Advanced Map Marker Modding

[SeanenG]

So, I've got my own little mod coloring the different Map Markers. I'm working on a mod to go along with it that will add new map markers as well, making use of some of the unused icons already in the game file. For the most part, this is working out pretty well - I have Wilderness Shrines using the 'Altar' map marker and Castle Dour using the 'City' Map Marker, and so on. But I'm running into a few problems that I'm not sure how to fix, and am hoping somebody more experienced with Flash will be able to offer some advice.

 

1. The biggest issue I'm having is adding map markers to the capital buildings in the minor cities. The Creation Kit includes Map Marker Types called Dawnstar Castle, Falkreath Castle, and Morthal Castle which all display the same Jarl's Longhouse graphic. So I can add them in, but in keeping with what I'm already doing with the major cities I'd like to have each of those colored the same as the city icon.

 

Now, the problem.

 

Opening up Map.swf, I find there's only a single shape for 'Longhouse'. There are three (well, six) different sprites for the three cities, but they all use that same shape. I can't recolor them individually, either.

 

I'm pretty sure what I have to do is make a couple copies of the shape, with different colors for each, and then have each set of sprites point to a different one. I'm pretty sure I need to convert the .swf to .fla and then edit and recompile... but I don't really know what I'm doing in order to change the sprites.

 

Anyone have any advice, or a link to a tutorial, or something?

 

 

2. If I'm already doing the above, I'd like to make some additional changes while I'm at it. Is it possible to add new Map Marker Types to the Creation Kit? For example, I want to add a fourth Jarl's Longhouse for Winterhold, and possibly a fifth for Jorrvaskr.

 

In order to do that, not only would I need to create an additional shape and sprites, I'd also need to make a new 'Map Marker Type' entry, so that I could assign it in the creation kit and have it show up on the map in game.

 

And I have no idea where to even start looking to figure out how to do that. I can't find any definitions for map markers in the creation kit. Anybody have any ideas on that front?

 

 

3. Finally, when I was adding additional markers I discovered that I could leave the marker as Type 'None' and cause it to have no icon on the world map. I was actually really excited by that, because I could put multiple markers close together (for example, the different shops in each city) and allow the player to click on that location and move to it without having the swarm of overlapping map icons.

 

However, when I went in game to test it, I freaked out to see a bunch of hostile enemies on my compass in the middle of Whiterun. Turns out that, while the map marker is invisible on the world map, it still shows up on the compass and uses the same red dot marker that hostile enemies do.

 

Anyone know how to make a specific map marker not show up on the compass, without disabling all map markers on the compass? Is that even possible?

Edited May 26, 2012 by SeanenG

[samv96UK]

So, I've got my own little mod coloring the different Map Markers. I'm working on a mod to go along with it that will add new map markers as well, making use of some of the unused icons already in the game file. For the most part, this is working out pretty well - I have Wilderness Shrines using the 'Altar' map marker and Castle Dour using the 'City' Map Marker, and so on. But I'm running into a few problems that I'm not sure how to fix, and am hoping somebody more experienced with Flash will be able to offer some advice.

 

1. The biggest issue I'm having is adding map markers to the capital buildings in the minor cities. The Creation Kit includes Map Marker Types called Dawnstar Castle, Falkreath Castle, and Morthal Castle which all display the same Jarl's Longhouse graphic. So I can add them in, but in keeping with what I'm already doing with the major cities I'd like to have each of those colored the same as the city icon.

 

Now, the problem.

 

Opening up Map.swf, I find there's only a single shape for 'Longhouse'. There are three (well, six) different sprites for the three cities, but they all use that same shape. I can't recolor them individually, either.

 

I'm pretty sure what I have to do is make a couple copies of the shape, with different colors for each, and then have each set of sprites point to a different one. I'm pretty sure I need to convert the .swf to .fla and then edit and recompile... but I don't really know what I'm doing in order to change the sprites.

 

Anyone have any advice, or a link to a tutorial, or something?

 

 

2. If I'm already doing the above, I'd like to make some additional changes while I'm at it. Is it possible to add new Map Marker Types to the Creation Kit? For example, I want to add a fourth Jarl's Longhouse for Winterhold, and possibly a fifth for Jorrvaskr.

 

In order to do that, not only would I need to create an additional shape and sprites, I'd also need to make a new 'Map Marker Type' entry, so that I could assign it in the creation kit and have it show up on the map in game.

 

And I have no idea where to even start looking to figure out how to do that. I can't find any definitions for map markers in the creation kit. Anybody have any ideas on that front?

 

 

3. Finally, when I was adding additional markers I discovered that I could leave the marker as Type 'None' and cause it to have no icon on the world map. I was actually really excited by that, because I could put multiple markers close together (for example, the different shops in each city) and allow the player to click on that location and move to it without having the swarm of overlapping map icons.

 

However, when I went in game to test it, I freaked out to see a bunch of hostile enemies on my compass in the middle of Whiterun. Turns out that, while the map marker is invisible on the world map, it still shows up on the compass and uses the same red dot marker that hostile enemies do.

 

Anyone know how to make a specific map marker not show up on the compass, without disabling all map markers on the compass? Is that even possible?

 

Hmmm. I have no Idea about this problem. I think when you select None it automatically selects the red dot so that you can find it on the compass. I'm not sure if you could change the colour of the dots to say white for example without changing all of the enemy dots too...

 

I'm actually trying to do something similar myself. I'm trying to create a new map marker type for my city that I am creating but I have no idea which .BSA find the map markers in.

 

If you ever solved this problem it would be great if you could help me out.