Editor Interface Breakdown
From AgeofWiki
If you have ever used a program such as Microsoft Word, this interface will seem familiar to you. The text reading “File”, “Edit”, etc can be clicked to show dropdown menus. The icons in the second row can be clicked for quick access to functions.
| Table of contents |
Editor Basics
This section will briefly touch on some of the things you can do with the editor – the rest of this site has more detailed information. For this article, we will only consider the essential editor functions – those with icons in the second row of the top bar of the editor. It is entirely possible to design an excellent scenario using only these functions.
Load
The Load function is used to open a scenario file for editing, much in the same way the Load function in MSWord opens a text file for editing. It is primarily used to open scenarios that you have saved.
See: Load scenario
New
The New function creates a totally new blank scenario for you to start working on. It is similar to the New function in any text editor, which lets you create a blank document.
See: New
Save
The Save function stores a copy of your scenario onto your computer. It functions the same way as the save in any other program – allowing you to come back to your work at a later date by entering a name for your scenario. You should be sure to save regularly.
See: Save
Undo/Redo
Getting tired of text editor comparisons yet? The undo and redo buttons function the same way as they do in Word. You press the undo button (or ctrl-z) to undo your most recent action, and press the redo button (or ctrl-y) to redo your most recent undo. Note that object positioning does not constitute an “action”, and so can’t be undone in this way.
Copy/Paste Terrain
There is a considerable amount of confusion over the functions for copying and pasting terrain; you may want to skip ahead to later functions before coming back to this one. For one thing, it is easy to get them confused with the functions for copying and pasting objects. If you’ve spent any amount of time with a computer, you should already know that the key combination for copy is ctrl-c, cut is ctrl-x, and paste is ctrl-v.
With a unit selected, these key combinations work the same way they do in Word: copy and cut both store a version of the unit for you to paste multiple times onto the map, but cut removes the original unit.
Copying terrain is slightly different from copying units/objects. By pressing the terrain copy button, you go into terrain copy mode, and can draw the blue outline of a rectangle on the ground around the terrain you want to copy. You should then press ctrl-c, storing a copy of that terrain. Pressing ctrl-v or the terrain paste button will then give you the option to paste the copied terrain down elsewhere on the map.
See: Terrain copy, Terrain paste
Brush Settings
The brush settings button lets you customize your brush in a number of ways. The brush is what you use to “paint” the map with things like terrain and elevation (height of the ground). The two most important settings for the brush are the options for making your brush a circle or square, and the bar to change the size of the brush. The size, especially, will come in handy depending on whether you want to cover a large area with terrain, or a small, detailed area.
See: Brush settings
Raise/Lower Elevation
The raise/lower elevation button allows you to use your brush to change the height of terrain, making hills and valleys. The trick to this function is that you must left-click your mouse to raise elevation, and right-click your mouse to lower elevation. The button also gives you an option to modify the speed at which terrain will be changed.
Sample
The two sample buttons are very much alike. The basic idea of both of them is that you are storing the type of land at one point, and then painting it with the brush. Both function in the same way: you right-click the mouse on the point you want to sample, and right click the mouse to paint the sample.
The first option is sample terrain, so you right-click the mouse on terrain that you’d like to paint elsewhere, then left-click the mouse to paint that terrain with your brush. The second option is sample elevation. You right-click the mouse on the elevation you’d like to paint elsewhere, then left-click the mouse to paint down that elevation with your brush,
Smooth/Roughen
Both of these buttons target elevation. The smooth button (the first icon) is used to eliminate jagged edges in your elevation. You drag it over elevations that don’t transition smoothly, and it sands them down. The roughen button (the second icon) creates jagged edges from flat terrain. An application of the roughen function, followed by the smooth function, creates realistically bumpy terrain.
Terrain
The painting analogy continues with the terrain buttons. The first is the primary one you will use to decorate the landscape of your scenarios. It is your “color palette”. Pressing this button opens up a long list of the types of terrain you can paint. You can then drag the brush over the ground to color it with the terrain you have selected.
The other two options, paint mix and paint land, are essentially the same. The mixes option simply gives you a few additional terrains to paint that are combinations of the others, and the paint land terrain is almost exactly identical. The only different between paint terrain and paint land is that painting terrain will change the terrain underneath water, while painting land will create land and erase water.
See: Paint terrain, Paint land
Water
The four water buttons are used to place water in your scenarios. The first, the River tool, is new in AoE3. Click on the river tool button, then left-click the map to place a white line on the map. You can also right-click to remove the previous waypoint that you placed (each click creates a waypoint). The line represents the river you want to create, and then arrows on the line represent the direction of current. The options below let you specify which of the three types of rivers you want to produce, and then you can press Create to make the river appear. Once created, you can also use an option to select and delete rivers.
The second water button is also new to AoE3. It allows you to place shallows on a river. Specify the width of the shallows, click on the river where you want them to go, and then click Create. Unlike in AoK, shallows are areas of water which units can cross, but which ships cannot cross.
The third button is the classical paint water button that AoM designers will be familiar with. It is much like the terrain painting button discussed above. You select the type of water you want to paint from the menu, then use the brush to paint it into the land. Note that there is a limit to the size of the brush for water – it can’t be too small.
The fourth button is the Edit Water tool. You can use it to select a body of water, then either delete it or Beautify it. The beautify tool adds objects around the water to improve its appearance, most notably waves. You can also use the Edit Water tool to change the type of water present. Just select the water, select the new type, and then press update.
See: Water tool, Edit water tool, River tool
Cliffs
The cliff buttons are used to place cliffs in your scenarios. The first one will let you paint cliffs on the map, in exactly the same way as you have painted water and terrain in the past – by selecting a type of cliffs to paint, then using the brush to put them on the map. In the cliff tool, you can also specify the height of the cliff that you want to create.
The second button is the Edit Cliff button. Use this to select a series of cliffs which you have created. You can then use the edit cliff function to change the type of cliffs present. Just select a new type of cliffs and press Update.
See: Cliff tool
Forests
The Forest buttons are the last of the five major types of visual map design (terrain, elevation, water, cliffs, and forest). They are essentially very similar to the cliff tools. The first button lets you paint a forest type of your choosing onto the ground. Both of the buttons have three options you can change: Density, Clumpiness, and Underbrush. The density option lets you specify how concentrated the trees in the forest are, how many appear in a given area. The clumpiness option lets you control the tendency of the trees to form groups, a low number makes them spread out and a high number groups them together. Depending on the type of forest you are painting, the underbrush option will have a range of effects. It will create terrain and objects suitable to the type of forest you are painting.
The edit forest function is essentially what you’d expect: it lets you modify the three forest options after you’ve placed a forest. Unlike the cliff tool, however, it doesn’t let you change the type of forest you’ve placed.
See: Forest tool, Edit forest tool
Objects
Placing objects is a fairly essential part of the design process. They allow the scenario to actually be playable, and you can choose from surprising number of unit types and object types. The first button is the “place object” function. Essentially, you can select from a list of units, buildings, natural objects, and “embellishments”, which you can then left-click to place on the map. You should also use the drop-down menu to specify which player owns an object. You can also use the mouse wheel to rotate objects before you place them.
The second button is the “position object” function, which allows you to move an object around on the map, rotate it with the mouse wheel, etc. Position object is interesting because it can be used to move an object anywhere on the map. If you wanted a ship on land for some reason, you’d place it in the water, then move it to land with position object.
The third button is the “delete object” function. It lets you move the brush around, dragging it over objects to delete them. The delete object function also lets you specify that you only wish to delete objects owned by certain players.
See: Place object, Position object, Delete object
Lighting
The lighting function lets you specify which lighting set you want to use for the scenario. The drop down menu gives you a long list of different types of light, which change the appearance of the map. You can specify things like night and day, or choose more complex options. There is also a “Restore Default” button to take you back to the standard lighting.
See: Lighting
Triggers
Used to create certain "effects" in a scenario. They can be used in many differnt ways, for upgrades, cinematics, and sometimes even eyecandy!
See: Triggers
Cinematics
