Disclaimer: This last part is the hardest one to understand at once as it involves a lot of scripting.

You can find the mission created following this tutorial in the game, under the name “Sample mission 3“. The complete script file can be found in :

[BOMB install folder]\Media\extmissions\Sample_mission_3\Scripts\

Now we have a mission with multiple objectives, asking the player to destroy both vehicles and aircraft. But this is still harsh. We’ll see in this tutorial how to add more staging to make the mission more interesting.

 Explosions !

Open the mission you’ve created following the previous tutorial.

First, let’s imagine the mission is about destroying an howitzer that is bombing the airbase.

As the howitzers in BOMB are not actually firing anything, we need to add some fake explosions around the airfield.

To do so, there is a special object type called “Explosion Zone”, which is created by script.

To create it, simply add these lines at the end of the “onInit()” function

self.explosionZone =createExplosionZone()
self.explosionZone:setPosition(self.gameManager:getLevel():getObject("player_spawn"):getPosition())
self.explosionZone:setZoneSize(Vector3(500,0,500))
self.explosionZone:setFrequency(2)
self.explosionZone:setComposerType("P_GROUND_EXPLOSION")
self.explosionZone:setSound("SFX_EXPLOSION_")
self.explosionZone:start()

This will create an explosion zone, located around the player_spawn, with a size of 500 meters x 500 meters, making an explosion every 2 seconds.

The kind of particle effect used is “P_GROUND_EXPLOSION” and the sound set used is “SFX_EXPLOSION_“.

In the very first mission of the game “Spam”, we used this to create the flak explosions when approaching the village, but with different particles and sound:

self.explosionZone:setComposerType("P_FLAK_EXPLOSION")
self.explosionZone:setSound("SFX_FLAK_")

Imagine now you want to use this on water, IE if you want to make a mission featuring a ship attacked by an howitzer, then you could do this:

self.explosionZone:setComposerType("P_EXPLOSION_WATER")
self.explosionZone:setSound("SFX_EXPLOSION_")

Don’t worry for player safety though, the explosions created with ExplosionZones are harmless.

 

As the explosions are related to the howitzer, we need to disable them as soon as it is destroyed. Go back to the “onObjectDestroyed” function and change it’s content to :

function Sample_mission_3:onObjectDestroyed(object)
if(object:getName() == "howitzer_0") then
self.missionManager:getFlight("enemy_flight_0"):setFrozen(false)
 self.explosionZone:stop()
end
end

Now, the explosions will be disabled when howitzer is destroyed.

Adding dialogs

Things are getting better, but we still need to add some dialog to give more identity to the mission.

Go to the “onInit” function

Add this line at the end :

self.HUD:addRadioCommunication("unknown","","Scramble ! We need to destroy this howitzer or we'll be doomed !",nil)

The first parameter is the name of the character currently speaking. The second one is the “mood”, here left blank, the third parameter is the dialog itself, and the last one is the object the camera will look at  (using a flyby camera if the object is moving) during this dialog.

If left to nil, the last parameter won’t change the camera at all, leaving it to the default in game camera.

There are multiple versions of this function

• The flyby :

addRadioCommunication("[character]","[mood]","[text]",object)

You can use nil as the object parameter to automatically look at the player aircraft during this dialog.

•  The focus:

addRadioCommunication("[character]","[mood]","[text]",object1,object2)

This will change the camera so that it will look at the object 2 from the object1.

You can use nil as the first object to look automatically from the player aircraft. If both objects are set to nil, this will use the default in game camera.

• The point of view:

addRadioCommunication("[character]","[mood]","[text]",object, exterior, yawAngle, pitchAngle)

The object parameter is still the object we’d like to look at, but now, if the targeted object is an aircraft having a cockpit, you’ll have the choice to force the point of view to cockpit or external, by setting the “external” parameter to true or false.

The two last parameters are the angles (in degres ) from which we’ll look at the object.

Let’s use the second function in this mission.

Replace the line we’ve added before by this one:

self.HUD:addRadioCommunication("unknown","","Scramble ! We need to destroy this howitzer or we'll be doomed !",nil,self.gameManager:getLevel():getObject("howitzer_0"))

Now, the camera will look from the player aircraft to the howitzer position.

Also add this one to introduce the pilot we’re playing in this mission:

self.HUD:addRadioCommunication("PILOT2","","Consider it done !",nil)

You can find the list of usable characters and moods on this page.

Here is the result:

Then we need to add a dialog when enemy flight is awaken to warn the player about this new threat.

Go again to the “onObjectDestroyed” function, and change it to:

function Sample_mission_3:onObjectDestroyed(object)
if(object:getName() == "howitzer_0") then
self.missionManager:getFlight("enemy_flight_0"):setFrozen(false)
self.explosionZone:stop()
local leader = self.missionManager:getFlight("enemy_flight_0"):getLeaderAircraft()
self.HUD:addRadioCommunication("PILOT1","","How allowed you to destroy our guns ? You'll pay for that !",nil,leader)
self.HUD:addRadioCommunication("PILOT2","","How original...",nil)
end
end

This will introduce the enemies as they arrive in the arena.

Mission ending.

Once every vehicle and aircraft has been destroyed,  we can consider the mission as completed, and we need to tell it to the player.

As you may have found it by yourself, we need to add some code in the “onObjectiveCompleted()” function.

Add the following lines to the function body:

if(self.playerInterceptObjective~= nil and id == self.playerInterceptObjective:getId()) then
self.HUD:showMissionSuccess(true)
GameMenuObject.missionSuccess = true
end

 

This will display the “objective completed” text and enable the “next” button in the in game menu (the one you can access by pressing escape)

Bonus: landing objective

Bonus: You can also add a final “Return To Base” objective for players who’d want to land at the mission end, and automatically quit the mission when successfully landing.

First, we need to add the RTBObjective. Change the last piece of code to this:

if(self.playerInterceptObjective~= nil and id == self.playerInterceptObjective:getId()) then
self.HUD:showMissionSuccess(true)
GameMenuObject.missionSuccess = true
self.RTBObjective = self.missionManager:addRTBObjective(1,self.gameManager:getLevel():getObject("player_spawn"))
self.playerFlight:setObjective(self.RTBObjective)
end


The new lines create a RTB objective telling the player to land near the player_spawn (located here on the runway, but you could also create another waypoint object located close to the hangars) .

Now, we need to track the completion of this objective to start a fade out.

In the OnObjectiveCompleted function, add this block:
if(self.RTBObjective ~=nil and id == self.RTBObjective:getId()) then
PostProcessManager.getSingleton():fadeOut(5, ColourValue(0,0,0,0))
self.endFadeStarted = true
self.endTimer  = 0
end
The highlighted line will ask the game to start a fade to black lasting 5 seconds

The default script will automatically quit the level 5 seconds after the fade has been started. The piece of code doing this is located in the [MissionName]:update() function, you can have a look if you want to  but it’s not necessary.
Et voilà !

 

You can find the mission created following this tutorial in the game, under the name “Sample_mission_1”

[BOMB install folder]\Media\extmissions\Sample_mission_1\Scripts\

Creating the mission

Open the “Project” menu and click on “Add new mission”

This window will popup:

The mission name should be in the form The_coolest_mission_ever, with each word separated by an underscore.
It will be displayed in BOMB missions menu with the following name: “The coolest mission ever”

Choose the environment in which you want to create the mission. For this tutorial, choose Tuscany.

Click ok. This will create and open the new mission in the editor. This may take some time.

The player spawn

The first thing to decide for a new mission is where to spawn the player’s plane. To do it, you need to instruct the engine with a world position to use. A convenient way to obtain such 3D coordinates, is to get it from a waypoint object.

You can add such an object either by clicking Project/Add a new mission object or by pressing Control+Alt+N

This window will be displayed:

Choose whatever name you want, we name it “player_spawn”.
As a type, select Misc, and as Data, select Waypoint.

Reminder: You can select it by either clicking on it or selecting it in the left side tree view. Once selected, you can move by pressing T or rotate it by pressing Y.

Navigate through the scene and choose a nice location. In this mission we’ll spawn over one of the two airfields of the map, the one located near (X=-8200, Z=-595).

Remember you can see your current position in world in the bottom info bar !
You can teleport a selected object on the terrain by maintaining alt when you left click.

Use the vertical gizmo to move up the spawn point: by default aircraft spawn flying, we wouldn’t want our aircraft to crash at spawn.

To actually make our aircraft spawn, we need to edit the mission script. Serious stuff is coming.

Open the file  [BOMB_install_folder]/Media/extmissions/[MissionName]/Scripts/[MissionName].lua with your favourite text editor. We recommend notepad++.

The file looks like this:

Locate the function named [MissionName]:onInit().
This function is called at each start (or restart) of the level.

After the line self.HUD:showMissionSuccess(false) (line 41),  add:

self.missionManager:spawnPlayerFlight(0,"AI_PLANE_HF",1)

The first parameter is always 0.
The second one is the model of the airplane (see the skin creation tutorial).
The last one is the team of the flight. It can be:
0 neutral
1 fighting Team 1
2 fighting Team 2

Usually we set the player team to 1 and the enemies to 2.

Now gets a reference to the player’s flight by doing:

self.playerFlight = self.missionManager:getFlight("PlayerFlight_0")

And then to the player’s aircraft:

self.playerAircraft = self.playerFlight:getLeaderAircraft()

Finally, set the player initial position and orientation according to the spawn point:

local spawn_point = self.gameManager:getLevel():getObject("player_spawn")
self.playerAircraft:setInitPosition(spawn_point:getPosition())
self.playerAircraft:setInitOrientation(spawn_point:getOrientation())

And also it’s initial speed, in meters per second:

self.playerAircraft:setInitSpeed(100)

Press F6 to recompile the script and then F5 to play: the aircraft is flying !

You can stop the game by pressing F5 another time, and then press F6 to reset the level.

In this mission we’d like the player aircraft to start landed.

Teleport the spawn point somewhere on the runway.
Go back to the script and change the initial speed from 100 to 0.
Then tell the engine not to mess with physics by considering the player’s plane landed and its gear down.

self.playerAircraft:setLanded(spawn_point:getPosition(),spawn_point:getOrientation())
self.playerAircraft:setGearDown()

You’ll surely need to rotate the spawn point so that the aircraft’s direction is toward the runway. To do so, press Y and rotate along the up / y axis (the blue one) so that the direction / z axis (the green one) is parallel to the runway.

Note that the direction of the spawn point is inverted compared with the aircraft direction.

Press F6 to reset and F5 to play: our Astore is landed!

Enemy aircraft

Now we want to add an enemy flight of aircraft.
Go to somewhere in the sky, and create a new mission object, select the AI Flight category, and pick the desired model. Here, we’d like to have some Bilbies, so select AI_PLANE_11.
Name it “enemy_flight_0″.

Select the flight in the left tree view

The flight properties will now be displayed on the right panel:

Change it’s aircraft count to “4” (the maximum allowed, don’t try more, this will surely crash hehe)
Then sets the team to 2
And reinit the level (F6) to make them spawn.

You can change their original direction by rotating the flight scene object. This is a bit disturbing because aircraft won’t reorient themselves until F6 is pressed.
All of this may seem complicated and harsh but after a few hours you’ll think it’s the best editor ever. (or not…)

Tip: It’s better to switch to “local space” transformation to rotate flights.

This flight won’t do anything until they have an objective.

We’ll now speak about one of the biggest part of the tutorial: the objectives.

Go back to the script and add these lines:

self.enemyFlight = self.missionManager:getFlight("enemy_flight_0")
self.enemyObjective = self.missionManager:addInterceptObjective(2,"PlayerFlight_0")
self.enemyFlight:setObjective(self.ennemyObjective)

The first line is obvious, we’ve seen it already: we are retrieving a reference to the flight we’ve just created.

The second line is the creation of the objective. The first parameter is the team that will treat the objective, and the second parameter is the flight to be intercepted.

The last line is obvious too: we assign the newly created interception objective to the enemy flight. They’ll now try to attack you.
We’ll see later more types of objectives allowed in the game;

Press F6 then F5 to test.

Note: the Billbies will probably never attack you directly, because as you are starting landed, they’ll first have to avoid the terrain. This is a limitation of the AI for now, we’ll fix it.

 Changing aircraft skin

You can change the skin of any aircraft using the script if you don’t want them to use the default one (or if you are providing your own skins with your missions).

You can change it for every aircraft of a flight:

self.enemyFlight:setMaterial("AI_PLANE_11_racer")

Or for the leader aircraft only to give if a specific look:

self.enemyFlight:getLeaderAircraft():setMaterial("AI_PLANE_11_racer_metal")

That’s all for this time. In the next tutorial we’ll speak about the ground objects and add more objectives.

Introduction

The BOMB mission editor is a powerful tool.

It’s really different from classical mission creator tools often released with flight sim games such as Il-2 or DCS because it’s based on the level editor of our multi purpose game engine.

You may find that the mission creation workflow isn’t as simple as in other titles in the genre but one can achieve much more customized mission and objectives.

Mission building (a.k.a Level Design) consists in mainly two steps:

1. Placing objects
2. Scripting events

Let’s start with an overview of the interface.

Note: the editor is only available on Windows for now.

Overview

Locate and execute the MissionEditor.exe file in the [game’s folder]/Bin/Release/ folder.

If you’re using Steam, a convenient way to locate it is to click on Browse local files in the Local files tab of BOMB’s Properties.

When you launch MissionEditor.exe it can be a long loading time takes some time as it will load all game’s resources at once.

Open the Free_flight level by double clicking on it in the left-side tree view.

1. The toolbar
   • 3 camera speed buttons (from slow to fast)
   • The coordinates button (the earth-looking one) switches between world-space and object-space manipulation (when moving or rotating an object)
   • The play button starts playing the mission into the editor
   • The re-init button resets the mission to it’s initial state
   • The mute/unmute button
   • The settings button, where you can change the three camera speed and also the 3D window size (need to restart)
2. The tree view
   • Project’s hierarchy
   • The list of levels, the loaded one being boldfaced.
   • The list of game objects sorted by layers.
3. The 3D view, a.k.a the viewport
   • You can work with objects inside this window when the game isn’t running.
   • When the game is running, the content is what you’d see in game.
4. The properties. Most of time you’ll never have to touch this. However for some objects like vehicles or ships you’ll need to, and this will be described in another tutorial.
5. The log: same here, don’t mind about 99% of the information displayed here, but if ever you see some RED TEXT in there, something has gone wrong, surely when writing the script of the mission, and this will tell you what’s the error.
6. The status bar displays some general information. Most important are the x/y/z information which tell you where you are in the level.

Using the viewport

You can navigate inside the level by using the viewport (the 3D view).

1. To rotate the camera, move the mouse while holding the right mouse button.
2. To move, use the WASD keys, just as in every FPS.
3. Use the camera speed buttons to change the velocity of your displacement.
4. You can also use the mouse wheel to move forward/backward.

The tree view

For convenience the campaign, skirmish and race levels are hidden, displaying only what we’re calling external missions, which are single missions created by us, and hopefully, you 😉

Double click on a level to load it in the editor.

Level’s objects are sorted by layers (the green icon). The level’s layer always has the same name as the mission. This is where your objects are located.

Script files are visible in the scripts folder.

Editing objects

You can select object by either pick them in the viewport with the left mouse button or either by clicking on their name in the tree view.

Basic manipulation of objects in the level are done by dragging the gizmos, wich allow to change objects position, orientation and scale (but avoid as much as possible to change the scale).

• To display the translation gizmos, press the T key.
• To display the rotation gizmos, press the Y key.
• To display the scale gizmos, press the U key.

Properties

You can edit the object’s properties directly in the Properties view.

When an object is selected, its properties are automatically populated.

Let’s get started in part 2!