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Hotride

28 Feb, 2020 @ 10:20am

Tips for making cities in the level editor?

There is a manga called "Blame!" the aesthetic of which I think will fit quite well in a Distance track. So I started to check out the level editor in hopes of creating something nice looking with that theme in mind.

(If you like manga, I recommend that one.)

I'm not finding that many fitting assets though. Looking at existing tracks, I have a hard time figuring out how what I see available in the editor becomes any amazing looking track from the workshop.

I have some concrete questions, though any general tips are also welcome.

1. There are few buildings, so how do you make a city that doesn't look repetitive? Different sizes and angles? Or is there some randomise option I didn't notice (I did find some bump-map texture that had a randomiser)?

2. I'm having trouble navigating with the camera, are there controls for up/down? I see there are forward/backward/left/right. But this doesn't work well when I'm trying to make something huge and I want to examine all of it in detail.

3. How do big blast doors work (e.g. Lost to Echoes has tons of those, different shapes and sizes)? I didn't find any such objects. Is it a matter of scripting geometry pieces to move + adding audio, or are there actual complete objects?

4. Do you spend a lot of time making custom objects? I see a lot of walled-off tracks (top of my head, Inferno), but I'm yet to find actual walls.

So, any tips from track makers? Thanks in advance.

Last edited by Hotride; 28 Feb, 2020 @ 10:22am

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Showing 1-4 of 4 comments

Californ1a

28 Feb, 2020 @ 1:07pm

First, I'd highly recommend joining the official Discord and asking questions in the #editor channel. Way easier to get responses, since most the map authors are in there: https://discord.gg/distance

I'm not really much of a map author, but I know all the tools in the editor, so I'll say what I can:

Most established map authors tend not to use the default buildings much, they make their own environments and custom objects, built up using the objects in the Simples folder. So it's a mix of custom objects and premade ones to get a good variation, but it all depends on the type of map you're trying to make and what aesthetic you're going for.
Change to Control Scheme B in the Editor tab, then all your camera controls will be on your mouse. Select an object (left-click) and then middle-click on it to zoom the camera in on it, then you can hold right-click to rotate around that object, and hold middle-click to pan (scroll to zoom, right-click to place the cursor).
You can open official maps in the editor an take a look at how certain parts are made. If it's a group, select the group and then change the Inspect Children property to All. The doors in It Was Supposed To Be Perfect are objects in the Decorations/Echoes folder, and they're just animated when you hit an event trigger in front of the door. You can add an animator to (most) any object by hitting the Add Component button at the very bottom of the Properties, then you also add an Event Listener component to it, and make the animation play when the player hits the event trigger that the event listener is listening for.
Not sure what you mean by walled-off tracks unless you mean the backward ramps Inferno uses to indicate the wrong side of the road (you should land on the other side). Those are literally just the ramp from the Attachments folder. You can spend a ton of time making custom objects, but it all depends on what you're going for.

Last edited by Californ1a; 28 Feb, 2020 @ 1:07pm

Jay2a

28 Feb, 2020 @ 9:00pm

Californ1a pretty much answered the questions already but I wanted to give my input on some of them too

1. The best thing I'd say for variation is to use a lot of different building types. Adding variations in their sizes/placements/rotation relative to the track goes a long way towards making the level feel varied

2. Like Cali said, I'd also recommend scheme B. In my opinion it's a lot easier to use than scheme A because having the mouse move the camera allows for better movements

3. A lot of those doors are custom objects. There is no scripting in the editor, but you can custom make an object and add animations to make it look like a door. Opening those levels in the editor to look at them is a good way to get a feel for how they work

4. It depends a lot on the creator. I personally spend large amounts of time on custom objects and try to use as few stock objects as possible. Getting better at making them usually comes with time though

Edit: The level editor doesn't really have a lot of stock objects to work with, so for a lot of workshop levels like anything Sonic/Acceleracers/Fzero themed they create their own objects out of Golden Simples

Last edited by Jay2a; 28 Feb, 2020 @ 9:04pm

AlveKatt

29 Feb, 2020 @ 1:21am

One thing that might help, any building that is asymmetric has two or more different sides you can show a player. Basically, from the road one building can look as four different buildings if you just rotate it in relation to your track. More if they look good upside down.

Hotride

29 Feb, 2020 @ 7:34am

All right, I'll take a look at custom objects first then. Thanks!

As for Discord, I'll see about joining it once I've experimented some and can ask more precise questions.

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Date Posted: 28 Feb, 2020 @ 10:20am

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