Allow prefabs to be used in entities ( for custom weapons, vehicles etc )

Game Mods
32

as long it comes, it doesn’t matter how.

the editor should be made relatively easier for everybody.

so we can have more mods out there, and have higer quality.

to not end up having just compentitions, and half baked mods out there.

( ironic coming from someone who uses other codes, and has literally 2 hangar mods which are the same and one broken mod )

but, for the next month i have big plans.

it’s just that… my time is shrinked and the editor is not really intuitive or easy to work with if it wasn’t for people like you and devenndar taking the time to explain.

so essentially, you can’t add more than one rendinst?

correct?

33

Just add it to this array

"attach_decorators__templates:array"{

    "templates:object"{
      relativeTm:m=[[1.0, 0.0, 0.0] [0.0, 1.0, 0.0] [0.0, 0.0, 1.0] [0.0, 0.0, 0.0]]
      template:t="train_smoke_effect"
      nodeName:t="emtr_exhaust_01"
    }

    "templates:object"{
      relativeTm:m=[[1.0, 0.0, 0.0] [0.0, 1.0, 0.0] [0.0, 0.0, 1.0] [0.0, 0.0, 0.0]]
      template:t="train_smoke_effect"
      nodeName:t="emtr_exhaust_01"
    }

    "templates:object"{
      relativeTm:m=[[1.0, 0.0, 0.0] [0.0, 1.0, 0.0] [0.0, 0.0, 1.0] [0.0, 0.0, 0.0]]
      template:t="train_smoke_effect"
      nodeName:t="emtr_exhaust_01"
    }
  }

It doesn’t have to be rendisnt, you can add effects or flames or a capzone or bombsite

I’m not sure if there are other issues, this will need to be tested on your own.

Its default value is aneffect

34

well, i’m surprised and sort of glad that we have somewhat of a working way to attach things to normal vehicles,

but…

not to sound stubborn, but i still think we should get some sort of prefab for rendinsts to integrate with entities. ( whenever possible of course )

because… yeah it’s not gonna be much fun for me or anyone else to have to do trial and error 567467343276times just to get a position correct.

would be simpler to build first, create a template, and then use it in entities ( to end up having to adjust only one position instead of all ).

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35

This isn’t prefab (which is just collection of saved entities with their values), it’s a template (a prototype, because templates should have different names, not just Prefab) with seemingly composite object functionality intended. This way it may be coded to spawn listed entities, or check and control them in some way. Will need Triggers system or scripts to be useful, anyway. But it will be template, not something else.

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36

well, can’t we have… some sort of feature that does what prefab sort of do but for templates?

because i feel like it would be much easier and helpful for us instead of having to place each and singular rendinst through decorators that have different axes too.

so that, in order for us to move it, we would only have to move one decorator instead of each and single one of them. and it gets complicated to go one by one for larger things…

not sure if i’m making my self clear.

1 Like
37

Triggers system planned has trigger_spawner template (in plans, not for real) which does exactly this: spawns listed objects in specified area with given properties values. Also editor will need “Bake entities as spawner” and “Spawn entities from spawner” functionality to ease work with trigger_spawner entities.

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38

ugh… examples?

so a simpleton like me can understand, and make use of such things ( when will actually be implemented ) instead of bothering folks like you or other fine people.

because, as far as i know, triggers are usually prompted based on X ( or Y ) happens with Z is / has initialied / triggered.

sort of, a chain reaction so to speak.

correct?

so, for example,

a large explosions with effect and damage template happens because ( for example ) the rendinst underteath that it’s a fuel tank exploded.

right? ( as long i or anyone code it in a way that happens. through triggers or some sort )

then, how would i end up using triggers for decoration purposes

i don’t get the… logic behind.

1 Like
39

It’s easy, trigger_spawner will react to specified trigger signal and spawn listed objects in its area. As signal source you will be able to use trigger_start, for example, which sends trigger signal at mission start. So at start of your mission trigger_start entity will send trigger signal ID to every other trigger entity which accepts them and in this case it will be trigger_spawner entity with same signal ID.

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40

As for example, you can create anything like a prefab or just bunch of entities. Then select them. Then press “Make trigger spawner” button and you will get trigger_spawner entity with all those entities encoded in its values. Then you may delete original entities and leave spawner only, connecting it to some trigger event (by trigger signal ID), like mission start.

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41

but, don’t IDs always change?

and hence, difficult to assign for example, an item / node ID onto another if they always change? ( when restarting )

42

It’s not those eids, it will be (when implemented) a special new trigger signal IDs, just integer numbers (1, 2, 3, 100500) you assign as you like by typing them into values of entities.

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43

ah.

i see.

well, as long they keep the position, and perhaps follow others IDs as long attached to it, does sound straight forward enough. :+1:

although, i wonder if triggers will remain even if the rendinst is technically destroyed, or has been removed.

1 Like
44

All of this wasn’t about attachments, but about spawning entities. After spawned they live their life independently, not moving together. Attachments require computation power from server to recalculate child objects position based on each parent movement. Until you create them with some +attach_it_to_that template it will not work. To make it possible we can add Attach/Detach functionality to the editor, but in real it will just add/remove that +attach_it_to_that template with automatic linking with some automatic fixed attachment IDs (not trigger IDs).

Claim Triggers and Attach/Detach game/editor functionality. Personally I wrote them down, but the rest depends on you.

2 Likes
45

that… only brings more questions than answers i’m afraid…

see, it’s… kinda the issue that i have about not having guides for that.

sure, i can look all day the templates and what not.
but i’m not sure i’ll understand anything from just pasting and coding.

any… upcoming guides about entities and what not ?

any… time soon?

i love the editor, and it has becomed somewhat a hobby of mine, but despite trying my best, ( which from what i see, i’m not the only one ) it always end up achiving very little because the tools are there ( sort of ) but are either counter intuitive or, there is simply no exaplanations given.

that’s… my biggest gripe.

guess i’ll have to manage as usuall wandering around.

as for the time being… thanks i guess.

i won’t keep you any further than necessary.

46

You didn’t get the idea. We (developers) can add Attach/Detach feature to the editor and you will be happy using that. That’s it. Nothing complicated. Isn’t it what you need? … But under the hood (just for you to know, nothing to do by hands here) it will add +attached template to your attached entities (and we as developers even can hide this template from you in editor in Designer mode to don’t bother you knowing how it works).

Also we can add Triggers set of templates (to create entities from them) to support dynamic events in missions, with spawners as part of that, so you can make spawner from you prefab (with special easy button) and command it to spawn what you need whenever you want (maybe at mission start). That’s it. Also not complicated.

So what questions?

5 Likes
47

alright.

sorry for the late answer but i just went back home and made some fast dinner.

well, since you offered to help, i won’t turn it down.

right, so, the few questions that i had ( primarily rising from issues )

were,

why aren’t there many documentations about the editor?

as much i understand the vagueness that would somewhat imply, and the implications,

i would like to know why not many has been made so far.
as much i like interact and discovering things with people ( such as the talented Tommy, Devenddar, schyrikami , Bazsi37 and few others ) unfortunately ( or luckely for me ) i pretty much found out many things by my own, or thanks to others. but never officially.

for example, just fairly recently i found out that i had to proportionate the ammount of objective that i had into the score team in order to make defenders lose when they lost all objectives. otherwise i ended up having the issue that the match would not end.

something that was not specified in the guide.

and let me get it clear, i’m not opposed to interations.

but… this leads to several problems highlited with it.

despite the few guides ( which, unfortunately, i must say, are slighlty outdated and not very inclusive on many aspects. even basic ones ) the editor is not really user friendly.

even with people that wanted to try it out ended up abandong it entirely as it can be somewhat overwhelming and generally lacking in informations regarding tools and what not.

and i feel like it’s a shame, because i feel like enlisted is a great game, and through mods it can achieve greater things.

it’s just that we don’t know for entirety what half of the templates do.
and most of the time we have to find answers for our selves or others.

which, trial and error is fine.
but when you have no where to start it’s not much of a help.

all to say, i understand enlisted is relatively new, but in war thunder, they had an indepth guide on how to do almost anything.

the second question is;

what each templates/nods do?

how am i supposed to understand how they should work, when they should be used, or what they need in order to work.

there used to be some informations and texts parameters on some nodes, but that’s like, 10 out of 10000.

we have something like, more than 60 objectives, and i still can’t tell the difference beside one is a circle, the other is a box. ( of course, there are bomb sites, capzones, and few others )

even worse, what’s bidirectional chain? how can i use it? when should i use it?

and how do points works? ( to make custom shapes and what not )

which yes, some are self explanatory, but others, not so much. especially for non native speakers. or, for a portion of russians as well.

the third question that i have, was though watching others product ( mainly tommys )

how do entities work? and how can i make use of them?

again, thanks to devendder and few good souls, i was able to change textures, change hp of soldiers, make custom weapons, and many other cool and neat ( yet small ) features.

and that was because i made use ( or rather, they told me to use ) certain nodes and templates matched together.

which, a follow up question is;

why can’t we use parameters like in entities work visually in the base editor?

one of my biggest issues, are that for most, we spend most of our time behind a note pad ( which, i respect your job. and what you do. it ain’t easy. and that’s coming from a secretary that sits all day on excells and watches some data across some sheets and what not. mine is just boring, yours, goes above and beyond )

i’m not entirely against coding through a notepad, but it’s constantly frustrating as you mess up even a single graph or what so ever and it might not work anymore.

other things that i noticed, there are many nodes that if used in entities, those will sort of work, but i can’t reproduce it the editor by just adding postfixes.

and most of the time i have parameters that can’t modify because the option is not there.

and, we often have to result into unpacking / datamine. which it’s a mine of it’s own ( forgive my bad pun ).

because ( at least, here, i speak for my self ) i look through the files and not exactly know what i’m looking for.

which i would then have to find the right stuff, unpack it, read it, change it in base on the needs i have, and eventually not understanding why it doesn’t work or how it should work

( perhaps i’m repeating my self. sorry ).

and… well…

i would have also wanted to know how to apply certain textures onto clothings, how to color rendinsts without having to effe up shadervars. or how to turn things invisible, but i’m fairly sure it’s among one of those nodes.

if… only we had something that would tell us what does what.

as much i would like to not know any of that, in order to make mods interesting ( or being able to modify even the slightest thing that are generated and cannot modify otherwise ) it reaches a point where soon or later one has to dive into those aspects.

to also offer a better mod than just a bland one.

and, i think it should be incentivized by providing some sort of documentations for those who would love to learn.

that’s all.

2 Likes
48

Ah, you mean more general questions, not about what I proposed above. I see.

Generally speaking templates are just collections of named and typed components descriptions (which you can edit in Property panel for entities, not templates, because entities components made from templates components descriptions). All the game mechanics rely solely on components names and types, not on templates themselves. That’s main point.

And so entities are objects constructed from those template prototypes, which natively allows mixing any (really any) templates to get mixed set of components and mixed behavior, which often may be crazy and unwanted, but sometimes may be very valuable.

There is no one unified behavior model for every entity in this approach. Which components present in your entity makes it work this or that way. No common base here. But you have templates extends, which is when template takes components descriptions from some another template before defining its own descriptions (or overriding those taken). So you can make very complex templates, constructing them from meaningfully-named lower level partial templates (it’s your task to name them meaningfully and contain well-thought components to later mix them effectively) and get interesting results.

There are a lot of components-based game mechanics in game engine, so describing all of them and all their nuances may take ages. Moreover, it’s changing. Some behaviors get gone, some new appear, some get changed/extended/reduced. So the only thing you can rely here is the knowledge collected and updated by the community, including developers themselves (do you really think developers remember all the behaviors coded?).

Did I get it more understandable?

4 Likes
49

eh…

i guess?

feel like i’m more of a slow and visual learner.

but… sure.

isn’t… there a point to have a documentation to begin with?

how… can you make things, if you don’t know what half of those do.

( not here to critique your operado or way of working. especially from someone who is disorganized and a mess of a person. but, i learned appointing things and trying to be organized sometimes, more than often, usually works.).

more like, saying that we are kinda on our own with this one too.
and if we are one the same boat, eh… i’m just saying there could be room for improvement where everyone could benefit

as, knowledge is power and allows to get more things done. at least for me.

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50

We can look into all code which uses those components and understand what all those mechanics do, each one of them, at any certain moment.

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51

well, that’s a fair point, but understanding them from the get go, might be a trivial task.

especially remeber what you need, and how to do it. after a period of time.

( let alone someone like me not precisely know where to start, or what half of those parameters do )

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