SS1: InkyBlackness Fan-Mission Tutorial: Creating a museum (YouTube)

[66346bac1c818dertseha]

This thread is about a new video series I started. The video series describes various capabilities of the engine from the original System Shock, useful for creating fan missions with InkyBlackness.
Here's the playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsU-eX9c7TjJBhnMg_CLImpHGsBKQCCcS

As a further bonus, the series creates a "museum" mission that features rooms dedicated to the various showcased topics. This mission can be downloaded as well, to be used as reference, and for simply running it with the engine
Here's the link to the download: https://github.com/inkyblackness/mod-examples/tree/master/Museum

The first two episodes are already available: How to create an empty archive, as well as basics about tile types & heights.

Right now I've planned ten more topics to cover and I hope to find time for a regular schedule. (...said every entrepreneurial YouTuber ever...  )

[66346bac1ca23dertseha]

Third video is uploaded: InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 03 - Level textures (6 min)

Originally I tried to do this one unscripted, though I proved to myself again that I'm not good at doing ad-hoc commentary while operating the editor. So I needed a second take. I'm now toying with the idea of recording audio and video separately and join in post, instead of recording semi-synchronized and fix in post, for the future.

The mentioned release v0.9.1 is a bug-fix release to the also not posted v0.9.0, which is a usability release. I didn't want to spam yet another release thread for this.
This eat-your-own-dogfood is an awesome approach to identify usability issues

[66346bac1cb95dertseha]

Next video: InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 04 - Level objects (6 min)

This one informs about the basics of level objects and how they are placed in a level. Just like having the room prepared, I'll most likely have the objects prepared for the next videos as well, to concentrate on the features.

From a technical standpoint, I'm getting the hang of it. Better audio quality, as well as time-lapse for the video where appropriate. Now, if I only sounded a bit more enthusiastic in the recording 
Next up: Actions, triggers, and panels.

[66346bac1cccbdertseha]

Next video: InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 05 - Actions (4 min)

4 Minutes to introduce an important topic.
Next up: transportation, which, according to the draft script, will take some more minutes.

[66346bac1ce02dertseha]

Now it's all about transportation: InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 06 - Transportation (5 min)

Through the power of picture-in-picture I could keep the video under 5 minutes

Next topic: cyberspace. I'm not entirely sure whether I can squeeze that one in until next Saturday.

[66346bac1cfb5ZylonBane]

Why don't you post all your InkyBlackness news in a single thread? Having it scattered all over different threads in different subforums seems needlessly confusing.

[66346bac1d12fdertseha]

Yes, this was becoming spam; I had the same thought and created that one tool thread yesterday: https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=9515.0 , in this subforum.
I still would like to separate at least these two threads, one for the tools and this one here for the mod, the museum.

[66346bac1d245dertseha]

Video about cyberspace specialities is up:  InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 07 - Cyberspace (3 min)

The next video will be about barriers, bridges, and doors.

[66346bac1d3f5icemann]

Just had a watch of the current videos up. Very impressive stuff.

I look forward to a video on item/weapon placement, enemies and containers at a later stage (though you do mention weapon placement in the level objects video). I dont recall the walls appearing like that in the main game. By that I mean in them popping into visibility when the player gets closer. Noticed it in a few of the videos.

Glad to see many of my requested features are in also .

I hope to see mods done with this editor someday. Whats available currently is already quite powerful.

[66346bac1d60cdertseha]

Thank you for your feedback

The point of the level objects video was about placing any type of level object, including weapons, because it's the same process for all of them. The video about critters will have some weapon though, because it's dangerous out there to go alone...

Level structure popping in: This is a limitation of the engine, which can render only up to a certain distance! If I recall correctly, turning down the detail in the settings even reduces that distance. Although initially not intended, the museum implicitly shows this limitation in the atrium. In the main game this is barely noticed because of either dark hallways to begin with, or clever usage of doors/bends. Fun fact: single-clicking into this black sea identifies as "inky blackness", which I believe some thought I retro fitted into some early screenshots

The currently planned list of remaining videos is:
- barriers, bridges, and doors
- conditions & game variables (+ SHODAN security)
- health, power, and hazards
- light & darkness
- critters
- puzzles
- electronic messages

with the intention to have this series completed until our meetup end of August, together with version 1.0.0 of the editor.
Thank you for the hint about containers. They don't require special stuff, though it's handy to know how they're usually used in the main game. I'll consider it - All the details are written in the specs document, and I want to have a balance between redundancy and a cold "RTFM".

[66346bac1d875dertseha]

Video about refining the level structure that tiles can not provide: InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 08 - Barriers and bridges (3m) Finally we have doors in the museum

This is accompanied by another minor release update of the package as I come across various usability things while making these videos.
The next topic is probably the most relevant feature for making a game out of all of this: game variables.

[66346bac1da35dertseha]

Here it is:  InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 09 - Conditions and variables (3m 45s)

I struggled a bit to find useful examples, which are simple enough to get ideas, yet also more than just "press button, see thing happen". After all, this variable stuff is all happening in the background. Though, people with level editing experience will hopefully know what to do of it - I guess any game has some sort of "global" state storage.

The next one will be fun: putting hacker through all sorts of hazards to showcase the health system

[66346bac1dbacdertseha]

Next one: InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 10 - Health and hazards (3m)

It's interesting (to me). Game mechanics such as resurrection play an important role during playtime (ignoring savegames for a moment here). Yet, when you deconstruct the technical solution behind it, it feels like ripping out the soul of it and putting the simple pieces on the workbench.
Turning this around, it is amazing how a combination of simple effects can create a rich experience. Pretty much the same as what is often called the "Movie Magic" when making film. I learned a lot from all of this.

Speaking of movies: Lights! are next

[66346bac1dcacicemann]

I assume you have constraints in there to prevent the user from accidentally place 2 resurrection rooms?

[66346bac1e117dertseha]

I assume you have constraints in there to prevent the user from accidentally place 2 resurrection rooms?

The funny thing is: There is no concept of a "resurrection room". All that is happening is a clever combination of a death-trigger and adding health again together with a transportation. I haven't tried it, though I suspect putting several death triggers in a level would simply have the engine execute them one by one. The order might be undefined though.

Thinking about this, if you indeed wanted to have several resurrection chambers in one level, say, per "section" for instance, you could do this. By assigning each corresponding transportation with a condition that checks a certain variable. That variable is then updated whenever the character enters the first tile of a section. (I mean the same trigger type that is used for the transporter for instance; Or for turning off the "online" help when passing the first keypad.)
This way: If character dies in section A, transport to chamber A; If character enters section B, mark chamber B as the new target. and so on.

...or were you after something different? I could create a separate mod-example for this section concept, any ideas for a narrative?

[66346bac1e2abdertseha]

Two more videos:
InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 11 - Light & darkness (2m 40s)
InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 12 - Critters (3m 40s)

The end is nigh. The one major missing feature of the editor for v1.0.0 is the block-puzzle editor. This will be necessary for the next video.
After that it's only the electronic messages and it's a wrap for the museum.
I was pondering whether smaller things like music or surveillance screens should be covered in the museum, yet these are secondary objectives.

[66346bac1e8a6icemann]

The funny thing is: There is no concept of a "resurrection room". All that is happening is a clever combination of a death-trigger and adding health again together with a transportation. I haven't tried it, though I suspect putting several death triggers in a level would simply have the engine execute them one by one. The order might be undefined though.

Thinking about this, if you indeed wanted to have several resurrection chambers in one level, say, per "section" for instance, you could do this. By assigning each corresponding transportation with a condition that checks a certain variable. That variable is then updated whenever the character enters the first tile of a section. (I mean the same trigger type that is used for the transporter for instance; Or for turning off the "online" help when passing the first keypad.)
This way: If character dies in section A, transport to chamber A; If character enters section B, mark chamber B as the new target. and so on.

...or were you after something different? I could create a separate mod-example for this section concept, any ideas for a narrative?

I had a feeling it was something along those lines. Episode 3 of my System Shock UGC for Shadowrun Returns was going to feature the med beds and resurrection rooms, and I had planned to go with something similar of just detecting when player health <= 0 then fading to black, bump their health back and then teleport them to the resurrection room. Glad now that I'd be keeping in feel of the game .

Was more a curiosity question than anything else. As I read both your forum posts and watch the videos on youtube I ask any questions that spring to mind since I've used level editors quite a bit over the decades (Doom, System Shock 2, Unreal and Shadowrun Returns). Each having their own little quirks. The Unreal engine works much like the Dark Engine in some ways. Though with more simplicity and less overall power. If you've used one though, the other is far easier to learn.

Shadowrun Returns is very unlike any of the others I've used (level editors wise) as you have almost complete control over everything, BUT you need to keep detailed notes down somewhere of all the variables (both internal to a map and for an entire UGC) and possible paths for events to occur on a map based on where in the campaign the player is up to. MUCH harder than editing for even SS2. Unlike SS2 though, you get to (to an extent) shape the game the way you want since you have so much power at your disposal IF you know what your doing.

[66346bac1ea3cdertseha]

Here it is: InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 13 - Interactive panels (2m 40s)
It covers keypads, puzzles, and receptacles.

So there's only one more missing: adding logs to the museum.
Similar to the empty archive, I'm also considering to create a "template" set of localized resources (bare-minimum string & audio log resource files). Because up until now, the museum was an archive-only mod. By adding logs, it requires such files as well.

I am also thinking about renaming the videos. Instead of having the project's name in the title, I'd put "System Shock (1994) - ..." Searches don't bring them up so far. Any youtube wisdom here?

[66346bac1ec12dertseha]

...aaaand here's the - for now - final one: InkyBlackness - Modding Tutorial - Creating a museum 14 - Electronic messages (2m 15s)
Apart from releasing v1.0.0 of the editor package in tandem, this one was especially fun to do because of putting my voice & face into the museum Check it out! (Nope, my messages are not in the video, you'll have to install the mod  )

I'd say unless some particular big featureset of the engine demands an extension to the museum, this completes this series. Kind of amazing: In total it's about an hour of crash-course on various engine features.

I am however considering to make a semi-regular series that deconstructs Citadel (the station, not the other fanproject ) to show and discuss how TriOptimum put their station together. Meaning, how various event chains work, which tricks they applied and so forth... I'll see.

[66346bac1ed85baumer]

Great effort, appreciate it!

[66346bac1f100Xkilljoy98]

I know this is an older thread but the UI has since changed on the editor and there are things the video series and the editor documentation doesn't cover. Considering writing my own tutorial, though not sure how well it would turn out