This will overhaul the developer studio to bring it inline with the art direction / style of the vanilla game. It will also do some other useful things, such as bringing in lost features from the Dark Reign 2 studio, or fixing some bugs and such that don't require a source code edit.
Download link
WARNING!
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This mod is essentially a intensive overhaul of several crucial assets for Army Men RTS. Multiplayer compatibility is untested, but is assumed to be incompatible with other users. Install at your own risk.
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How To Install
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Note: It is recommended to have a copy of the game that is completely clean and separate from your copy for gameplay. If you own the game from a retailer, such as Steam, you can simply copy its files to another directory. Otherwise, find a copy of it from here on the forum.
- Download the amrts_studio_files.7z archive from the link above.
- Download @DavidTheTech's Studio Launcher from this post.
- Place both the amrts_studio_files.7z archive and studio.zip archive into the main directory of the game you will be installing them to.
- Extract the contents of both archives. You can do this by selecting the 'Extract here' command from your unzipping program.
- Done! Now you can launch Army Men RTS normally, or if you wish to use the studio, you must run the Studio Launcher.exe file and launch the game from there.
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Everything the old studio has is preserved here. As well as adding new features / tools.
- Interface completely redone from scratch to match the art style of the normal game.
- Several new keybinds for faster actions such as saving and loading.
- Missing features from Dark Reign 2 sutdio brought over.
- Developer console enabled at all times.
- AI Debug Menu enabled for ingame computer player monitoring.
- Several bug fixes and improvements.
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- Press Ctrl + Alt + S to save your mission to a new folder, even if it has already been saved previously.
- Press Ctrl + N to create a new mission from scratch.
- Press Ctrl + O to open an existing mission.
- Press Ctrl + G to open the "Go To" window. Use this to jump to a specific object by ID number.
- Press Ctrl + Shift + F10 to open the developer console.
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With this, you will now be able to use the developer console at any time, including in the main menu or during gameplay. The developer console is still partially missing from source code, but as it is now, you are at least able to input console commands freely, so as long as you know what you're doing, this will be very helpful.
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- You can now change the video options as well as some gameplay options such as difficulty directly from the tools menu within the studio.
- Press Ctrl + Alt + T to tweak terrain rendering stuff.
- Press Ctrl + Alt + G to tweak graphics rendering stuff.
- Press Ctrl + Alt + M to tweak model rendering stuff.
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- Tip texts have been added to provide clarity to more buttons when hovered over.
- Default size for new maps is 992m, which is the most common size used by the vanilla maps. New map size is now also uncapped, allowing you to use a size limited only by the game engine itself.
- Adjusted list of filters for Objects brush.
- Everything—Nothing is filtered
- Props—Static props specific to the world, such as trees and toys
- Army Men—Units and buildings that can be given to teams; Also includes things such as containers and sandbags
- Heroes—Bravo units only for quick selection
- Insects—All ant units to be given to teams
- All Resources—All resource props
- Plastic—Plastic resources only
- Electricity—Electricity resources only
- Bonuses—Bonuses only
- Sliders pertaining to water properties have been transferred from Terrain Tweak brush to the Water brush.
- Selecting a region will no longer jump to it automatically. Double click a region to jump to it.
- Double click a tag to jump to each unit within it sequentially.
- Several buttons for Curve brush have new icons.
- Removed overlay speed slider from Overlay brush, as this variable no longer does anything.
- In the Team editor, you can click on the panel of the starting region to snap the camera to that team's initial camera position when loading the map.
- Type Filtering now filters to only units that can actually be purchased through vanilla gameplay. Any custom units will also be assumed buyable and will be listed.
- Adjusted list of filters for Type Filtering.
- Everything—Nothing is filtered
- Army Men—All army men units
- Air Strikes—All air strikes & the radio operator
- Mines—All mines & the minelayer
- Infantry—Units that can be built from the Barracks
- Vehicles—Units that can be built from the Garage
- Towers—Defensive towers built by the bulldozer
- Facilities—All unit producing buildings & the bulldozer
- Economy—Resource depot & dump truck
- Insects—All insect units
- Any action that will exit the studio now prompts the player for confirmation.
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- I launched the game with the program, but there's no studio!
- After opening the Studio Launcher.exe program, you must then check the two options below. 'Auto Inject Studio' will automatically enable the studio when the game is launched. 'Auto Launch Studio' will enter studio mode as soon as it is ready.
- studio launcher.png (3.65 KiB) Viewed 9254 times
- studio launcher.png (3.65 KiB) Viewed 9254 times
- After opening the Studio Launcher.exe program, you must then check the two options below. 'Auto Inject Studio' will automatically enable the studio when the game is launched. 'Auto Launch Studio' will enter studio mode as soon as it is ready.
- Some buttons are disabled! Why?
- Any buttons that are disabled are done so because either using them crashes the game, or the function / variable they are tied to no longer exists. In order to restore functionality to these features, an update will have to be made for the studio injector program itself.
- The mini map is all black!
- The current version of the studio does not have a working mini map. It will need to be repaired within the source code itself via the studio injector program.
- Why is 'sandbox' listed twice in the list of worlds to use?
- This is because the game detects both sandbox.x and sandbox.x-e as two separate archives. Selecting either one will give the same result, so it is harmless whichever you pick. If you want to, you may safely delete the sandbox.x-e file only AFTER installing the necessary studio files.
- I created a new map from scratch, but some objects are missing! Where is the Chemical Weapons Factory / floating furniture / moving slot cars?
- Some objects are not contained within any general asset archive. Instead, they are specifically stored in the mission that they are used in. If a prop you want is missing from the studio, try looking for it within the mission it is located.
- There are a bunch of holes in the ground when I made a new map! How do I fix them?
- Sometimes when creating a new terrain from scratch, some cells may become invisible. To fix them, select the Water brush by pressing the 4 key, and create a region on or surrounding the holes. Then simply create and then delete water. This will fix the issue.
- Why are the resources all black?
- This is currently a bug in the studio source code. The resources are acting as if they are depleted, and having the consequent darkening effect applied to them. I experimented with making this effect only during gameplay, but was not able to find a solution. A solution will most likely come in the form of an update to the studio injector program.
- I created a mission, how do I make it so the player can win or lose now?
- By default, some rudimentary objectives are available for use. 'objective.gbgreen' can be given to the player; it will cause the player to lose if all their units are dead. 'objective.gbtan' can be given to the enemy computer player; it will cause the human player to win when all the computer's buildings are destroyed. Anything more complex than this will have to be coded manually.
- I created a mission, but the green and tan aren't attacking each other. How do I make them fight?
- By default, all teams will be neutral towards each other. To change their affiliations, open the console by pressing F10 in studio mode. Now use the following command
- team.setrelationbothway TEAM1 TEAM2 enemy
- By default, all teams will be neutral towards each other. To change their affiliations, open the console by pressing F10 in studio mode. Now use the following command
- I created a multiplayer mission, but I don't quite want to send it to someone yet. Is there a way I can play test it?
- It is recommended to always test multiplayer maps with another human as if you were to play alone, you may miss some bugs that only arrise from having more than one client connected, such as interface or synchronization bugs. However, you may play offline using this patch. [LINK TO BE UPDATED...] You may also try using my Instant Action mod.
- I created a mission, but it is a folder with files inside, not a .x file. How do I create a .x file to send to others?
- You will need the drpack command line tool. @DavidTheTech has also written a utility that will do all the command prompt work for you, and can even associate .x files. It can be found in this post.
- I created a mission and when I play it, everything works fine. But when I play my map on a different game, some props are suddenly missing! Where did they go?
- For some reason, several props are not cached by default in several worlds. If you are to use them normally, you will need to include them via the types.cfg or types_mission.cfg files. Ideally a tool could be created that would autogenerate a types.cfg file for you depending on the objects you have placed in your mission, but such a tool is beyond my capabilities. For now, the following list of props are affected by this:
Spoiler
Attic props- attic.prop.road_culdesac
- attic.prop.fort_debris
- attic.prop.fort_wallcurve
- attic.prop.fort_end
- attic.prop.fort_wallpiece
- attic.prop.fort_corner
- attic.prop.fort_cornerinv
- attic.prop.fort_intersect
- attic.prop.fort_endflagL
- attic.prop.fort_endflagARRRR
- livingrm.prop.blk-wall_sarge
- livingrm.prop.blk-1
- livingrm.prop.blk-3
- livingrm.prop.blk-red
- livingrm.prop.blk-square
- livingrm.prop.blk-straight
- livingrm.prop.blk-ramp
- livingrm.prop.blk-wall4
- Table Leg
- kitchen.prop.knifeos
- kitchen.prop.magnet_butterfly
- kitchen.prop.magnet_frog
- kitchen.prop.magnet_paper
- kitchen.prop.magnet_soda
- kitchen.prop.ovenpie
- kitchen.prop.picture
- Table Leg
- livingrm.prop.fan
- livingrm.prop.slotrack_corner_edged
- sandbox.prop.ball1
- sandbox.prop.baseball_bat
- sandbox.prop.basketball
- sandbox.prop.soccerball
- yard.prop.algae5
- kitchen.prop.bug1
- kitchen.prop.bug2
- yard.prop.deadbug_2
- kitchen.prop.fly
- kitchen.prop.fly-idle
- yard.prop.mantis
- yard.prop.applee
- yard.prop.appleep
- kitchen.prop.tomator
- kitchen.prop.tomatorp
- yard.prop.sign_blintz
- yard.prop.sign_blintz3
- yard.prop.sign_mine
- yard.prop.sign_yard
- yard.prop.sign_star
- attic.prop.signhalt
- attic.prop.signdanger
- attic.prop.signmine
- yard.prop.stick3
- yard.prop.tadpoles
- yard.prop.wallweed_A
- yard.prop.wallweed_B
- yard.prop.wallweed_C
- yard.prop.wallweed_D
- For some reason, several props are not cached by default in several worlds. If you are to use them normally, you will need to include them via the types.cfg or types_mission.cfg files. Ideally a tool could be created that would autogenerate a types.cfg file for you depending on the objects you have placed in your mission, but such a tool is beyond my capabilities. For now, the following list of props are affected by this:
