*Sigh...A very Noob question about bc42

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tekk
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*Sigh...A very Noob question about bc42

Post by tekk »

Well I have played with modding, able to mod ssm fairly decent, been playing with it for a few years now...BUT..I have never attempted to make a custom map, I have thru alot of reading, understanding and trial and error got the basics of a map built in bc42. My issue is that I cannot for the life of me figure out how to save the map so that I can find it in its directory....Its like its been saved to a blackhole cause I cannot find it. I figured that maybe it was because I moved the BC folder into my pc root directory previously (that was suggested somewhere) , So basically I have deleted all of bc42 , searched and found another copy of bc 2.1 and will install it to its default location and rebuild the map. The map was not a big loss since I spent most of the day exploring and understanding the functions of bc since I only ever used it for x/y/z.

Anyways , Can someone please give this nOOb a few pointers in creating a small level ( Maybe tips that aint included in the tut ) , and tips on how to save the map ( Def not in the tuts ) so that I can find it and test it out ( Does it save in a .rfa format ? ) , I have searched this site, the ssm.com site and the internets for this answer with no luck.

Thanks

PS...How come bc42 2.1 is not in the downloads section? I know it comes with the game but for nOObs like me who mess it up and need to reinstall it would be sweet to have your new fav place to get it from.
Nodbrother- "getting whiped every single game by some over-active 9 year old kid with too much spare time and a reaction time that is a third of yours."
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Senshi
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Re: *Sigh...A very Noob question about bc42

Post by Senshi »

Battlecraft saves maps as .rfa format right into your Battlefield game folders.

E.g. if you make a map for Vanilla, you'll find the map in "X:\...\Battlefield 1942\mods\bf1942\archives\bf1942\levels\YOURMAP.rfa"
If it's a map for Road to Rome, its "X:\...Battlefield 1942\mods\XPack1\bf1942\archives\bf1942\levels\YOURMAP.rfa
If it's for Secret weapons, it's "Xpack2", I think you get the drift.

EDIT: If you really messed up the directories somehow, you can check the bf1942.cfg in your Battlecraft folder, open it with Notepad or Wordpad. The intersting part is right in the top:

Code: Select all

[Editor Paths]
GamePath=G:\Battlefield 1942\
//	custom mod files go here:
ModsPath=Mods\bf1942\
//	objects are read from here
ObjectsPath=Mods\bf1942\objects\
//	SMs are read from here
StandardMeshPath=Mods\bf1942\standardMesh\
//	TMs are read from here
TreeMeshPath=Mods\bf1942\treeMesh\
//	textures are read from here
TexturePath=Mods\bf1942\texture\
//	Object list
ObjectsList=bf1942.lst

OpenMODArchive=Mods\bf1942\Archives\StandardMesh_001.rfa
OpenMODArchive=Mods\bf1942\Archives\texture_001.rfa
the only thing you actually have to check is the very first line saying "GamePath", this obviously has to point to where you installed the game :) .
tekk
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Re: *Sigh...A very Noob question about bc42

Post by tekk »

Thanks for the reply, I remember back in the day that it did save to that location but I think that because I moved the BC folder to my HD root directory that it messed it up somewhere cause I checked all my bf folders and nothing was there. I have bc installed to its default location (pointed at my bf folder copy) and will try this out again.

Another question thou, whats the better program to use on a pc that is not done up to the nines with the newest gear, ed42 or bc42?
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Senshi
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Re: *Sigh...A very Noob question about bc42

Post by Senshi »

No difference in perfomance (in my experience), but they have different strengths. BC42 is better for object placement (IMO) while Ed42 is undeniable the best in terraforming and texture editing.
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Iced Earth
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Re: *Sigh...A very Noob question about bc42

Post by Iced Earth »

tekk wrote: Anyways , Can someone please give this nOOb a few pointers in creating a small level ( Maybe tips that aint included in the tut ) , and tips on how to save the map ( Def not in the tuts ) so that I can find it and test it out ( Does it save in a .rfa format ? ) , I have searched this site, the ssm.com site and the internets for this answer with no luck.

Yeah...but it would help if you had specific questions! To answer your one question: It should save in your levels folder silly.

General tips:

Make a backup (just copy it) every day. If you do a LOT of stuff in one day, make a backup every few hours, AND before any critical changes (shadows).

Not sure how it will look in-game? Go see! Test it and see if placement looks good.


Senshi wrote:No difference in perfomance (in my experience), but they have different strengths. BC42 is better for object placement (IMO) while Ed42 is undeniable the best in terraforming and texture editing.

Thank you. I'm tired of people simply saying "Ed42 is better". Oh really? Okay, generate shadows in it for my map. Or show me what I'm going to place before I select it. Oh wait you can't!

I use battlecraft for everything except textures. Ed42 wins hands-down. Battlecraft textures vs. Ed42 is like comparing finger painting to picasso. Believe it or not I like and use BC for doing terrain...I know all the tricks and how to use it well so it works for me.
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Apache Thunder
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Re: *Sigh...A very Noob question about bc42

Post by Apache Thunder »

Editor42 and BC each have their uses. I rarely touch BC42. It likes to skull f*** my RFA files. One reason why I don't use it. :P

It also leaves it's bull**** in the vanilla init.con file that I have to remove later on my own cause it's too dam stupid to remove it itself. So besure that when you make terrain shadows/object shadows that you remove the crap BC does to your vanilla BF1942 init.con file or else you will get MD5Tool kicks from servers and unstable gameplay in vanilla BF1942.

However I did use it recently to made terrain shadows. Not for the textures as they didn't come out right (and the annoying ass tendency for BC to have to redo the surface maps despite there already being ground textures) but for the lightmapshadowbits file.

So BC is great if you need to make maps from scratch and stuff, but for some things I prefer Ed42.
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tekk
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Re: *Sigh...A very Noob question about bc42

Post by tekk »

Well ive given up trying with BC, it crashes everytime i try generate surface maps, and it saves my rfa to some location that took my pc 30 min to find on a file search, anyone familiar with why its saved to this location? ( C:/Users/Tekk/AppData/Local/VirtualStore/Program Files/EA Games/Battlefield 1942/Mods/The_Maze/Archives ). I try follow the file tree but there is no AppData to find and WTF would there be a VirtualStore location in the tree? Is this another vista goof or user goof (nOObie mE ) ?
Apache Thunder wrote:Editor42 and BC each have their uses. I rarely touch BC42. It likes to skull f*** my RFA files. One reason why I don't use it. :P

It also leaves it's bull**** in the vanilla init.con file that I have to remove later on my own cause it's too dam stupid to remove it itself. So besure that when you make terrain shadows/object shadows that you remove the crap BC does to your vanilla BF1942 init.con file or else you will get MD5Tool kicks from servers and unstable gameplay in vanilla BF1942.

However I did use it recently to made terrain shadows. Not for the textures as they didn't come out right (and the annoying ass tendency for BC to have to redo the surface maps despite there already being ground textures) but for the lightmapshadowbits file.

So BC is great if you need to make maps from scratch and stuff, but for some things I prefer Ed42.
So with BC atleast it has a few simple tuts to work from but ED42 doesnt , Any chance on a small quick instruction on creating a new level and saving it? Everything else I could eventually figure out, thanks
Nodbrother- "getting whiped every single game by some over-active 9 year old kid with too much spare time and a reaction time that is a third of yours."
tekk
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Re: *Sigh...A very Noob question about bc42

Post by tekk »

Well I have worked thru getting ed42 to make the start of a map with terrain and texture. I want to use BC to do all the object placements and spawn points but when I go to pack it in a rfa I get another error of course. Anyone familiar with this type of error?

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Nodbrother- "getting whiped every single game by some over-active 9 year old kid with too much spare time and a reaction time that is a third of yours."
tekk
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Re: *Sigh...A very Noob question about bc42

Post by tekk »

I have googled this, searched forums but still cant get ed42 to pack without this error. I know I have alot of lil questions that may seem small to you but Im running into alot of errors using Vista, never had these issues with XP, any help is more than appreciated,thanks
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Senshi
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Re: *Sigh...A very Noob question about bc42

Post by Senshi »

I didn't know Editor 42 packs .rfa files? I use Ed42 to edit my files, then pack the files manually via WinRFA or debugger shortcut...
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