Spawning AI's via Editing Scenario

[UntalkativeBunny]

Hey guys

I've pmi'ed some ai's, including the elite, hunter, grunt, jackal, and marines. So i wanted to spawn them normally, so i tried putting them into a ghost just by filling in the actv tag with HHT, but they don't show up... all the Actr and Actv tags are filled in properly, so i attempted by editing the scenario in HHT, so i opened the scrn tag in HHT, went to "itmc" and chose an assault rifle, and changed it to "bipd" "characters/elite/elite"

It worked, I went into sparkedit, duplicated, they looked like the bipeds in the SP maps in sparkedit, but when i join the game, i cannot see them...they don't appear.

Any suggestions?

[OrionWarrior]

Try Lan

[bcnipod]

Try Lan

how would that help?

what i suggest is that you go back and make sure that you put them into the actv of the vehicles. also yes there are two spots on the ghost, but one makes it spawn in the middle of the vehicle i believe. check that.

[UntalkativeBunny]

First of all I always test my mods by creating a LAN game.

Second of all, i'm not doing the "actv" things in the vehicles, if read my thread title and post, i said I am trying to do it by editing the scenario tag.

[Philly]

Make sure they're spawning inside the BSP, and change the scenario referance from [bipd] to [actv], that might work.

[UntalkativeBunny]

actually i made sure that they spawn inside the bsp, by putting them in the air (lol's). and i've tried the actr, actv, and bipd tags. the actr and actv tags gave me an exception, but the bipd didn't, probaly because it doesn't show up.

[Philly]

Hmm...
Try an Item collection.
Keep the assault rifle in the scenario, but change its dependancy from [weap] to [actv].

[UntalkativeBunny]

thats exactly what i did, i changed one "[itmc] weapons/assaultrifle/assaultrifle" to "[bipd] characters/elite/elite"

it works, i go into sparkedit and find it, move it where i want, make sure it's inside the bsp, but it don't show in-game...

btw, as i said in one of my posts, i cannot use actr and actv tags, i can only do bipd because the other two gives me an exception.

[Philly]

No, edit the [itmc] in HHT. Change its weap dependancy.

[Andrew_b]

itmc's dont work with ai...so exception...

you cant spawn actv's by swapping out something in the scenario.

CE->PC is the way to go if you just want it to spawn on the bsp.

[conure]

itmc's dont work with ai...so exception...

you cant spawn actv's by swapping out something in the scenario.

CE->PC is the way to go if you just want it to spawn on the bsp.

Or chunk duplication.

But yes andrew is mainly right in this case.

[Cryticfarm]

Conure and his smart*** ways...

[UntalkativeBunny]

aight

i'm even closer now

i go into the scenario tag in hht, and don't change itmc tags, but i change the "scen" tags. I changesome gigantic rock to "bipd" "characters/cyborg/cyborg". I then go to the Bipd tag, and go to characters/cyborg/cyborg and in "actv", i fill it in with the actor variant tag i've been using.

Now it works. I go into sparkedit, do my thing, play in halo. They show up, u can kill them, BUT: they are a bunch of veggies...the actv tag has a dependancy for the actr tag...maybe theres a broken dependancy somewhere?

[Philly]

They're veggies?

[BOB{MOD}]

mmmmm veggies

[Altimit01]

My thoughts:
All of the methods you're currently using for getting AI's into the map are by replacing tags with either bipds or actvs.

Bipds will produce the character but they won't have AI. You need to have a place that handles the actvs and be able to place those. Which is why you can just use the actv dependency in a vehicle and the bipd appears with AI. Using the dependency for the actv in the bipd won't do the job. There should be a chunk somewhere that's not being used as conure hinted at (maybe a combination use of the actor palette and the encounters reflexives?).

You'll exception trying to place an actv in a spot that uses scen, vehi or weap because all of those tags are of type obje (object). They can be used somewhat interchangeably. Actv has no higher type and will not work with dependencies that expect either type: tag class, object or type: tag class, unit, object.

My $0.02

[Philly]

What abot changing its tag class to [actv] [obje] [yyyy] then? Would that work?

[UntalkativeBunny]

My thoughts:
All of the methods you're currently using for getting AI's into the map are by replacing tags with either bipds or actvs.

Bipds will produce the character but they won't have AI. You need to have a place that handles the actvs and be able to place those. Which is why you can just use the actv dependency in a vehicle and the bipd appears with AI. Using the dependency for the actv in the bipd won't do the job. There should be a chunk somewhere that's not being used as conure hinted at (maybe a combination use of the actor palette and the encounters reflexives?).

You'll exception trying to place an actv in a spot that uses scen, vehi or weap because all of those tags are of type obje (object). They can be used somewhat interchangeably. Actv has no higher type and will not work with dependencies that expect either type: tag class, object or type: tag class, unit, object.

My $0.02

Most informative post i've ever read/seen. Thanks for the help...but where would i find these "chunks"? Are they in extracted meta's xml?

[Altimit01]

Chunk refers to a specific part of a reflexive. Basically tag data works like this:

|----------|
Main data
-----------
-----------
reflexive <- contains an offset that is modified by magic and a chunk count
-----------
-----------
|----------| <- end of the main data that every tag has.

|----------| <- at the offset specified by the reflexive (before the next tag)
-chunk 1-
|----------|
|----------| <- at the offset + size of the chunk
-chunk 2-
|----------|
...
|----------| <- at the offset + size of the chunk * (n-1)
-chunk n-
|----------|

A reflexive is a piece of data that may need to be repeated for some reason (like a weapon's trigger or a vehicles seat). A chunk is a single instance of that data (like the trigger for the charged plasma shot or the gunners seat). I know there's a reflexive for actv's in the scnr, but it's a palette meaning that each chunk only has a dependency and no other data. Palettes are used by other reflexives which reference which dependency they want with an integer (16 bit if I remember correctly). It's quicker that way and uses less space than having lots of dependencies. Vehicles for example work on a palette system which is why if you replace one in the scnr tag with HHT you end up replacing them all. I believe encounters (another reflexive) are probably needed to place those actvs and may or may not require scripting (CE users know?). In either case, the problem is adding chunks to the scnr tag. Well actually, conure wrote something that ought to be able to do that. Although I don't know if it can add chunks when the starting count is zero. Conure?

[Mr.Brightside]

I have an idea.

Duplicate a weapon tag, or use an already existing one.

Null out the 3p model of the weapon, or scale it to where it's a tiny particle.

Swap it out with a health pack, powerup, or any other itmc in HHT.

Go to its tag, click on the tag editor, using Phenomena's 60 plugin pack.

Go to triggers, and select "0". Check these boxes: "Locks in on/off state" and the one that says "Sticks when dropped".

Then, change the rate of fire to a low number, like once every minute, or to your liking.

Now change the "Rounds per shot" to 0.

Go back to the dependency swapper and swap the proj tag with the actv. Or, swap it with a vehicle tag that has a actv spawned.



That should do the trick.