Tutorial Wishlist?, Specifically regarding custom RCT2 scenery Options

[lucas92 View Member Profile]

You could always just do what I did... teach yourself. wink.gif There wasn't anyone around to tell us how to do it.

MidwestBoyInLA

True, but it would be easier and faster to learn with some master's tricks.

[MidwestBoyInLA View Member Profile]

The problem for people who are self-taught like me is that we don't really think about it in terms of "ok, now how would I explain it to others?"

I've been doing graphic design since high school (I'm now 35) and web design for over 10 years professionally. I have a hard time putting into words the creative process that comes naturally to me.

The mechanics of the Object Editor are pretty easy to explain. To get it to do A, B, C, you need to do X, Y, Z... and then trick it by doing L, M, N, O. P. (Seriously, sometimes it's like that). But what goes into making good art to build into objects is a much more difficult thing, and more often than not, that's what people are asking for help with.

So for us to teach people how to do it isn't always easy from many angles.

[Havingfun View Member Profile]

I have to agree with MidwestBoyInLA. Its easy for me to make objects, But I dont know how to explain it to others where it makes scents to them. I have tryed & all they say is HUH?? lol... I just opened the oblect editor, Found the kind of object I wanted to make and sorta copied it with my design & texture at first. Now I can make them first and then put them into the object editor & the rest is history. The best thing is to just take the object editor for a test drive & see if anything comes to mind naturally. Its the way my mind works. Good luck & have fun with it.

~Havingfun~

[K0NG View Member Profile]

The mechanics of the Object Editor are pretty easy to explain. To get it to do A, B, C, you need to do X, Y, Z... and then trick it by doing L, M, N, O. P. (Seriously, sometimes it's like that). But what goes into making good art to build into objects is a much more difficult thing, and more often than not, that's what people are asking for help with.

That's more of the tutorial that I, personally, am looking for. I can handle doing the artwork, it's just getting A,B,C to do X,Y,Z and tricking it by.......that I'm lost with.

If I knew what I'd have to do to get THAT to happen, I'd know what KIND of artwork I need in the first place.

I've tried pulling animated .dats into the OE to see what makes them tick......but, all I seem to be able to figure out is that there are 7 parts to the animation and that the 1st is the start of the second loop. Same as a gif.

What I need to know is....let's say I have the 7 animation BMPs ready and have possibly even already made them into a GIF.....what then? how do I get it into the OE and get it to function as an animation?

I guess what I'm asking for is more of a tutorial on how to get the OE to do certain things WITH the artwork that I have. Except that with not knowing what the process is to animate something in the OE....I'm not even sure what I need to create as far as the artwork itself. I can animate a gif and get it looking good...just not sure how to 'import' that into the OE and make it work as a .dat.

[MidwestBoyInLA View Member Profile]

And in order to answer your question, I'd need to see the artwork you already have and are trying to make work. The animation process is VERY intricate. animation can have any # of frames - that's up to you.

So really quickly...

Whenever making animated objects, bear in mind: The first frame (#0) is what shows up in the menu. That frame is not actually part of the animation sequence in-game. Frame #s start with 0 since this uses a binary programming language.

Also, when making animated objects you have to have a minimum of 2 frames (Frame #0 is the menu view and then Frame #1 would be the first actual frame of animation.) If you only have a total of 2 frames, then the animation just "loops" through and thus only shows the 1 frame... so nothing would really be "animated."

You can have as many frames as you like. What actually puts the animation timing together is the Animation Sequence Editor (the button that looks like gears).

You start out with one frame and can add more, but each time you ad frames it does so exponentially (it actually doubles). You start with one frame. If you add frames, you get two. If you add more frames, you get four. If you add more you get eight. So on and so on:

1 (x2) = 2 (x2) = 4 (x2)= 8 (x2) = 16 (x2) = 32 (x2) = 64 (x2) = 128 and so on...

So any time you plan an animation sequence, it helps to know how many frames in the sequence you're going to need to make a smooth animation. Try not to build an animation that's 7 frames long. There's some tricks to get around that, but since you can't change the actual # of frames in the sequence, you end up creating an illusion to do so.

If you post your object artwork (or send it to me at homeoffice@rctmart.com), I'll show you how to animate it as the tutorial on animating objects.

[K0NG View Member Profile]

Ok...

I'm sort of getting that.......

Here's the thing.....I'm using "1KWAF28" (hence the 7 parts) as my reference here.... and, after reading your reply..... I DO see that there's maybe only 3 actual 'frames" that are repeated....

But, when I open that in the OE...I don't see the "gears"in the menu...which I'm assuming you only can access when creating a new object (I'm using OE v1.20...because I know you have issues with 1.23)...so, dissecting that...to ME at least..............uhhhhh...........grrrr

LOL...ok, I'm seeing now how hard it might be to explain things in text.

How about we dissect that particular object......"1KWAF28" and figure out how that works....for a starting point?

[MidwestBoyInLA View Member Profile]

Ok. That will work. The only thing is I'm not quite ready to start a full tutorial on animated objects. Let me finish a few things up first. But we will do that.

[MidwestBoyInLA View Member Profile]

Hey K0NG.. I went to look at 1KWAF28.DAT tonight and I don't have it... so it must be a custom piece of scenery someone else made. Can you either send it to me or find a similar object that's default RCT2, WW or TT that we can use instead?

[lucas92 View Member Profile]

It's a scenery object made by Kumba. I don't have this object too. Maybe ask him at New Elements.

LINK: http://www.nedesigns.com/

[K0NG View Member Profile]

Hey K0NG.. I went to look at 1KWAF28.DAT tonight and I don't have it... so it must be a custom piece of scenery someone else made. Can you either send it to me or find a similar object that's default RCT2, WW or TT that we can use instead?

Actually...it's just a 16 pixel waterfall but, it's zero clearanced so it MIGHT not really be the best piece to work with. It's just the one I use most often.

I was thinking about sending two objects...one that runs vertical and one that runs horizontally....kind of killing two birds with one stone....

After the 'fiasco' on the "Summit Falls" entry, I went completely vanilla+custom objects with my RCT2 now so.....I have no TT or WW available anymore. Let me know where to send the objects and I will do ASAP.