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| 9/14/99 |
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"There are roads between us... I am your tourist." - Underworld Hello Everyone, Colin is currently hiding under his desk, attempting to avoid all interaction with the outside world while he writes up the dialogue for one of our game's most important characters, so I'm afraid you're stuck with me again for the update! After languishing over possible topics ranging from "Gary Oldman, in character JUST when the camera is rolling?" to "Top five items to avoid in the Interplay break room vending machine," I decided to settle on the less inspired "My daily responsibilities as a designer on Planescape." I touched briefly on these in my first update, but hopefully I'll be able to give you a little clearer picture of exactly what I do around here (besides annoy Colin with my "escapist disco.") While Chris, Colin, and Dave M. are busy writing up dialogue for Planescape, a large portion of the placement falls into my lap. Placement basically includes everything from putting critters in the game and telling them what to do and where to go, to creating traps and containers in a particular area. It all starts with a schedule of things to be done that is painstakingly put together by our relentless taskmaster Ken Lee. From that schedule, I determine what area to work on next, and start bugging the original designer for ideas on the area (generally Chris or Colin.) Unless they have something specific they want done in the area, typically I read through all of the characters for a given area to get a feel for what is going on. Then, I start what is known as a Location Placement document, which is an organized set of instructions for the scriptor who will be implementing the area. The information in this document includes every character's and creature's starting point, movement pattern, attack a.i., flags to be set, etc. Also contained within the document are any special instructions that need to be set if a precondition exists when the player enters the area, spawning information, and anything else that cannot be handled by our world editor (explained in a moment.) To plot movement points for characters and creatures, I open a particular area's background and search map (a map that determines where critters can and cannot walk in a given area,) in Photoshop and determine the points by using the X,Y coordinate information given by the program. Instead of making the scriptor go through extra work, often times I can use our world editor to perform some area design tasks as well, including placing containers and traps, enabling triggers, locking doors, etc. All creatures have their own creature files, and if the original designer has not created them for an area, I will then use our creature editor to create them by using hundreds of variants (name, animation, stats, race, inventory, etc.) Once I have the creatures, items, traps, and conditions ironed out for the area, I submit the document to the scriptor assigned to the area, or I script it myself. Generally we split up tasks for the game as taking on multiple roles can be an insurmountable task. Occasionally, however, I'll be a little ahead of schedule and I'll have time to tackle a little bit of scripting for the game. First off, generally an area will have an area script that will cover some of the preconditions and general happenings within an area. Then comes the creature scripting. The first thing that the scriptor will need to determine is whether or not the creature will need to respawn if it is destroyed for some reason (generally from dying.) If they need to be respawned, then their initial assignment is handled via special .ini files for the areas. In most other cases, the creature is placed via the same world editor that I talked about previously for traps and containers. Before they can be placed with the world editor or .ini file, the creatures must have their creature files created and a script, which is written up in the Infinity engine's own scripting language. If you're curious as to what this looks like, here's a sample portion of script that basically tells a creature to attack enemies that are within its sight range: IF THEN END These scripts can either be really small or span several different scripts, depending on what we need the creature to do. Once the creature has a creature file and script(s), they can then be assigned to the area by the world editor or the area's .ini file. Through both the editor and the .ini files, we can determine the starting point and facing of a creature, assign their script, and override information that is initially determined by the creature file (for instance, dialogue is normally assigned by the creature editor, but it can be overridden in the world editor with another assignment.) Once the area is finished, the scripts, creature and area files are all uploaded back into Source Safe so that they are compiled into the next build of our game. So there you have it, a quick look into the daily responsibilities of just ONE Planescape designer. In my next update, I'll detail what I think makes a great computer role playing game. May the funk be with you,
Scott Warner |
| Planescape: Torment & Design: © 1998 Interplay Productions. All Rights Reserved. © 1998 TSR, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Planescape, the Planescape logo, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Torment, the AD&D logo, and the TSR logo are trademarks of TSR, Inc. and are used by Interplay under license. TSR, Inc. is a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast, Inc. Interplay, the Interplay logo, Black Isle Studios and the Black Isle Studios logo are trademarks of Interplay Productions. Exclusively licensed and distributed by Interplay Productions. All other trademarks and copyrights are property of their respective owners. |