Tutorial for creating vertices for traps and containers?

[pete_smith1229]

I've started looking into creating new traps and containers for various areas. But when I enter the coordinates of the vertices which are clearly within the map constraints of the area, for whatever reason, the coordinates warp to some other values. Clearly I'm doing some wrong. I noticed various parameters for coordinates but I'm not exactly sure what they all mean. Here are the parameters I noticed using NI:

Location X
Location Y
...
Bounding Box Left
Bounding Box Top
Bounding Box Right
Bounding Box Bottom
...
First vertex index
...
Vertex X:0 Y:0
...

I assume that:

- The vertex are simply the XY coordinates of a pixel on the map.

- The bounding box is the min/max coordinates of the X and Y direction (i.e. Left = Xmin; Right = Xmax; Top = Ymin; Bottom = Ymax)

So what are the "Location" and "First vertex index"? I've seen the first vertex index with a value like 149 even though there were only ~70 vertices in total...

[lynx]

Location is the position of the container. Think of it as the centroid, though it doesn't have to be. In fact, it can be outside the bounding box.

Vertex coordinates are normal coordinates, yes.

"First vertex index" I never had to set before. It should be the index into the areas vertex region of the format, where all of them are bunched up (that's why you can get oddly high numbers). https://gibberlings3.github.io/iesdp/file_formats/ie_formats/are_v1.htm

Bounding box aliases look fine as well.

[pete_smith1229]

@lynx Thanks for the info and for confirming my assumptions!

I'm still not quite sure why the vertices tend to change to other numbers but I'll continue to play around.

[jmerry]

If you're looking to add a structure like this in WeiDU, you'll use the fj_are_structure function - built in, so you don't need to include any extra libraries. The WeiDU documentation includes a section on the function.

You won't need to worry about that "first variable index" as the function handles the indexing for you. You will need to give the vertices of the region your new structure uses to the function as parameters; those aren't in the main structure itself, but are instead in the big list of vertices at the end of the ARE file.

[pete_smith1229]

@jmerry Thanks, once I've gotten the hang of the parameters manually, I'll definitely check out automating this as I have done with other stuff.

[pete_smith1229]

Thanks again @jmerry, I used the function you referenced for Weidu to automatically place a generic container on a painting in the Temple of Tempus. I wrote it so that I can simply add the XY coordinate of the point I want and the script does some simple arithmetic to create an oddly-shaped box without me having to fill in the rest of the parameters. This is exactly what I wanted as I can now populate other areas with simple containers.

The simple script:

BEGIN ~Add CONTAINERS TO AREAS~
COPY_EXISTING AR1001.ARE override
  LPF fj_are_structure
    INT_VAR
    left_x         = 710
    top_y          = 360 
    fj_type        = 8 //nonvisible
    fj_loc_x       = left_x + 8
    fj_loc_y       = top_y + 32
    fj_box_left    = left_x - 1
    fj_box_top     = top_y
    fj_box_right   = left_x + 11
    fj_box_bottom  = top_y + 10
    fj_vertex_0    = (left_x) + (top_y << 16)
    fj_vertex_1    = (left_x - 1) + (top_y + 6 << 16)
    fj_vertex_2    = (left_x + 9) + (top_y + 10 << 16)
    fj_vertex_3    = (left_x + 11) + (top_y + 1 << 16)
    STR_VAR
    fj_structure_type = container
    fj_name           = ~Container~
  END
  LPF fj_are_structure
    INT_VAR
    fj_con_itm_idx    = SHORT_AT 0x74 - 1 // a new container will be last in the file
    fj_flags          = 1 // identified
    STR_VAR
    fj_name           = RB_ITM01.itm // Name of item incl. extension for custom items
    fj_structure_type = itm
  END