Some time ago, Fierfek made and published a tutorial with the aim (or so I assume) of teaching beginners the very utmost basics of modding in a comprehendible manner. A good intention, certainly; but since then those that've gotten into modding with Fierfek's tutorial seem to have some recurring questions. Some people claim that as much as two-thirds of the information in Fierfek's tutorial is wrong. While I didn't quite believe that, I did feel it had a fair number of errors.

I've decided to take the time to download the latest version (3.5) of Fierfek's tutorial and proofread it for problems. I didn't find as many as I thought I would, though I would expect version 3.5 of any tutorial to be completely free of errors. I'll point out the things that I noticed; I will also send Fierfek a PM about them. Hopefully they will be resolved in a version 3.6, and if not then at least beginner modders will stumble on this thread after doing a forum search. Some of these are actual straight-out errors; some are things that may prove annoying/misleading.

First maps are often HUGE....I believe each square is 1 meter.

I think it's something else - not sure what exactly. At any rate there's a handy "tape measure" tool in the Paths interface of ZE.

Don’t flood the map with water. Water requires a lot of extra programming to get working. Don’t start with water.

While I would agree with "don't start with water", I might argue against "water takes a lot of extra programming." That's a relative term, and in fact adding water is mainly a matter of copy-and-pasting assets and involves very little "programming" at all.

Change the heroes. Please, no Anakin, Maul, Han, or Boba. They are the defaults, and must be changed. More on changing them later.

There's nothing exactly wrong with those heros in and of themselves. If they fit your map, why not keep them rather than going through some extra effort to change them?

Say (out loud) “I am not Dann Boeing” 3 times.

That doesn't mean you can't be, though - just something encouraging I thought I'd say.

Call your map whatever you want. Just don’t call it something that doesn’t relate to Star Wars.

More like call it whatever you want, and bonus points if it makes sense. Good maps don't have to be Star Wars-related.

[In talking about ZeroEditor height manipulation]
PAINT: When you hold the mouse button down and drag this over the ground, it will set it to the original ground level.

Nope. It will set terrain to the height you specify in the left-hand panel. This is zero by default (hence why Fierfek said "original ground level") but it doesn't have to stay zero - you can change it to whatever number you want.

[In talking about moving command posts]
Make sure they are about the same distance to each other though.

This statement may mislead beginner modders into thinking SWBFFiles reviewers take out a tape measure and count paces. Make sure your CPs aren't too far apart, and make sure they aren't too close together, but "too far" and "too close" are relative terms. If it suits the map's gameplay and style to have CPs not at regular intervals, that's all well.

[In talking about placing objects from stock assets]
You could insert the odf and msh folders from any world, and place whatever you want in your world.

While this isn't technically incorrect, it is a large waste of filesize. You only need to copy over the msh, tga, odf, and other files for whichever objects you want; you do not (and shouldn't) need to copy over the world's entire odf and msh folders. Xavious has pointed out that a possible alternative is to copy over the entire folders, then delete whichever object's files you don't end up using.

[In talking about finding the names of the odf files for specific troops]
Go into the sides folder, then to rep, then odf. Here are all the republic files. Sort by name, and find the section where everything is sorted by rep_hero_(hero name). The default is rep_hero_anakin. We want Mace Windu. So scroll down until you find him. He is rep_hero_macewindu. Write that down somewhere.

This isn't wrong, but it's easier to just look into the side's req (not shell.req) file.

Control Zones should be 10 height instead of 5

Why?

Control Zones should be placed next to the command posts instead of over them

Why?

[In talking about Control Regions]
Then, make the control regions. Place them next to the command posts. Now we will make vehicles.

Fierfek does not explain what Control Regions are and what they do. This is not a good thing, as then beginner modders might see their vehicles do strange things and then wonder why, when the cause was the control region.

Go back to objects, and find com_item_vehicle_spawn again. Place 2 or 3 next to each command post, outside the capture zone but NOT IN THE CONTROL ZONE. This is important. Do not place the vehicle spawns in the control zones.

Well, actually, the stock documentation says:

Getting Started.doc wrote:The ControlRegion is a region that controls the spawning of vehicles associated with a CP. Vehicle Spawns are placed inside the Control Region, and once they leave the Control Region, if they are abandoned, they will eventually self-destruct, and respawn.

At a stroke the stock documentation explains what Control Regions are and what they do. In reality you can place both Control Regions and vehicle spawns wherever you want.

You don’t want them inside the spawn path because if you do, people would spawn inside vehicles (which would be a little disturbing).

You can have vehicle spawns inside the spawn path, just not on the spawn nodes. And even if you do have the vehicles on the spawn nodes I think either the vehicles or the units would be forced to one side, and wouldn't actually spawn inside each other. I've never tried it, though.

In ControlZone, write the command post number. So, if it is cp1, write cp1, if cp2 write cp2, etc. In Spawn Count, put 1. In Spawn time, put 30.0. In ExpireTimeEnemy, put 30.0. In ExpireTimeField, put 60.0. In DecayTime, put 30.0.

Fierfek does not explain what any of these values are, only tells the beginner to plug in numbers. In fact, sometimes completely different SpawnCounts or DecayTimes will suit a map better than Fierfek's numbers. Once again, the stock documentation explains this perfectly. See Getting Started.doc.

[When copying a lua]
"cis_hero_darthmaul",
"cis_hover_aat",
“cis_hover_stap” )

Notice the spaces between the last quotation mark and the parenthesis? That's not good. There shouldn't be any spaces - this error comes up again several times in Fierfek's tutorial.

[In talking about planning]
To place hubs, click new hub, and click on the ground. Drag to choose the size. Make tons of these.

"Make tons of these" is rarely good advice. I would rather say "make as many as you need". It is also important to note (though the tutorial doesn't) that each hub can have a maximum of six connections.

[In talking about changing the sky]
So, rename the old MAP.sky to old.sky. Now, rename end1.sky to MAP.sky. Now, your sky has made the switchover. Munge, and play!

Your sky has not made the switchover if the new MAP.sky's time stamp still reads from before the last munge. To ensure that the sky file will be munged, I would recommend going into it with notepad and re-saving it, then munging.

After you have tested your level thoroughly, and played around with it in zeroeditor, you can share it. Testing is extremely important. Check out Count_Zooku’s latest projects to see what happens when you don’t test levels. Check out the file Planet Onmanjon.

Come on, there's no call for that. How do you suppose Count_Zooku or the maker of Onmanjon take that comment?
~ Note: Xavious has brought to my attention that Count_Zooku submitted four files to SWBFFiles, two of which made it onto the site, without even owning the game. So while I still don't like Fierfek's comment I can see what he means.

Now, find some way to zip your file up to compress it.

Generally tutorials explain the way to do something rather than saying "find some way" to do it, even if it's as simple as zipping up a folder.

And if you keep the original skins, it doesn’t matter how great your weapons are, because it will be boring.

Not necessarily true.

Generally, msh’s and their associating TGA’s have the same name.

But sometimes they don't, and then the poor beginner is all confused. In fact, when dealing with props and buildings, often msh files use several textures at once. It is a good idea to open the MSH file with notepad and search for "tga". This will help you find the files you need. Alternatively, download the MSH Viewer utility, drag-and-drop the msh file into it, and click the big i button.

Now run BF2. If you did everything right, now your skins are ingame!!! Awesome!!

And if you followed the tutorial exactly but are wondering why it still doesn't work, Fierfek forgot to mention that you need to copy the "Common" side folder from assets/sides into your own Data_ABC/sides and then munge that as well.

What? Why did "Mode 2" replace the essential "Conquest"?

It will have rebels vs. wampas. I won’t tell you how to change that right now.

Why not? It's not a very hard or lengthy thing to explain, and would round off the section nicely rather than leaving a hole.

[In talking about SetUp_Teams.lua]
Rename pilot to “commander” and rename marine to “stealth”.

No need - "pilot" and "marine" both function fine.

Anyway, in the beginning of this tutorial, I told you to not start with water, and with good reason. It takes some extra programming to get right, and is an unnecessary complication.

It's up to the modder to decide if something is unnecessary or not.

[In talking about making CTF mode maps]
In Zeroeditor, there is a new layer. When you move a command post, you also have to move the spawn path, the flag score region, the flag score circley-thingy, and the flag itself.
Actually, maybe that was the shortest section.

It might be a good idea to go over how to add uncapturable CPs here.

Make sure to give credit to me when you publish your mod! Seriously, if you read this, then I taught you to mod, and you should thank me.

That seems more than a bit self-congratulatory, especially if the writer taught the reader to mod incorrectly. In this case the tutorial is fairly comprehensive but has holes in it. In any case, the best tutorials (most tutorials, actually) don't say "pay me homage" at their ends.

Finally, throughout the tutorial I kept running into comments like these:

Flat maps suck.
FLAT MAPS SUCK.
If your map is flat, you will get minus points.
BIG MAPS SUCK.

These seem more like (rather strong) personal opinions than ironbound modding facts. My advice to the beginner modder: be aware of scale, but don't crowd lots of things together.

Those are my notes from reading through Fierfek's latest tutorial. Hopefully Fierfek's readers will find some answers to several confusing questions in this thread. To anyone else: feel free to add/remove notes.

Fiodis wrote:

Now, you have a great level, and you want to share it with the world. Well, that is easily accomplished.
First, make a folder called the 3 initials you chose for your file (in our case, MAP). In that folder, make a folder called data. In that folder, make a folder called _lvl_pc. In that folder (lots of folders!) make a folder called your 3 initials again (MAP for us). Now, the first file you need in put in the first MAP folder, next to data. Go into data_MAP, and into the addme folder, then the munged folder. Get the file there, and copy to the new folder. Now, in the _lvl_pc folder. In data_MAP, go to the folder _lvl_pc. Get the files core and mission. Copy those to your new _lvl_pc. Now, for the last one. In data_MAP\_lvl_pc, go into the MAP folder. Get the one file there, and put that in your new MAP folder. So in the end, you should have this:

A folder called MAP
In that folder, a file called addme, and a folder called data
In the data folder, a folder called _lvl_pc
In that folder, 2 files called core and mission, and a folder MAP
In the MAP folder, and file called MAP

There's quite some possibility for error there. It'll be easier to instruct the modder to go into C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars Battlefront II\GameData\addon and just zip up the MAP folder they'll find in there. If they're using Vista/Win7 it might be in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\LucasArts\Star Wars Battlefront II\GameData\addon.

Before I quit modding, I was on Win7 and it was C:/Program Files (x86)/Lucasarts/Star Wars Battlefront II/GameData/addon.

I found this extremely helpful, I never knew that there was that many errors. Thank you for writing this up Fiodis, it'll be alot of help to modders.

but it would be more help with videos/pictures and other languages

I agree with 99% of what you said Fiodis, And I thank you for writhing this. I was well into modding when i read this, so it wasnt that much help or detriment to me. But others will not have the same advantagew i did if they are starting out. Good job Fiodis

Fiodis wrote:I've decided to take the time to download the latest version (2.01) of Fierfek's tutorial and proofread it for problems.

There's actually a newer version here: http://starwarsbattlefront.filefront.co ... ial;106441

I'm not sure how much it fixes, but I know I've seen a lot of the issues you mentioned brought up before, so I'd assume it at least corrects some of those.

Fiodis wrote:This statement may mislead beginner modders into thinking SWBFFiles reviewers take out a tape measure and count paces.

Who said that wasn't true?

Fiodis wrote:While this isn't technically incorrect, it is a large waste of filesize. You only need to copy over the msh, tga, odf, and other files for whichever objects you want; you do not (and shouldn't) need to copy over the world's entire odf and msh folders.

This may just be me, but I generally copy everything from the assets I'm using just to have it. I'm never 100% sure what objects I'll be using where in a map when I start, so I like to have a variety of different objects to mess around with. Of course, I delete everything that isn't used at the end to cut down on filesize.

Fiodis wrote:Come on, there's no call for that. How do you suppose Count_Zooku or the maker of Onmanjon take that comment?

Same person. And I definitely remember that. He pretty much made and submitted four maps without even owning the game (only two of these made it on the site, the other two didn't work at all). Yes, it's rather uncalled for to point at specific people, but I can see what Fierfek's trying to say here.

Fiodis wrote:

Make sure to give credit to me when you publish your mod! Seriously, if you read this, then I taught you to mod, and you should thank me.

That seems more than a bit self-congratulatory, especially if the writer taught the reader to mod incorrectly. In this case the tutorial is fairly comprehensive but has holes in it. In any case, the best tutorials (most tutorials, actually) don't say "pay me homage" at their ends.

There is THIS topic for modders.

[Padawan]Helkaan wrote:

Fiodis wrote:

Now, you have a great level, and you want to share it with the world. Well, that is easily accomplished.
First, make a folder called the 3 initials you chose for your file (in our case, MAP). In that folder, make a folder called data. In that folder, make a folder called _lvl_pc. In that folder (lots of folders!) make a folder called your 3 initials again (MAP for us). Now, the first file you need in put in the first MAP folder, next to data. Go into data_MAP, and into the addme folder, then the munged folder. Get the file there, and copy to the new folder. Now, in the _lvl_pc folder. In data_MAP, go to the folder _lvl_pc. Get the files core and mission. Copy those to your new _lvl_pc. Now, for the last one. In data_MAP\_lvl_pc, go into the MAP folder. Get the one file there, and put that in your new MAP folder. So in the end, you should have this:

A folder called MAP
In that folder, a file called addme, and a folder called data
In the data folder, a folder called _lvl_pc
In that folder, 2 files called core and mission, and a folder MAP
In the MAP folder, and file called MAP

There's quite some possibility for error there. It'll be easier to instruct the modder to go into C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars Battlefront II\GameData\addon and just zip up the MAP folder they'll find in there. If they're using Vista/Win7 it might be in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\LucasArts\Star Wars Battlefront II\GameData\addon.

Before I quit modding, I was on Win7 and it was C:/Program Files (x86)/Lucasarts/Star Wars Battlefront II/GameData/addon.

I was wrong There is this munge fix to fix that error (by Frisbeetarian): http://www.gametoast.com/forums/viewtop ... 73#p295373

xavious you beat me to it, i have 3.5 ( a whole 1.49 levels above your posted 2.01 XD). More than half of what you have said is corrected or taken out in 3.5. Though he does not explain why control zones should be a height of 10, he does explain why they shouldnt be over the cp's. He takes it fro granted that people (if their control zones were placed over cp's) would place their vehicle spawns over the spawn nodes making people spawn within the vehicle. And as we can observe from the stock kashyyyk map ( the snailtanks at base 3), if a vehicle spawns outside of its control zone, it will still slowly die. He does repeat that big and falt maps suck a lot, but, in general nobody really wants a flat open feild thats really big with only 4 bases. but other things you have pointed out such as

Quote:
[Listing the necessary LUA files for Conquest gamemode]
MAPc_con
MAPc_con.lua
MAPg_con
MAPg_con.lua


I suppose Fierfek's Windows Explorer is at the default setting of hiding known file extensions. Properly, the names of those files are:
MAPc_con.lua
MAPc_con.lua.bak
MAPg_con.lua
MAPg_con.lua.bak
This leads to a misconception that the tutorial asserts throughout the entire time it talks about LUAs. According to Fierfek, you need to make changes to both MAPc_con.lua and MAPc_con.lua.bak for the changes to show up in the Clone Wars era. This is incorrect; you only need to make changes to the .lua files. The bak files are simply backup files, and are not read by the game in any way whatsoever. You can delete them if you want.

are still true. (he does change the whole crediting thing to something more sublte)

Oh dear. I should probably read that latest one, then, and take out from my first post what needs to be taken out.

Fiodis wrote:

[In talking about placing objects from stock assets]
You could insert the odf and msh folders from any world, and place whatever you want in your world.

While this isn't technically incorrect, it is a large waste of filesize. You only need to copy over the msh, tga, odf, and other files for whichever objects you want; you do not (and shouldn't) need to copy over the world's entire odf and msh folders.

That's very subjective. The munge already knows what files it needs either from the world, or in the case of everything else, from REQ files. It doesn't hurt anything to copy every file from a map into yours, as the munge will know what files it needs to compile in the end. At MOST after munging you're talking 100-200mb more on your hard drive (and that only affects the project folder, not the file map in /Addon).


Rather than waste the energy tearing apart someone else's tutorial, why not write something better?

Well, I've read through 3.5 and updated the first post as needed.

Teancum wrote:Rather than waste the energy tearing apart someone else's tutorial, why not write something better?

I sincerely apologize; I don't want at all to come off as tearing his tutorial apart. I'm not writing anything better because it's a fair deal of work that I don't wish to do right now; and I acknowledge and applaud Fierfek for going through the trouble that not many people (myself included) seem to want to go through.

Since it's out there, though, I thought it might be a good idea to improve on it - and hopefully Fierfek will, and take a few of these suggestions into consideration. Ordinarily I would just leave this all in a PM and avoid the trouble that's sure to come up, but it's a tribute to the tutorial's comprehensiveness that it's become somewhat popular. The main reason for putting these notes in a thread rather than a PM would be so others using the tutorial could avoid some potential problems.

If the staff judges that it would be more fitting to put this in a PM, then by all means delete the thread and I'll send Fierfek a polite PM instead.

Wow.... thanks a ton! Great to have a much more experienced modder like you going through it and "tearing it apart", so to speak. I don't find it rude at all - I appreciate it. I'll prolly go through it at some point at fix some of this stuff.

Fierfek wrote:Wow.... thanks a ton! Great to have a much more experienced modder like you going through it and "tearing it apart", so to speak. I don't find it rude at all - I appreciate it. I'll prolly go through it at some point at fix some of this stuff.

i was wondering when he would see it
there is no need nto pm him fiodis

wow, i dont think ive ever seen fierfek post on this site XD (ive seen posts by him, but ive never actually seen a current post)! i think its a great tut.

I'm glad Fierfek doesn't hate me.

Fiodis wrote:I'm glad Fierfak doesn't hate me.

Lol I only hate the people who misspell my name to say FierDiet Dr. Pepper when I'm pwning them at RC online

Fierfek wrote:

Fiodis wrote:I'm glad Fierfak doesn't hate me.

Lol I only hate the people who misspell my name to say FierDiet Dr. Pepper when I'm pwning them at RC online

Well its seams he is a cool guy