Base Building Prefab Kit

[j0g32]

Hi guys,

While discussing a potential development of RenX towards RTS mode, the idea of using a grid for base building stuck with me. @Schmitzenbergh's feedback on my project C&C Hammerfest was very inspiring. Finally, I got hit by nostalgia of designing levels, outposts and bases for Battlefield 2 / 2142. I guess, this is how I eventually ended up with this idea of a "Base Building Prefab Kit" ...

The goal was an easy system which allows to add a more modern military look and more function to the box-standard team bases. In particular, I wanted to make it more attractive and easier for infantry to defend their base.
I started with the 3 basic wall systems in C&C Tiberian Dawn: sandbags, chainlink fence, concrete walls. Every element takes 512x512 UT units, i.e. they perfectly align with the 512 grid. Therefore the "sandbags" (or the modern equivalent HESCO barriers) with the grid walkway were adjusted such that infantry is covered when crouching, but can engage when standing. The same walkways were also placed behind the concrete walls and they already align with the thickness of the walls on the top. The sandbags in between the gaps give a more defensive look - moreover, they perfectly smooth the transition between concrete wall and the bunker.

To be honest, I never really liked the bunkers in Renegade (X): they do not provide additional cover, quite the contrary, as shells cause splash damage when hitting the interior, they have become a death trap. That's why I added some sandbags and the quad cannons in the "windows" - unfortunately, those are just skeletal meshes, but I hoped that it might be possible to dig out the fully functioning ones from Black Dawn. With the rocket emplacement on top, a bunker would now be a very nasty defensive position.

Another addition are fully functioning automatic gates (kismet & sound). The cool thing is, once I fiddled with the proper scaling of the individual static meshes, such as hesco barriers, or the grid-walkways, it was very easy to combine them and create e.g. trenches or helipads.

In the background you can also see a mock-up construction yard - I was thinking of adding a kismet animation for the crane.

Within minutes you can build forward outposts like this one, which provide strategic value on the battlefield - maybe one could use the capturable MCT-mechanics to spawn vehicles or gun emplacements:

And finally another motivation was to balance the style of the stock RenX buildings, e.g. you can only see sandbags (a somewhat temporary defence) on Barracks and Airstrip, and some flying buildings. In line with the idea that in bases in command and conquer are built on the go, I wanted to create some deco prefabs for all buildings, to give a more in-field / outpost-like feeling. This might also add to gameplay, for example some cover next to the doors (sneak & defence), or additional beacon hiding options.

 

So yeah, the final goal is to save all those elements as prefabs (just like the current buildings) so that they can be used in a similarly easy fashion across different levels. I did not yet upload anything, because I was not sure how to split the elements, e.g. the walkways and the sandbags on top of the concrete walls could be saved as separate prefabs...

Another problem is that the prefab pivot stays in the centre of all objects. For the grid-usage of the kit it would be better to set the pivot to align with the grid. Especially when loading a Prefab into the level it is usually completely off...

Does anyone know how to adjust the prefab pivot / spawn location?

I know that I am not re-inventing the wheel here, I just thought it might come in handy.
So, please, feel free to give your feedback on this idea of a prefab building kit.
What items would you like to have in such a kit? Or do you think it is completely unnecessary endeavour?

cheers
j0g32

[Ruud033]

28 minutes ago, j0g32 said:

Does anyone know how to adjust the prefab pivot / spawn location?

I know that I am not re-inventing the wheel here, I just thought it might come in handy.
So, please, feel free to give your feedback on this idea of a prefab building kit.
What items would you like to have in such a kit? Or do you think it is completely unnecessary endeavour?

cheers
j0g32

Dude, you have done a great job! Kudo's to you!

I very much like what you've done here. To answer your question: the pivot of the prefab will be saved to the last object you have selected before you create the prefab. So if that'd be an object aligned to the grid, the whole prefab will also be aligned with it's a prefab.

As for the feedback:

• I'd like to see helipads without the sandbags (in real life the amount of wind produced by the helicopter blades would blast the sand away inside. It feels a bit unnatural.. but thats just a personal thing.
• Maybe you can add a bunker with a gun emplacement inside on just the right height? 
• What about a fully functioning tech-building-silo with all kinds of extra's in your level? (rather than the static mesh)
• Same for the Communications center?
• And some watchtowers for ppl to get in to ? (custom made ones rather than the static mesh there)
• Some tank-barrier/barbed wire setups
• Radar domes with all kinds of extras 

Hope that helped.
Keep up the awesome work.

[Schmitzenbergh]

I did something to inspire people  (Feeling special)
This is impressive and will make creating interesting bases so much easier (Might use it for something soon when released :p). 9001 internets for you!
People can always strip down or add stuff to the prefabs to make them more unique, so good job.

My personal wish list:

• Under construction base buildings (I mean, maybe the setting is that GDI is attacking the nod base so they can't build a Temple or Obbi?);
• Searchlights like the Tiberian Sun ones (Y'know, these ones , doable by BSP?);
• Some civilian activity like in CNC-tunnels (The woodcutting area) or an excavation site;
• Trainrails + tunnel entrances (Doable by BSP?);
• Alternative purchase terminal maps for snowy, tropical or forest terrains. (Trainingyard and Fort have them I think?)

Anyway, some of these might be a bit to hard, but do as you please. I already like these a lot!

Keep 'm comin!

 

[j0g32]

Thanks for your feedback and input guys!

On ‎08‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 5:53 PM, Ruud033 said:

I very much like what you've done here. To answer your question: the pivot of the prefab will be saved to the last object you have selected before you create the prefab. So if that'd be an object aligned to the grid, the whole prefab will also be aligned with it's a prefab.

It seemed to me that it just took the middle of the selection - might have been a coincidence. I will have to work out how to do the pivoting properly, as some of the elements might not have an actor on the grid. I know that if you use groups, you can set the pre-pivot to snap with the grid, which I found really helpful when rotating the fences. Along similar lines I was thinking if it was possible to save this pivot in a snapped position, kind of...

I will definitely consider some of your suggestions, but as Schmitzenbergh said:

On ‎08‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 9:42 PM, Schmitzenbergh said:

People can always strip down or add stuff to the prefabs to make them more unique, so good job.

 

So, if you feel that the sandbags/barriers around the helipad look stupid, feel free to disassemble it. I was thinking of these landing pads in Bad Company 2 - Vietnam:

In general, I wanted to take some references from the Battlefield series (tank shelters, barracks, supplies etc.) and how their "static" buildings still give you a feeling of "belonging" to a home base...

 

From what I have experienced, gun emplacements can hardly be usable when they are placed inside a building, e.g. the smaller watchtowers, as their angle of fire is very confined and might just hit the walls. Yet, this may be desired by the level designer.
I literally just got the idea of stationary artillery/turret emplacements, i.e. placing GDI/Nod vehicles in a boxed-in position, surrounded by some walls or sth. like this:

let's see  

 

But for now, I will focus on rather simple things, (made of existing assets), which might have more use across levels, such as watchtowers (somewhere between TD and TS ;-) ), lightposts, radar domes, tech buildings, and maybe building construction sites...

 

My take on watchtowers:

Similar to your map C&C Arctic Stronghold, I would like to set up the searchlights to be moving in an arc...

edit: would be cool to have a detection/tracking system that rings the classic whoop whoop sound when an enemy is spotted^^. It might be possible to have the light cone target enemies, if you code it similar to a gun emplacement. In fact, I was playing around with this watchtower for C&C Reborn back in the old days...  

 

Cheers

 

Edited October 11, 2016 by j0g32

[j0g32]

update: radar dome prefab draft

[Madkill40]

Am I right in thinking the boxes are more like placeholders for anything else wall-related?

[j0g32]

7 hours ago, Madkill40 said:

Am I right in thinking the boxes are more like placeholders for anything else wall-related?

Not necessarily. I was using the RenX HESCO Barriers, which are the modern equivalent to sandbags: you unfold the grid-supported bag and fill it with sand/dirt from the top. This allows to build entire structures within minutes.

[Madkill40]

I always think they're just crates and not full of sand

[Handepsilon]

Everything looks great and awesome, but I can't help but notice that you put low video settings on the SDK there so I can't really see the full graphical potential of those stuff. And the sand boxes look like crates probably due to this...

That or you put SkyLight instead of DominantDirectionalLight

[j0g32]

Yeah, the specular map might need some work to make it look more sandy

 

Yep, I am using the SDK on my private uni/office notebook, and I am glad that it works at all - although with lowest settings.

That's partly the reason why I wanted to do something where graphics-power is not that essential, i.e. playing around with assets

 

 

 

[Ruud033]

Hey dude, so when are you going to release this first version?

[j0g32]

On ‎24‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 8:55 PM, Ruud033 said:

Hey dude, so when are you going to release this first version?

Sorry, I had some issues with some cross-references and my package didn't save properly - and I lost some of the bits >.< ...
Will try again - now with the latest SDK.

[j0g32]

Hi guys,

Sorry for the wait - was busy with life, and I also experienced a lot of minor crashes such that my prefab kit was mostly not saved...

Yet, I finally figured out how to set up the prefabs properly for a modular grid use:

1) if you previously grouped all items which will become a prefab, select all and ungroup them - I think otherwise it might not save the PrePivot properly.

2) ensure the grid is set (512 in my case)

3) right-click on one of the objects, closest to the grid point and select "Pivot > Move here (snapped)", then "Pivot > "Save Pivot to PrePivot"

4) right-click and select "Create Prefab..."

The origin of this prefab, the  [P] sign, will now be the grid point, rather than the pivot of the item that was selected the last. This is important for rotating and aligning different prefabs, especially those, where a centre-object on the grid is missing, such as 2-element fences.

 

When loading prefabs into the level, the origin usually never aligns with the grid - instead one can right-click: "Transform > Snap Origin to Grid".

However, for the WatchTower, this "snapping to grid" caused the searchlight components (staticmesh/mover light, movable spotlight, lightcone) to be torn apart. They were hard attached to each other, but eventually to the searchlight-base, which is the only part that is rotating via Kismet - the rotation works fine otherwise.

 

Once I find a solution/workaround for this issue, I can eventually finalise the kit.

Although it may seem like a small thing, having an easy grid snap alignment was the main intended feature of a BaseBuilding PrefabKit.

cheers

Edited November 15, 2016 by j0g32

[j0g32]

Sorry for the wait, life is busy, and it took my way longer than anticipated to polish only the first iteration of the kit...

As my major motivation was to have an easy to use kit with grid-snap, I had to test that it actually works properly - and was thrown back by saving errors, cross references, misalignment with Matinee sequences, snapping offsets, etc.

But finally here it is:

 

How to install:

- copy the package into [- your RenegadeX SDK folder -]\UDKGame\Content\RenX\Environments and delete the date prefix, i.e. rename it to RX_BaseBuilding_PrefabKit.upk

- restart/load the editor, the package should show up under Environment

 

How to use and align Prefabs with 512-grid:

- Drag and drop a Prefab from the content browser into your map

- Select grid snap 256 (the pivot is in the middle of most prefabs) when snapping new Prefabs onto the grid

- Rightclick on the placed Prefab and select "Transform > Snap Origin to Grid" (make sure you select 256 grid for snapping)

- switch to 512-grid snap when moving Prefabs

 

Notes:

- the actual Prefabs do not contain the concrete bases as shown on the thumbnails, these are only for scale

- these are only prefabs, you can change individual objects to your liking

- some prefabs already contain ladder-volumes, which have to be altered when the prefab is rotated

=> Use  "View > Lock Prefabs from Selection" to access individual objects of a Prefab

- some Prefabs contain Matinee sequences (Watchtower and Gate), so UDK may display an error when deleting one of these Prefabs from your level.

- edit: the gates are in the ground and appear at the start of the level, to avoid blocking pathfinding.

- bunkers and shelters use a custom material instance (adapted to the wall texture)

 

For now, I will leave it as it is and try to use it for Hammerfest, finally...

 

Let me know what you think and if it works for you.

Happy Base Building, everyone

 

2016-12-08_RX_BaseBuilding_PrefabKit.upk

Edited December 8, 2016 by j0g32

[TK0104]

@j0g32Missing some objects:

Edited December 8, 2016 by ThommyK0104

[j0g32]

14 minutes ago, ThommyK0104 said:

@j0g32Missing some objects

Thanks for your feedback @ThommyK0104

Yes, these objects where older versions of the watchtower, which I tried to delete (force) - yet, without success, so I moved them into another package *hackz* Should work without them though...

Can you load the Watchtower_v3 ?

What is wrong with the Helipad?

Did you enable StaticDecals ingame?

[Handepsilon]

10 hours ago, j0g32 said:

How to install:

- copy the package into [- your RenegadeX SDK folder -]\UDKGame\Content\RenX\Environments and delete the date prefix, i.e. rename it to RX_BaseBuilding_PrefabKit.upk

- restart/load the editor, the package should show up under Environment

....

2016-12-08_RX_BaseBuilding_PrefabKit.upk

I'd rather zip it into file and name the version there, as well as set up the directory so all the modders/mappers do is just extract it in SDK root directory. Also, sometimes my download software is uncooperative with alien file extension

[j0g32]

13 hours ago, Handepsilon said:

I'd rather zip it into file and name the version there, as well as set up the directory so all the modders/mappers do is just extract it in SDK root directory. Also, sometimes my download software is uncooperative with alien file extension

Thanks, that's a good idea!

[Madkill40]

If this turns out really functional and efficient in practice within the UDK then this map need to be generally patched into RenX to improve loadtimes

[Madkill40]

Could you edit prefab shelter to not have the fence, making it double as a Prefab_GDI_Shelter_Passage

[Ruud033]

Hey I just downloaded this today and it looks really good ! It's a nice addition to the game and developers to quickly build stuff so really good job there!

I took a look at some particular actors, especially the ones with kismet since they can cause some struggle on multiplayer ( trust me, i know all about it )
So here's some feedback your awesome stuff;

1. The gate kismet

Spoiler

 

So here's what your current setup looks like; http://prntscr.com/dpajhk
I would suggest to remove the toggles, and have a soundcue inside of the matinee for a 100% sync in multiplayer. You can use the existing WF soundcue's.

To do this;

1.

2.

3.

Now you have your sound embedded.

Your kismet can look like this;

this'll save up instructions and thus performance. Keep in mind that the playrate is at 0,8 right now, so the 2 seconds you have set for the animation aren't exactly 2 seconds at the moment.

Personally I'd also pick an opening and closing sound out of www.freesound.org rather than using the WF sound.. Lots of great stuff there. You can match the length with free programs such as Audacity. Or if you don't want the sound to be different or if you're satisfied with the way it is now, you can just leave it to be. (just to be sure i'll ask our sound FX specialist to get some more sound effects for this)

 

2. The searchlight

Spoiler

 

What I'd do is hard attach every actor to 1 main actor that you're going to animate, else you're gonna have to enter rotation rates for every single actor you wish to rotate/ do stuff. This is basically how the code works too. You carry a weapon, the weapon is a separate mesh, you hard attach it to an actor, now it moves with it and you have the illusion of carrying it.

I already did this in Arctic Stronghold, you can take a look at it for examples. A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE HERE and thus in capitals is that you HAVE to animate the light itself seperate, (It will seem to work if you hard attach it as well, but the log of the server gets spammed a shit tonne, we encountered this issue in the past where we had to reboot servers frequently due to this).To hard attach the actors, you have to follow some steps, this will allow you to have 1 animated actor for the meshes entirely.

Example;

Spoiler

 

 

The rest, namely;

• The light housing
• The lens flare
• Other random meshes you wish to attach

Can be hard attached to the base. I chose to attach it to the base because the pivot of the base is exactly at the rotation point, thus easy to animate.

Do the following things in this order;

1. Select the actors you wish to hardattach to the base actor
2. Lock the properties window
3. Select the hard attach checkbox to be true in the 'attachment' bar
4. With the locked properties window on the side, go ahead and select the base actor
5. Insert the base actor at the green arrow
6. Done

 

That's about it! Keep building more of these assets and it'll really profit the game. 

[j0g32]

On Wed Dec 28 2016 at 0:54 AM, Madkill40 said:

Could you edit prefab shelter to not have the fence, making it double as a Prefab_GDI_Shelter_Passage

Yes, good idea - actually I could delete the fences entirely, as they should already snap with the regular fences-prefabs...

Also, the collision for the tunnel is only one sided - needs some more fixing.

 

 

@Ruud033 thanks for the detailed help!

Haven't checked any multiplayer functionality yet.

Hmmm... I have already tried to use hard attach, but when placing the Prefabs and aligning  them to the grid, the hard-attached objects were offset...(See earlier post)

 

Don't know when I find the time to update the kit...

[Ruud033]

4 hours ago, j0g32 said:

Hmmm... I have already tried to use hard attach, but when placing the Prefabs and aligning  them to the grid, the hard-attached objects were offset...(See earlier post)

Aha, yes this might be an issue. Didnt think of this before. I think this is because you probably have aligned them to different grids (2, 4, 8?) 

[Madkill40]

Could you put this under 'Tools' in the download section?