date: 2009-06-01 Member: 67627Members
    Would someone mind taking a look at my map (attachment a few posts up)? I went through the guides and still I cant find what is broken
  • FlaterectomyFlaterectomy Netherlandistan Join Date: 2005-02-03 Member: 39643Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    @cat

    I had a look at your map, but couldn't figure it out. Errors included that it couldn't find the entities that were in the level file, which left me a little puzzled as they were there.

    I tried adding a minimap-extents around the map, deleting the geometry and rebuilding it (you had some weird errant lines going on, as if this one box was extruded multiple times from smaller boxes?), scaling the geometry up (looked like there might've been too little space for a hive to spawn on the techpoint), and moving everything closer to the world origin.

    I then rebuilt your testmap from the ground up and as simple as possible and got it to work just fine. It shows an error because it is missing a minimap-extents, but I wanted to keep it similar to yours. The main difference with yours is that the box is a bit bigger, but like I said above, that didn't seem to matter in your level file.
  • catcat Join Date: 2009-06-01 Member: 67627Members
    Perhaps the hive model is far too large to fit in the small room I made. I accounted for the marine com chair to fit into the room but forgot hives are much larger. Thanks for helping out!
  • FlaterectomyFlaterectomy Netherlandistan Join Date: 2005-02-03 Member: 39643Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    I tried making the surrounding geometry larger in your map to account for that, but it made no difference.
  • catcat Join Date: 2009-06-01 Member: 67627Members
    edited January 2014
    Yes just resized my map and it had no effect (my file). Going to make one from scratch and see if this problem appears again.
    I tried adding a minimap-extents around the map, deleting the geometry and rebuilding it (you had some weird errant lines going on, as if this one box was extruded multiple times from smaller boxes?),

    Is that a bad thing? I saw in a tutorial that it is a good way to start with a plane, extrude downwards then take it from there. Is there a cleaner or better way to do it? I mean the extra lines do not really matter much as far as a few polygons go?
    Also, does the engine mind "leaks"?
  • InsaneInsane Anomaly Join Date: 2002-05-13 Member: 605Members, Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts, Future Perfect Developer
    Extruding is a perfectly reasonable way to start your greybox, so don't worry about that. As time goes on you are probably going to want to separate pieces of geometry out, so that you can double-click select them without selecting the entire level. Plus if you extrude everything, you are likely to create fair few redundant faces. This is more of a problem with the level file being "messy" and difficult for you to edit than it is for the relatively few extra polygons that will get created.

    The engine doesn't mind leaks. You are still going to want to plug holes in your level though, for reasons like preventing players from getting outside the level and exploiting. The editor has a hole checker tool to help you find these.

  • catcat Join Date: 2009-06-01 Member: 67627Members
    Could the error be related to the map file itself? is there anything else you have to do except copy the map into the game map folder and run it via console?
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