I haven't been active on the forum for a while but I do drop in on occasion, and couldn't help but notice since the release of Emergency 5 how most non-German speaking members were struggling to comprehend what was being said in the official World Builder tutorials, which, moronically enough, didn't come with a translation save the first video, and I haven't seen anyone try to work on translating it. Since I haven't really been active at modding for years, I decided I might as well do something and use my fluency in German to help other users with how to mod this *disappointing* game. Therefore, I spent a fair bit of time translating the second tutorial video. It's not an exact translation (with German to English or vice versa you really can't do that a whole lot lol), but it's very similar, covers everything said in the video, and there was an attempt at trying to help with clarification issues et al.
Forgive me if it isn't my best work, as it was done between 2-4 AM while I was also crashing from an off-brand 5 Hour Energy lol. Do let me know if you spot any mistakes/things that need further clarification.
Spoiler
Audio Transcript for “Video Tutorial World Builder 2014 - Part 2: Path Meshes”
Hello, my name is Kevin, and I am a level designer for Emergency 5.
Today I'd like to show you how the Path Meshes in the Emergency 5 Editor function.
The Path Mesh tool is very small, yet highly innovative and very powerful. We level designers have had a great deal of fun designing and building small “pieces” for the game, such as this bounce house, this entrance for Oktoberfest in Munich and Hamburg, and the Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne. As a note for future reference, putting together large things with only Path Meshes can perform unsatisfactorily while in-game. However, smaller things can be created with ease, such as this pattern on the ground here, as well as this pattern over there. With this tool, you can create basically anything you want – how you do that is what I will show you next.
For a new Path Mesh, open the Path Mesh tool with the F3 key. Now, go up to the “Select Type” box here, click on it, click on “Path Mesh”, and then click on the button below the box with the line on it. Notice how it is now green, and now you can go into the editor view and create a Path Mesh with a left mouse click, and dragging it to where you'd like, just like this. If you let go of the mouse, the created line will turn from blue to green. Now you can change the direction by clicking on the green button underneath the “Select Type” box again, at which point it will return to its former grey color. Now, we can give our line a “Base Mesh”. Double left-click on the “Base Mesh” option in the “Property” menu. We will use the file “walkway” - notice how this color is very hard to see on the background, so I will change it to red. To further edit the Path Mesh, left-click it in the editor window and hit the space bar. Now notice that both ends of the mesh have “points”, or nodes, that can be selected with a left-click; these points can be moved in any conceivable direction, including up and down (by holding the mouse along an axis). We can also create new “points” on this Path Mesh. This is done by holding down the Alt key and clicking anywhere on the line. You may now edit any of these points as you did before (left-clicking them and moving them). Notice that the Path Mesh is still very hard-edged and linear; this can be altered by again holding down the Alt key and moving the cursor. A radius will appear, centered around the point. You can see the effects this has on the Path Mesh as it is applied along its length. This same principle can be applied to create patterns like the ones I showed you earlier in this tutorial, or even something like this arch here. This can be done by rotating the entire object (hit the rotate mode button in the top taskbar or hit the rotate mode hotkey (default: “2”), and set it “upright”. Of course, it makes no sense to do this to a flat object like this path, but 3D objects can be made quite easily, much like the entryway arch, or anything else, for that matter; your creativity is only limited by you.
From a similar method to creating Path Meshes, streets may be created just as easily. In this new file I have simply placed two intersections into the map. First, if you select one of the intersections, you can select and bind the other intersection to it with a click of the space bar. As you can see, every “edge” has a yellow marker, and if you mouse over one, a green symbol will appear that can be used to mark what you will merge. This is accomplished via a left mouse click, upon which the symbol will turn to red from green, and if you hover your cursor over another yellow marker, you will see another green symbol appear, as well as a red line connecting the two – this line indicates where a new “Base Mesh” will be created. If you left-click on the green marker, an undefined “Base Mesh” will be created connecting the two. Left-click the base mesh, and again use the “Base Mesh” function in the “Property” menu to assign a base mesh, using the pop-up to search for what you need. In this case, “street_01a” will work for us, so double left-click it to change the “Base Mesh” property. Now, in principle, that was everything you needed to know on the subject; the intersections are now connected, and already “pre-identified” as “streets” by the game, so vehicles will be able to drive on them without further input.
Just like with the Path Meshes, we can edit the streets in the same manner. Click the newly created piece and hit the space bar to bring up the edit nodes. Additional nodes may be created in the same manner: holding Alt while clicking on the central line. These nodes may be further manipulated however the user sees fit in the same method used for Path Meshes. With these methods at hand, you can now fill the entirety of your city with fully functioning streets. I would now like to show you an example of how these streets are “pre-identified” as such by the game, like the intersection. Click on it and hit F9. This will bring up a new option menu on the right-hand side of the editor. If you click on the button above this menu (it will turn from grey to green), the pathing of the intersection will appear in the editor window. “Streets”, where vehicles may drive, are identified with green symbols, while “sidewalks”, where pedestrians may walk, are identified with yellow symbols. You will also see several blue “streets” in the middle of the intersection; these identify where only your emergency vehicles may drive. The nodes (by the section you created connecting the two intersections) say a lot about that section: they entail what road “traits” the new section “inherits” from the intersections, including pathing and traffic patterns. If you click on the other intersection, you may view the same pathing markers by again clicking the button above the “Property” menu. The same ideas hold true for the nodes by the “new” section of road, and they will apply their own “traits” to said section.
As you can see from this tutorial, the Path Mesh tool is very easy to use and very innovative, and it's a lot of fun to build big cities without the need to spend a great deal of time in Photoshop or another image-editing program to create and lay out textures for everything in the city. That was it for this tutorial on Path Meshes and Street Networks, and I highly recommend you view the other video tutorials done by my colleagues. Thanks for watching!
Audio Transcript for “Video Tutorial World Builder 2014 - Part 2: Path Meshes”
Hello, my name is Kevin, and I am a level designer for Emergency 5.
Today I'd like to show you how the Path Meshes in the Emergency 5 Editor function.
The Path Mesh tool is very small, yet highly innovative and very powerful. We level designers have had a great deal of fun designing and building small “pieces” for the game, such as this bounce house, this entrance for Oktoberfest in Munich and Hamburg, and the Hohenzollern Bridge in Cologne. As a note for future reference, putting together large things with only Path Meshes can perform unsatisfactorily while in-game. However, smaller things can be created with ease, such as this pattern on the ground here, as well as this pattern over there. With this tool, you can create basically anything you want – how you do that is what I will show you next.
For a new Path Mesh, open the Path Mesh tool with the F3 key. Now, go up to the “Select Type” box here, click on it, click on “Path Mesh”, and then click on the button below the box with the line on it. Notice how it is now green, and now you can go into the editor view and create a Path Mesh with a left mouse click, and dragging it to where you'd like, just like this. If you let go of the mouse, the created line will turn from blue to green. Now you can change the direction by clicking on the green button underneath the “Select Type” box again, at which point it will return to its former grey color. Now, we can give our line a “Base Mesh”. Double left-click on the “Base Mesh” option in the “Property” menu. We will use the file “walkway” - notice how this color is very hard to see on the background, so I will change it to red. To further edit the Path Mesh, left-click it in the editor window and hit the space bar. Now notice that both ends of the mesh have “points”, or nodes, that can be selected with a left-click; these points can be moved in any conceivable direction, including up and down (by holding the mouse along an axis). We can also create new “points” on this Path Mesh. This is done by holding down the Alt key and clicking anywhere on the line. You may now edit any of these points as you did before (left-clicking them and moving them). Notice that the Path Mesh is still very hard-edged and linear; this can be altered by again holding down the Alt key and moving the cursor. A radius will appear, centered around the point. You can see the effects this has on the Path Mesh as it is applied along its length. This same principle can be applied to create patterns like the ones I showed you earlier in this tutorial, or even something like this arch here. This can be done by rotating the entire object (hit the rotate mode button in the top taskbar or hit the rotate mode hotkey (default: “2”), and set it “upright”. Of course, it makes no sense to do this to a flat object like this path, but 3D objects can be made quite easily, much like the entryway arch, or anything else, for that matter; your creativity is only limited by you.
From a similar method to creating Path Meshes, streets may be created just as easily. In this new file I have simply placed two intersections into the map. First, if you select one of the intersections, you can select and bind the other intersection to it with a click of the space bar. As you can see, every “edge” has a yellow marker, and if you mouse over one, a green symbol will appear that can be used to mark what you will merge. This is accomplished via a left mouse click, upon which the symbol will turn to red from green, and if you hover your cursor over another yellow marker, you will see another green symbol appear, as well as a red line connecting the two – this line indicates where a new “Base Mesh” will be created. If you left-click on the green marker, an undefined “Base Mesh” will be created connecting the two. Left-click the base mesh, and again use the “Base Mesh” function in the “Property” menu to assign a base mesh, using the pop-up to search for what you need. In this case, “street_01a” will work for us, so double left-click it to change the “Base Mesh” property. Now, in principle, that was everything you needed to know on the subject; the intersections are now connected, and already “pre-identified” as “streets” by the game, so vehicles will be able to drive on them without further input.
Just like with the Path Meshes, we can edit the streets in the same manner. Click the newly created piece and hit the space bar to bring up the edit nodes. Additional nodes may be created in the same manner: holding Alt while clicking on the central line. These nodes may be further manipulated however the user sees fit in the same method used for Path Meshes. With these methods at hand, you can now fill the entirety of your city with fully functioning streets. I would now like to show you an example of how these streets are “pre-identified” as such by the game, like the intersection. Click on it and hit F9. This will bring up a new option menu on the right-hand side of the editor. If you click on the button above this menu (it will turn from grey to green), the pathing of the intersection will appear in the editor window. “Streets”, where vehicles may drive, are identified with green symbols, while “sidewalks”, where pedestrians may walk, are identified with yellow symbols. You will also see several blue “streets” in the middle of the intersection; these identify where only your emergency vehicles may drive. The nodes (by the section you created connecting the two intersections) say a lot about that section: they entail what road “traits” the new section “inherits” from the intersections, including pathing and traffic patterns. If you click on the other intersection, you may view the same pathing markers by again clicking the button above the “Property” menu. The same ideas hold true for the nodes by the “new” section of road, and they will apply their own “traits” to said section.
As you can see from this tutorial, the Path Mesh tool is very easy to use and very innovative, and it's a lot of fun to build big cities without the need to spend a great deal of time in Photoshop or another image-editing program to create and lay out textures for everything in the city. That was it for this tutorial on Path Meshes and Street Networks, and I highly recommend you view the other video tutorials done by my colleagues. Thanks for watching!
Spoiler
Audio Transcript for “Video Tutorial World Builder 2014 - Part 2: Path Meshes”
Hello, my name is Tatjana and I'm a level designer for Emergency 5, and in this tutorial I will show you the various possibilities of and tools for editing terrain at your disposal in the Emergency 5 Editor.
Here under “Tools” you'll find the last three options - “Terrain Modeling”, “Terrain Painting”, and “Terrain Texturing” - these are the three tools that I will explain to you in this video. I've already built this small scene for us to use all three tools on.
First, in the “Terrain Modeling” tool, you will find the individual tools to alter the geometry of a level's terrain, such as mountains and hills, etc. The “Set/Pick” tool is used to set the clicked-on terrain's height to a specific, identical level, like this. You can also go to the “Height” option box to enter any value that you desire. I just input 20 meters (above MSL), and this it what it'll look like. You can also go down here to change the brush size with its respectively named option, or just hold down the Alt key while you move the mouse to alter the brush size. The “Brush Intensity” option explains itself; just hold down the Ctrl key while you move the mouse to alter the brush's intensity. You can see for yourself how much faster the terrain snaps to its height after increasing the intensity. Now, my lake is a little bit too strongly-edged to match up with the rest of the terrain; this can be fixed with the “Smooth” tool. Tweak with the options a bit to get the brush you desire, and now you can fix that harsh edge like this. Lastly, with the “Raise/Lower” tool, you can raise and lower the terrain as you like. To raise it, left-click on the terrain; to lower it, hold Shift while you click. Here's the result you get. Smooth it out a a bit, and it looks good to go.
We also have the “Flatten” tool. Currently, it is greyed out, but before I use it, I have to prepare something. One moment. (screen fades to white and back)
I'm back. So, to use the “Flatten” tool, you first need an object, like the one I placed. Go back to the “Terrain Modeling” tool and select your object, and now click on the “Flatten” tool. As you can see, the terrain snaps to the object. This is a very handy feature. Of course the way I used it was unnecessary, but it is very useful as you can align the edges of roads up with the terrain so you don't get gaps like this one.
Now, we'll move on to the “Terrain Texturing” tool. In the “Available Layers” list we see all available textures we can use. Simply select one, and then click and drag on the terrain you wish to texture with that specific texture, like this. If you hold the Shift key, you can subtract and add texture as you wish to blend it into the others around it, like this. Feel free to experiment with the textures at your disposal to get the result you want. Something important to note about the textures, is that if I zoom out and move my mouse around the map, you can see it is divided into quadrants. There can only be five different textures per quadrant, so like in this one, I can't add another texture because it already has five in it, but in this quadrant I still can, so it's a good idea to keep track in your head of what textures you've used where and plan ahead to avoid frustration.
Finally, we'll move on to the “Terrain Painting” tool. Once you open it up, you can hit the “Color” button to bring up a color wheel and palette, and you can select any color you wish. Hit the top “Paint” button to the “Color” button's left, and now you can paint this color anywhere you wish. It will blend in nicely, and give the terrain bit of variety and contrast. You have a lot of options and freedom to do what you want with this tool. Important to note about this tool, however, is that if you click again on the “Color” button after selecting the second “color” above it, you will see this grey color here, you can see that all of the RGB values are at 128. It can be used to “neutralize” what you've already done; if I draw this area where I painted with it, it will return the texture to its original state. Now, I will add something to the lake. (screen fades to white and back)
You can see that I've added a terrace, and flattened the ground by the road. I can now texture the remaining exposed terrain to match what I've done and create a nice little area for pedestrians to walk through. One important thing to note about using these tools is the fact that all the information you just placed onto the map, like the geometry and texture, etc. can be exported and loaded in a different program. I'll show you how to do this.
I select this texture, “terrain_nature_dirt01_rough”, and click on the floppy-disk icon underneath and to the right of the texture browser to export it. As you can see, this is a quick and painless task, and you can save the file wherever you wish, and that was exporting. Now I'll open the texture I just exported in Photoshop to show you what you can do with it. (screen fades to white and back)
So now that I've opened the “blendmap” file I just exported in Photoshop, you can see what it looks like. Where it's white is a mask, and it indicates where the texture is 100% present, while where it is black it is not present, and you can see where it transitions into one or the other. What I've done is created this little heart here, and now I'll save the file like this and open it back up in the editor. (screen fades to white and back)
Now that I've reopened the editor, I can import the file I just created with the folder icon (next to the export button). Simply select your file and hit enter, and now we can immediately see the heart appearing as a dirt stain. We can of course create much more important and useful things than the heart I just made, such as a crop circle, etc. What you do is up to you. The important thing to know is that you can always export, work on, and import any texture.
Well that was it. Hopefully this video on the terrain modifying tools was informative and helpful, and I recommend watching the other videos in this series and have fun implementing what you learn from them.
Audio Transcript for “Video Tutorial World Builder 2014 - Part 2: Path Meshes”
Hello, my name is Tatjana and I'm a level designer for Emergency 5, and in this tutorial I will show you the various possibilities of and tools for editing terrain at your disposal in the Emergency 5 Editor.
Here under “Tools” you'll find the last three options - “Terrain Modeling”, “Terrain Painting”, and “Terrain Texturing” - these are the three tools that I will explain to you in this video. I've already built this small scene for us to use all three tools on.
First, in the “Terrain Modeling” tool, you will find the individual tools to alter the geometry of a level's terrain, such as mountains and hills, etc. The “Set/Pick” tool is used to set the clicked-on terrain's height to a specific, identical level, like this. You can also go to the “Height” option box to enter any value that you desire. I just input 20 meters (above MSL), and this it what it'll look like. You can also go down here to change the brush size with its respectively named option, or just hold down the Alt key while you move the mouse to alter the brush size. The “Brush Intensity” option explains itself; just hold down the Ctrl key while you move the mouse to alter the brush's intensity. You can see for yourself how much faster the terrain snaps to its height after increasing the intensity. Now, my lake is a little bit too strongly-edged to match up with the rest of the terrain; this can be fixed with the “Smooth” tool. Tweak with the options a bit to get the brush you desire, and now you can fix that harsh edge like this. Lastly, with the “Raise/Lower” tool, you can raise and lower the terrain as you like. To raise it, left-click on the terrain; to lower it, hold Shift while you click. Here's the result you get. Smooth it out a a bit, and it looks good to go.
We also have the “Flatten” tool. Currently, it is greyed out, but before I use it, I have to prepare something. One moment. (screen fades to white and back)
I'm back. So, to use the “Flatten” tool, you first need an object, like the one I placed. Go back to the “Terrain Modeling” tool and select your object, and now click on the “Flatten” tool. As you can see, the terrain snaps to the object. This is a very handy feature. Of course the way I used it was unnecessary, but it is very useful as you can align the edges of roads up with the terrain so you don't get gaps like this one.
Now, we'll move on to the “Terrain Texturing” tool. In the “Available Layers” list we see all available textures we can use. Simply select one, and then click and drag on the terrain you wish to texture with that specific texture, like this. If you hold the Shift key, you can subtract and add texture as you wish to blend it into the others around it, like this. Feel free to experiment with the textures at your disposal to get the result you want. Something important to note about the textures, is that if I zoom out and move my mouse around the map, you can see it is divided into quadrants. There can only be five different textures per quadrant, so like in this one, I can't add another texture because it already has five in it, but in this quadrant I still can, so it's a good idea to keep track in your head of what textures you've used where and plan ahead to avoid frustration.
Finally, we'll move on to the “Terrain Painting” tool. Once you open it up, you can hit the “Color” button to bring up a color wheel and palette, and you can select any color you wish. Hit the top “Paint” button to the “Color” button's left, and now you can paint this color anywhere you wish. It will blend in nicely, and give the terrain bit of variety and contrast. You have a lot of options and freedom to do what you want with this tool. Important to note about this tool, however, is that if you click again on the “Color” button after selecting the second “color” above it, you will see this grey color here, you can see that all of the RGB values are at 128. It can be used to “neutralize” what you've already done; if I draw this area where I painted with it, it will return the texture to its original state. Now, I will add something to the lake. (screen fades to white and back)
You can see that I've added a terrace, and flattened the ground by the road. I can now texture the remaining exposed terrain to match what I've done and create a nice little area for pedestrians to walk through. One important thing to note about using these tools is the fact that all the information you just placed onto the map, like the geometry and texture, etc. can be exported and loaded in a different program. I'll show you how to do this.
I select this texture, “terrain_nature_dirt01_rough”, and click on the floppy-disk icon underneath and to the right of the texture browser to export it. As you can see, this is a quick and painless task, and you can save the file wherever you wish, and that was exporting. Now I'll open the texture I just exported in Photoshop to show you what you can do with it. (screen fades to white and back)
So now that I've opened the “blendmap” file I just exported in Photoshop, you can see what it looks like. Where it's white is a mask, and it indicates where the texture is 100% present, while where it is black it is not present, and you can see where it transitions into one or the other. What I've done is created this little heart here, and now I'll save the file like this and open it back up in the editor. (screen fades to white and back)
Now that I've reopened the editor, I can import the file I just created with the folder icon (next to the export button). Simply select your file and hit enter, and now we can immediately see the heart appearing as a dirt stain. We can of course create much more important and useful things than the heart I just made, such as a crop circle, etc. What you do is up to you. The important thing to know is that you can always export, work on, and import any texture.
Well that was it. Hopefully this video on the terrain modifying tools was informative and helpful, and I recommend watching the other videos in this series and have fun implementing what you learn from them.
Spoiler
Audio Transcript for “Video Tutorial World Builder 2014 - Part 4: Polygons”
Hello, my name is Kevin, and I am a level designer for Emergency 5.
In this video I'd like to show you how to use polygons, which you can use to specify areas with water, edit the sounds in a map, block areas off to your emergency vehicles, etc. (screen fades to white and back)
However, before I show you how to create polygons yourselves, I'd like to show you this idyllic lake in our Munich, which is made from various polygons. To do this, go to “Customize” in the top menu, and then select “Preferences”. This menu will allow us to view all of these polygons by selecting the “Show Debug” option in the “Show Polygons” drop-down menu and then hitting “Ok”. As you can now see, the lake is a colorful mess. In this scenario, the green polygon entails sounds, the blue polygon is the water, and the orange polygons, on the buildings for example, block your units. There are a few others, such as this light blue one, which dictates collisions within the game. (screen fades to white and back)
Now that we've seen what polygon is what color, we can immediately get back to finishing this pond in Cologne, which was started in the previous video, as all we really have to do is fill it with water. To do this, hit F6, which opens the “Polygon Tool”. Now we can go to the “Select Type” field and select “Liquid Polygon” from the drop-down menu. Following this, click the button right below it with the square (it will turn from grey to green to indicate it is selected). If we click and drag the mouse within our lake, we can create some water, like this. Just as with the Path Meshes, we can hold the Alt key and insert nodes into our polygon by clicking anywhere along the edge. Also the same, we can move these nodes anywhere we desire by simply clicking on them and moving them to where we would like them to go, which I'll quickly do here, keeping in mind that if we need any additional nodes, we can simply add them as we go along. So, now that we've completely enclosed the pond in our polygon, instead of moving each node up individually, we can just use the “Deselect” button in the “Polygon Tool”, located above the “Property” window. With it off, we can now select the entire polygon and move it up to fill up the whole pond. Now we can see if we need additional nodes to fill in the pond, which it appears we do. This we can do by simply hitting the “Deselect” button again, inserting a node, and dragging it to fill where it is needed. The type of water itself can be changed by deselecting the nodes, clicking on the polygon, and in the “Property” menu, double-clicking on “Material”, searching for “water”, and selecting whatever type we want, such as “pool”. Once this is done, we can immediately see how the water has changed color and become calmer. Now that our water is set to how we'd like it, we still need to edit the water, perhaps even to make emergency events occur in our pond, such as a drowning person. To do this, we need to edit the water itself, so we need to go back up to the “Select Type” field, select “EM5 Water Deep Type”, and again click on the button with the square. Now, we can click and drag to create another polygon atop the water polygon, and move and insert nodes to cover the entirety of the pond. Now that we've done this, we've got a pond that's entirely usable by the game. Now, we can edit the “WaterDeepType” below. In the drop-down menu, you are given three options: “SHALLOW_WATER”, “MEDIUM_DEEP_WATER”, and “DEEP_WATER”. These options allow you to control what types of units may enter this body of water. Respectively, these options entail divers only, divers and small boats only, and any type of aquatic/amphibious unit may use this water, including larger fireboats. In this case, we will select “SHALLOW_WATER”, as there is no reason for any other type in this small pond.
To bring some life into the scene, let's bring some sound to the pond. To do this, create a polygon with the the type “AmbientPolygon” and encase the whole pond with it. It's perfectly fine if it larger than the pond; in fact, it is preferable. To set the sound, deselect the polygon, double-click on “AmbientSoundAsset” and search for water. As a note, when you assign sounds to polygons, they will initially play in an endless loop within the editor, which can get somewhat annoying. To avoid this, I recommend giving the polygon an easy to find name, closing the editor, and reopening your map. This will make all sounds play only one time through as opposed to looping continuously. After you've restarted the editor, again enter the same menu and select “EM5_AMBIENT_WATERFALL_LARGE”. If you move your camera closer to the polygon, you will be able to hear the sound you gave it. You may also change the sound at any time.
In the last section of this tutorial, I'd like to show you how to use “blocking polygons” to block certain areas so your units cannot enter them, or even so that civilians cannot enter these areas. To do this, select a prefab “debug_box” from the prefabs menu and drag it into your scene. Making sure it is visible, select the box, go to “View” and then “Object Properties” (or hit F5). The object properties box in the bottom right-hand corner can now be right-clicked. Once done, hit “Create Component”, and wait for the menu to pop up. Search for “triangle”, and select the option “Triangle Mesh Collision Component”. You can now see and edit the properties for this component in the bottom right-hand corner. Each of these variables is defined in the EM5 Editor Wiki. In this case, the values “3” and “6144” are correct. Now, again create a component, this time searching for “blocker” and selecting “Blocker Polygon”. Now this object can be treated as the other polygons you have made before. Change the polygon type to “Blocker Polygon”, hit the node edit (Deselect) button, and then click on the button to the Deselect button's right that contains an addition symbol. Now, clicking anywhere on the scene window will create a node. I made a box this way, noticing how it is orange. Of course, insert more polygons and move them to create the shape you desire. Once done, deselect the polygon and go back down to the menu in the bottom right-hand corner. Click on the expansion options for the “Triangle Mesh Collision” component, and double-click on the “GroundSpeed” option to select what kind of blocker polygon this will be i.e. allows only airplanes, doesn't allow vehicles, etc. In this case, select “No vehicles”, which means no vehicles, emergency or otherwise, may travel here. Keep in mind, however, that once placed in the map, during gameplay, only allowed units will be able to enter a blocker polygon at all (you will not even be able to click there), no fires may be put out there, and no injured persons may be helped within. Finally, you can delete the “Debug Box” component, as it is now unnecessary (right-click on it in the component menu and hit delete). You may continue to edit the shape of the polygon if you want by simply enabling node edit mode. One other note to make is that it is better to make more, but smaller blocker polygons than fewer, but larger ones. With that, I'd like to end this video, hoping that you've learned about creating and editing various polygons, and I again recommend the rest of the tutorial videos in this series. Thanks for watching!
Hello, my name is Kevin, and I am a level designer for Emergency 5.
In this video I'd like to show you how to use polygons, which you can use to specify areas with water, edit the sounds in a map, block areas off to your emergency vehicles, etc. (screen fades to white and back)
However, before I show you how to create polygons yourselves, I'd like to show you this idyllic lake in our Munich, which is made from various polygons. To do this, go to “Customize” in the top menu, and then select “Preferences”. This menu will allow us to view all of these polygons by selecting the “Show Debug” option in the “Show Polygons” drop-down menu and then hitting “Ok”. As you can now see, the lake is a colorful mess. In this scenario, the green polygon entails sounds, the blue polygon is the water, and the orange polygons, on the buildings for example, block your units. There are a few others, such as this light blue one, which dictates collisions within the game. (screen fades to white and back)
Now that we've seen what polygon is what color, we can immediately get back to finishing this pond in Cologne, which was started in the previous video, as all we really have to do is fill it with water. To do this, hit F6, which opens the “Polygon Tool”. Now we can go to the “Select Type” field and select “Liquid Polygon” from the drop-down menu. Following this, click the button right below it with the square (it will turn from grey to green to indicate it is selected). If we click and drag the mouse within our lake, we can create some water, like this. Just as with the Path Meshes, we can hold the Alt key and insert nodes into our polygon by clicking anywhere along the edge. Also the same, we can move these nodes anywhere we desire by simply clicking on them and moving them to where we would like them to go, which I'll quickly do here, keeping in mind that if we need any additional nodes, we can simply add them as we go along. So, now that we've completely enclosed the pond in our polygon, instead of moving each node up individually, we can just use the “Deselect” button in the “Polygon Tool”, located above the “Property” window. With it off, we can now select the entire polygon and move it up to fill up the whole pond. Now we can see if we need additional nodes to fill in the pond, which it appears we do. This we can do by simply hitting the “Deselect” button again, inserting a node, and dragging it to fill where it is needed. The type of water itself can be changed by deselecting the nodes, clicking on the polygon, and in the “Property” menu, double-clicking on “Material”, searching for “water”, and selecting whatever type we want, such as “pool”. Once this is done, we can immediately see how the water has changed color and become calmer. Now that our water is set to how we'd like it, we still need to edit the water, perhaps even to make emergency events occur in our pond, such as a drowning person. To do this, we need to edit the water itself, so we need to go back up to the “Select Type” field, select “EM5 Water Deep Type”, and again click on the button with the square. Now, we can click and drag to create another polygon atop the water polygon, and move and insert nodes to cover the entirety of the pond. Now that we've done this, we've got a pond that's entirely usable by the game. Now, we can edit the “WaterDeepType” below. In the drop-down menu, you are given three options: “SHALLOW_WATER”, “MEDIUM_DEEP_WATER”, and “DEEP_WATER”. These options allow you to control what types of units may enter this body of water. Respectively, these options entail divers only, divers and small boats only, and any type of aquatic/amphibious unit may use this water, including larger fireboats. In this case, we will select “SHALLOW_WATER”, as there is no reason for any other type in this small pond.
To bring some life into the scene, let's bring some sound to the pond. To do this, create a polygon with the the type “AmbientPolygon” and encase the whole pond with it. It's perfectly fine if it larger than the pond; in fact, it is preferable. To set the sound, deselect the polygon, double-click on “AmbientSoundAsset” and search for water. As a note, when you assign sounds to polygons, they will initially play in an endless loop within the editor, which can get somewhat annoying. To avoid this, I recommend giving the polygon an easy to find name, closing the editor, and reopening your map. This will make all sounds play only one time through as opposed to looping continuously. After you've restarted the editor, again enter the same menu and select “EM5_AMBIENT_WATERFALL_LARGE”. If you move your camera closer to the polygon, you will be able to hear the sound you gave it. You may also change the sound at any time.
In the last section of this tutorial, I'd like to show you how to use “blocking polygons” to block certain areas so your units cannot enter them, or even so that civilians cannot enter these areas. To do this, select a prefab “debug_box” from the prefabs menu and drag it into your scene. Making sure it is visible, select the box, go to “View” and then “Object Properties” (or hit F5). The object properties box in the bottom right-hand corner can now be right-clicked. Once done, hit “Create Component”, and wait for the menu to pop up. Search for “triangle”, and select the option “Triangle Mesh Collision Component”. You can now see and edit the properties for this component in the bottom right-hand corner. Each of these variables is defined in the EM5 Editor Wiki. In this case, the values “3” and “6144” are correct. Now, again create a component, this time searching for “blocker” and selecting “Blocker Polygon”. Now this object can be treated as the other polygons you have made before. Change the polygon type to “Blocker Polygon”, hit the node edit (Deselect) button, and then click on the button to the Deselect button's right that contains an addition symbol. Now, clicking anywhere on the scene window will create a node. I made a box this way, noticing how it is orange. Of course, insert more polygons and move them to create the shape you desire. Once done, deselect the polygon and go back down to the menu in the bottom right-hand corner. Click on the expansion options for the “Triangle Mesh Collision” component, and double-click on the “GroundSpeed” option to select what kind of blocker polygon this will be i.e. allows only airplanes, doesn't allow vehicles, etc. In this case, select “No vehicles”, which means no vehicles, emergency or otherwise, may travel here. Keep in mind, however, that once placed in the map, during gameplay, only allowed units will be able to enter a blocker polygon at all (you will not even be able to click there), no fires may be put out there, and no injured persons may be helped within. Finally, you can delete the “Debug Box” component, as it is now unnecessary (right-click on it in the component menu and hit delete). You may continue to edit the shape of the polygon if you want by simply enabling node edit mode. One other note to make is that it is better to make more, but smaller blocker polygons than fewer, but larger ones. With that, I'd like to end this video, hoping that you've learned about creating and editing various polygons, and I again recommend the rest of the tutorial videos in this series. Thanks for watching!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKtDraOcNC4&index=7&list=PL-4zzm545Th9iPjWyNbrPKZjQgfIxe1Fw
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EDIT: I've been rather busy as of late, and so haven't really had much time to come here nor work on the translations, but I did put the other two I finished a few weeks ago on here. I'm currently still working on the translation for video 5; I'll have it up as soon as I can. I hope what I've done so far has helped someone get started with EM5 modding.
EDIT #2: I finished up the translation for the fifth and sixth tutorials, will have them up soon, and have begun the process for the final one. Hopefully I'll have it finished soon as well.
Edited by Ami89E1234, 12 April 2015 - 09:32 PM.
