map making help plz

[Tidal Wave]

i started playing this game just this summer, but managed to learn quite alot but wat i wanna learn is how to make a map, the tutorial on wiki didnt help is was complicated can some one help me.

[Z-Man]

The wiki doks are complicated because map making, if you want to understand everything, is complicated. You should try start by taking simple maps and making small modifications to them, that always helps.

[philippeqc]

i started playing this game just this summer, but managed to learn quite alot but wat i wanna learn is how to make a map, the tutorial on wiki didnt help is was complicated can some one help me.

You know there are 2 tutorial, the simple one and the complete one http://wiki.armagetronad.net/index.php?title=Map_Making. Which one did you use?

About helping you, well it usually helps us if you have specific questions.

-ph

[Tidal Wave]

i used both but i keep trying

[philippeqc]

Advices:
-Start easy. Such as making a triangular arena. Then adding a wall somewhere in it.
-Progress at a slow pace. The cycle of "write a little, test a little", as long as you are keeping your creation in a working state, should mean that once something break, it must come from your latest addition. Now it is to you to decide of the size of each addition, but I found out that by keeping it to 1 map element, it greatly reduce my debugging effort, and as a lazy person, I find that a good thing.
-All masters started as apprentices once. If you are anything like the other map makers, your head must be bubbling of really neat map idea. Take a few pieces of paper, and jolt them down so they are preserved beyond the limit of our fragile brains! Good! Now that you have pushed aside a bit of the urge to paint the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, give you the work of the apprentice. Try out the different features. One at a time at first. Then twice at a time. For how long you might ask, well until they flow out of you without you needing to think about. Yes yes, map making doesn't have the grace of martial arts, so maybe that is a tad too much! Practicing each feature until you understand them might be a bit more appropriate.
-Read the error message! When you try a map into the game and it fails to load, the game will give you some error message. Read it carefully, the answer is there! The error message give is where the program gave up as it could not continue, but often the source of the problem is a few steps before. Think of an English teacher circling the capital letter of a word with the comment "Capitals are used on the first word of the sentence or on names", only to find out that you forgot to put a dot to terminate the previous sentence. The error is still true, but only indirectly pointed to the problem. Also, if you start the game from a console instead of clicking on an icon, it might even be easier to read these error message.
-We don't have mind reading powers! We can only help you if you give us indication of your problem.

I hope this helped you

-ph

[Jonathan]

The error message give is where the program gave up as it could not continue, but often the source of the problem is a few steps before. Think of an English teacher circling the capital letter of a word with the comment "Capitals are used on the first word of the sentence or on names", only to find out that you forgot to put a dot to terminate the previous sentence. The error is still true, but only indirectly pointed to the problem.

That's quite literally what you'll often see. Nice explanation.

[QUARG]

i found studying maps made by other ppl very helpful. it is quite easy to see the structure in the xml format. tron maps are made on a cartesian map system. x and y. as for spawns points are the same but the cycle direction is also needed. ex. x0 y1 means that the cycle will go towards ypositive 1 starting at your spawn point.
you can see most of these elements discribed quite well in the wiki. the only thing i am having trouble with is the sumo zones and how to assign multiple zones to each player.

[philippeqc]

the only thing i am having trouble with is the sumo zones and how to assign multiple zones to each player.

In zone v1, sumo and zone handling in general is a bit of a hack. The server will assign you the closest zone(s). There is a setting for the number of zone per team, try changing it to 2. Then try to give a little tilt to the position of a zone to help the engine assign zones that sit on each other to different team. For example, in a regular setup with 2 zones in the middle of the arena, rather than to set both at x=250, y=250, try modulating the appropriate value by +/- 0.01. It is not visible to the player, but the server should have more success assign them. *

In zone v2, well I havent worked on the assignment code yet (or maybe I didnt, kinda hasy what is the status), so you will have to wait.

-ph

*) Very rough explication here: Most such calculation are done in floating point. As the exact decimals can fluctuate during calculation, it is possible to have 2.0*2.0 != 1.0+3.0.