Welcome to the first rev of the Forge FAQ here at Bungie HQ. As the makers of Marathon Infinity and its tools we will be updating this section as additional questions arrive.
Double Ought, the creators of the Marathon Infinity scenario will also shortly be putting up a FAQ section devoted to using our editing tools. A link to their page will shortly be available.
But before we begin:
Hello, Looking in the back of the Infinity manual, it states that info. regarding Forge can be accessed at this site yet I can find no question and answer section regarding it. I cannot get the sounds to work and am thus quite interested in locating it. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
When Forge is in Visual Mode there will be no sounds played nor will aliens appear. The only objects that appear are Scenery Objects, such as lights. However, if you are having a problem with sound not appearing in the game then make sure that your Preferences have been set correctly. Many Sounds depend on the "More Sounds" check box being selected.
I've been picking around the CD-ROM with a sharp dental tool and can't find the tutorial for tricks. And having the brain the size of a jolly rancher.
Due to an error on our part some tutorial files were not included on the final version of the CD. These files will shortly be made available from this site. However, looking at the excellent scenario files is probably a better tutorial than the simple files that would have been included.
I'm trying to create a hole through which the players may fall, land on a platform in the large room below, and be whisked back up to the original room (or higher). The limit on levels sharing the same vertex is making it difficult. Any ideas?
You need a way to 'fool' the engine into letting the player access two separate areas. Refer to the discussion of 5-D spaces in the manual for a partial explanation of how to do this. What has to be done is that two overlapping polygons meet at a shared point. This shared point has to be 'negative space', as discussed in the manual.
How did you (ingenious) guys get those animated chapter screens?
The chapter screens are not animated. The normal screen is 640x480 pixels. If the chapter image is larger in one direction then the image will be scrolled that way. Thus, an image which is 800x480 pixels (heightxwidth) will scroll down 220 pixels.
I've read the book...
I've seen the movie...
But I still can't get a chapter screen with Forge!!
What I do:I merge thee into another folder. Terminal text and Picts show up properly, but no chapter screen.
About the chapter screen:
The problem here is a simple one. A chapter screen has two resolutions. The chapter screen with an ID number of 1500 has to be an 8 bit image, i.e. 250 colors.
Great job !!!! I love the tools and Forge is awesome. I have just one simple question and it might not be easy to answer. Can I or is there a way to edit or add new textures ? I have Strata Pro and would like to add new textures and stuff to the existing palette and I was wondering how would you do it or if its even possible....
This is a job for Anvil... it will let you paste new textures into the Infinity Shapes file.
My maps smear like crazy, and i can't make pillars and I just suck at these maps I need help. where can i go? No wait, where can i find the info?
The smearing is probably due to untextured polygons in the map. In Forge's Visual Mode all untextured surfaces are white. In the game, these appear to have a 'smeared' or mirror like effect. The solution is to texture all white surfaces and, just to make sure, use the 'Pave" command to texture all polygon surfaces on the level - even those you can't see.
I keep walking through the walls, and I cant pick up anything or hit anyone when I shoot. Is there a manual?? please help me.
Yes there is a manual. In the Infinity box there was a large, bound stack of paper. Within its confined there's a manual for Forge ;)
Is it possible trigger lights by a player walking on a poly? Is this with using tags somehow?
Yes. If you use the selection tool to select a polygon its status dialog will contain a drop down menu of polygon attributes. Choose the one that is called "Light on trigger".
How do you trigger lights by a player activating a door? I've got a dark elevator (platform) with a door (platform) for an entrance. When I activate the door, to get into the elevator, I want the lights on the interior polys of the elevator area to flicker, then come on, and then go out after the elevator returns to it's initial position.
Much like the answer to the question above the best solution is probably to make the polygon in front of the door act as a light trigger.
In the merge log, what does this:
"Side 4 control panel is out of range: 0/0 (poly: 2)
NOTE: This IS FATAL!
Side 513 control panel is out of range: 1/0 (poly: 190)
NOTE: This IS FATAL!"
mean?
The control panels in question are terminals, by the way... and the
terminal text file merged just fine... but, no matter how many times i
delete and redraw the terminals, lines, and polygons involved, those error
messages won't go away... when i actually play the merged map, there's no
crash... but i can't access the term... infinity plays the access sound,
but doesn't pop the screen up..
This error message is a result of a terminal not having any text associated with it. This will cause unpredictable results in the game. Side four is the absolute value, i.e. side number on which the terminal appears. Poly 2 identifies this terminal to be within polygon number 2. Use the Goto command within Forge to quickly find this polygon. Clicking on the terminal make sure that its ID number is the same as the ID number in your terminal text file.
Within The Freeware Marathon 2 Editor, there is an option to set transparent walls as solid, so monsters and players don't indiscriminately walk through fences. It worked, and worked well, and I seem to recall some Marathon 2 levels doing much the same thing. Yet I can't find this ability anywhere within Forge, in either the manual, snazzy Quicklime tutorials, or the complete menu list. I even made up some key combos that I thought might work.
Double click on any line to bring up a dialog from within which you can set its attributes.
Forge is great. My question is: can you make a map that uses the Marathon 2 shapes file instead of Marathon Infinity's? When I put the Marathon 2 shapes file in the folder with Forge, I get a type 11 error when I go to View mode. (I have a PowerMac 5260 with 16 mb ram and a minimal extension set on.) Since maps can either be a Marathon Infinity only map, or both a Marathon Infinity and a Marathon 2 map, that seems to imply that the M2 shapes files could be used. Is there any difference in the basic engines? If not, in what way does M2 even relate to Marathon Infinity. I'm confused. can you explain?
Forge looks for certain scenery objects and other images within the Shapes file. This means that the Infinity Shapes file is required. However, a map that is marked as M2 compatible will work with the M2 Shapes file.
Why is it, that ocassionaly, when I define a square to be a transporter to another poly, and I go back and check the relationship, it has defaulted the destination poly to poly 0? I've tried redrawing the polygon to ensure the properties, but it still will not work. Is it a problem with the destination, or the originating transporter?
This appears to be a bug within Forge itself. A workaround is to set the teleporter's destination and not to re-check the teleportation polygon. The teleporter will work correctly.
How come Forge doesn't allow the user to select and move more than one polygon or, for that matter, cut and paste them?
This is a feature which was not implemented within Forge due to the sheer amount of errors it can cause.
I have been playing around with a level I created, but really do not understand how to make my own computer terminal. I mean, I can place the terminal picture in Visual Mode, I just don't understand how to make my own text appear when I tab the terminal when I am playing the game.
Please refer to the Terminals section of the manual for a more in depth answer. In short, When a map is Merged using the Merge command under the File menu the text is integrated into the map file itself. This text has to follow a simple set of rules. This example should help:
; L00 WATERLOOWATERPARK Anything to the right of the ; character is ignored.
The manual explained it somewhat, but I got lost. Would you be able to clear this up for me? Do I use ResEdit to put in the pictures, or just have them in the folder with the level when I merge it?
Use the Terminal Pictures file included with Forge as a basis for placing pictures into. Each picture has to have a unique ID number which is then called by the Terminal Text.
When I design a new level, and go to place textures, the textures that appear at the bottom are different then when I open up, say, Marathon *'s map file. Why is this? Is it because of different shapes files?
It seems as if you're playing with an M2 Shapes file while Forge is using an Infinity Shapes File.