I just noticed that you’re including height information in this. I’d like to check that out even though I’m not working on a project of this type. What is the price going to be? Any news on whether Epic has accepted you yet?
The price is going to be $39.99. The communication I’ve had with Epic seems to suggest that it will be up on the marketplace this very Wednesday
Wow dude … Very reasonable price … I thank you. Tips hat. 8-}
I am so excited for this release … My designers are chomping at the bit … Darn it, I am going to have so much work to do now. Oh well … such are things. 8-}
Can’t wait for this to be released
What’s going to be in the release version?
Good to hear! Everything I’ve shown so far is going to be in the release version
I’m making tutorial videos in preparation for release, and thought I’d share the first couple I made in this thread. The first is a short four-minute video showing how to set up the grid. The second is a 20-minute video showing some of the ways you can modify the grid and pathfinding. This is the first time I’ve ever made any videos with voiceover, so I’d like to recieve input on anything I might do differently. I’ve tried to keep my explanations brief while still explaining all that is necessary, and I hope I have succeded. Recording these videos have also made me realize that my Norwegian accent is much more prominent than it sound in my head. Oh well
UE4 - Advanced Turn Based Tile Toolkit Tutorial - 1 - Setup:
UE4 - Advanced Turn Based Tile Toolkit Tutorial Two (Return of the Ts) - Customizing the grid:
Good tutorial, everything is clear and you don’t waste time in useless stuff or repeating the same things over and over again, just a small issue on the second part, it looks like it only got audio on the left channel.
Just a couple of questions:
- I noticed that the pawn could attack every adjacent tile when he was on the top ledge (of your 3 step stair), was it because he was set as ranged or you can also do that with melee attacks?
- Is there a built in function to turn the pawn in place?
Good to hear that it was easy to follow. It seems that the encoder software was reset to mono. That’s too bad. I’ll see if I can upload a new version with stereo sound.
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Every unit is in a sense a ranged unit, so a melee unit is just a ranged unit with range one. Height maps was the last thing I added and having a separate distance checking system for melee units is unnecessary for flat grids. I’ll fix this in the first update, as it’s a bit silly if melee units can attack enemies standing on a cliff above them.
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Not yet, but it would be easy to add. Facing doesn’t matter in the base framework, so I haven’t bothered adding it yet. It’s on my to-do list.
@Monokkel: The tutorials are good … your videos actually stopped me from buying the other grid system and instead I am waiting for yours. I was going to buy both eventually … but the other pack will now be put off until after pay day.
As mentioned … the second video only has audio coming out the left channel … 8-}
I am really looking forward to this pack … I have three projects right now that will benefit from this kit. Can’t wait anymore … this week is like Christmas … this pack coming out and my new 3D Printer arriving on Thursday. Woohooooo. 8-}
Thats a very reasonable price. Looking forward to getting it this Wednesday.
Ouch, well I’m glad you found something that fits your needs so well.
I’m glad you’re looking forward to it! I’m pretty excited myself Nisshoku’s system is different from my own in many ways, and if you are serious about creating turn based games in UE4 seeing two different solutions to many of the same problems can be very educational. Maybe you’ll even create your own hybrid
Pricing was a difficult thing to decide on. I don’t want to undersell how much work this has been and how much the user is getting. At the same time I don’t want to create a price barrier for small indie developers. My final price decision mostly came from my memories of how much I felt was a reasonable price when I was looking at turn based strategy systems on the Unity marketplace long before I begun working on my toolkit. Happy to hear you’ll be buying the toolkit, and I hope you’ll have as much fun looking through my alternate solutions as I had with yours We have in many cases found very different solutions to similar problems.
Don’t get me wrong … I am still going to buy your pack to support you … Purchase of the pack however is going to wait until after pay day.
Excellent video. What it does not display is how this system, if at all, can handle large structures. If a large structure similar to the X-Com space ships were constructed would you be able to place that upon the world and have it understood by the system? As the idea of taking something that might need to be broken up into say 40 different pieces then get them all put in the exact right place sounds less than ideal.
True, I’ll be sure to make a video that demonstrates how to use larger structures. That’s really as simple as placing the mesh of your large structure in the game world and placing invisible walls at the appropriate places around it. I might in the future make it so that invisible walls can be generated automatically, but it’s already pretty easy to set up as is.
Good to know. One more question, does the pawn AI have any troubles handling sight & movement when the pawn is larger than one tile? As in if you want 2x2 “Ogre” would it encounter problems?
Sight won’t be a problem, but the pathfinding will have to be modified. To make it work, for each step of the path search, all surrounding tiles must be checked for walkability before adding it to the walkability array. There are a few other ways to do this as well. It’s on my to-do list
Just checking again your video, dreaming of when the blueprint will be finally in my hands, I have a doubt: by looking at the “stairs” example you made in the video (at about 10:35), I noticed the tiles beneath the “steps” are impassable, is that because the steps are too low to allow someone to pass beneath them? If the third step was set a bit higher than that would then we be able to pass beneath it?
It will hopefully be in your hands by tomorrow
Even though I have height information, the current framework does not allow for two nodes with the same X/Y location but different Z locations. Thus you will not be able to make bridges where you are also able to pass below the bridge etc. I guess I could have been clearer on this in the videos.
Adding this will require a pretty big overhaul of the grid generation, and will among other things require ways to turn terrain that is above you transparent so you don’t lose track of pawns. There are to my knowledge very few strategy games out there that allow for walkable nodes directly above or below each other. This holds true for XCOM, Final fantasy tactics and most other games I can think of.
I do want to include it as an option, but it’s pretty far down on my list of planned features; especially considering that it will take a lot of work and really only be useful to a small percentage of users.
So if I want to make something like a building with 3 floors (or something like one of the big ships in XCom) I’ll need to put 3 grids in my level , one above the other?
Final Fantasy Tactics, which you referenced in the video and practically sold me due to my love of the title, does in fact have structures with above and below ground walkability.