Full Version : Spawns based on ground tiles
xmlspawner >>XMLSpawner Feature Request's >>Spawns based on ground tiles


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Allmight- 08-11-2006
Something i allways have missed in spawner packages is the ability to decide what to spawn based on ground tiles.

For example...

Say i spawn a region that contains desert, forrest and grass ( many areas of the map have very uneven shapes between those tiles, so either i use tons of small regions or overlap or leave areas unspawned ). Now i want desert creatures in the desert, forrest animals in the forest, and other animals on the grass.

This is one way to do it...

The spawner prepares to spawn, and look what tile there is at the spawn location, then spawns a creature based on that tile.

One way would be to be able to make groups of creatures, and then tell the spawner what group to use for each tile type.

This way i can define an area to spawn that contains several types of terrain, but can define what will spawn in each terrain. So i dont get the same in all of them.
Will save on the amount of spawners i have to use, hence also save some CPU usage.

Oh, something else that would be nice is to be able to to the same with regions. Say i have a town sorrounded by jungle and swamps. It would be nice to place a spawner that covers the three of them, but will spawn townpeople in the town region ( cant use ground tiles in towns ), and spawn the rest based on tiles.

Hope you understand what im after.

Allmight

ArteGordon- 08-11-2006
QUOTE (Allmight @ August 11, 2006 12:30 pm)
Something i allways have missed in spawner packages is the ability to decide what to spawn based on ground tiles.

For example...

Say i spawn a region that contains desert, forrest and grass ( many areas of the map have very uneven shapes between those tiles, so either i use tons of small regions or overlap or leave areas unspawned ). Now i want desert creatures in the desert, forrest animals in the forest, and other animals on the grass.

This is one way to do it...

The spawner prepares to spawn, and look what tile there is at the spawn location, then spawns a creature based on that tile.

One way would be to be able to make groups of creatures, and then tell the spawner what group to use for each tile type.

Hope you understand what im after.

Allmight

yes, I am adding something like this. I originally was just planning on doing it for just water tile support by adding in a #WET spawn control keyword (which would select all tiles with the wet tiledata flag set), but I am expanding it to the more general #TILE,start[,end] keyword would also allow you to specify exactly what kind of tiles you would like to allow the spawns to occupy when spawned.

It would look like this

#WET ; waterelemental

or

#TILE,500,503 ; lavalizard

Allmight- 08-11-2006
Does that include support for spawning based on regions as well?

With regions i mean like the ones defined in UO for towns, dungeons etc.

// Allmight

Allmight- 08-11-2006
Sorry for spamming.

Would this make it possible to specify an area that contains different kinds of terrain, and let it spawn them all differently based on tiles?

Will save on the amount of spawners i have to use.

Or will i have to make a seperate spawner for each tile group?

// Allmight

ArteGordon- 08-11-2006
Each entry of a spawner can have its own control keyword specification.
So one spawner could have entries like

#WET ; waterelemental
#TILE,500,503 ; lavalizard
#TILE,441,465 ; #TILE,286,301 ; giantspider

and when each entry was spawned it would only place the spawns on the tiles specified by the control keywords: watereles on water, lavalizards on lava, spiders on desert.
The area covered by the spawner would still be defined by spawnrange, X1Y1_X2Y2, or region, just as it is now.

Allmight- 08-11-2006
Thats wonderful. I can't wait for next release then. I have a nightmare atm to conduct a good spawn setup without resorting to tons of spawns, that could be replaced by just one using this new system.

Really look forward to it smile.gif

//Allmight

ArteGordon- 08-12-2006
you can try now in out in the latest beta_20_314.zip update.

Allmight- 08-12-2006
I dont know what to say, other than your'e the man.

You really work fast, with regular updates. Thats what makes this spawner system the best atm. And if you continue this great work, none of the others will ever catch up.

// Allmight

ArteGordon- 08-12-2006
it will be worth keeping an eye on spawn behavior with the most recent addition of the ISpawner interface. It doesnt seem like much, but it is a pretty fundamental change. Even the distro spawner hasnt implemented it so there really isnt anything to compare against.
Chances are you wont notice any difference at all, but I havent had the chance to test it out exhaustively so I cant say for sure.

Allmight- 08-12-2006
Okay, i will report any odd behavior findings, if any. But from what i have seen so far, it seems to behave. But then i have only spawned a couple hundred mobiles so far.

The tile based spawns really changed my world. They work beutyfully so far. So give yourself a pat on your sholder and say "well done". I know i would if i was there.

Sincerely, Allmight.