Scale down an entire arena

[Resetti's Replicas]

I've been doing some thinking about the Robot Wars arena in RA2, and I've realized that one of the problems with it is that it's simply too big in comparison to the average Robot Arena 2 bot.  So, is there a quick-and-easy way to shrink everything down the entire arena and everything in it?

Also, is there a quick-and-easy way to:
-Disable all the hazards except the pit and release trigger? (The saws and flame jets can stay too, but only if their power is reduced)
-Change the starting points of the robots?
-Shallow out the pit so that only one or two large heavyweights can fit in at a time?

[NFX]

I'm pretty sure Joe's got a tutorial on resizing the arena somewhere. If I could, I'd probably try to slow down the pit descending as well, like it normally did in Robot Wars.

[Jonzu95]

And why the RW arena is a mirror version of the original? o_O

[JoeBlo]

The robot wars arena will be absolute to resize

I'm pretty sure Joe's got a tutorial on resizing the arena somewhere.

this is for the combat some it involves the floor/ walls (all one cube object) and the collision (all one cube object)

so thats 2 objects with each having only 8 vertex points.. childs play

robot wars arena has the floor,wall panels, wall beams, flipper, pit, button, control towers, guy pics inside the control towers, saw blades, outer walls, crowd and probally some more I missed

the simplest object is probally the guys in the control towers.. plus then you will have to move hazards and objects to compensate for the new size 

so no, there is no quick easy way..

Also, is there a quick-and-easy way to:
-Disable all the hazards except the pit and release trigger? (The saws and flame jets can stay too, but only if their power is reduced)
-Change the starting points of the robots?
-Shallow out the pit so that only one or two large heavyweights can fit in at a time?

1) yes you can disable hazards in the python

2) yes (see my other stuff below)

3) yes (its already been done before)

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a new version of the Robot Wars arena is actually an announced project of mine along with the S3 arena.

I was to update skins and change a few things including startpoints to bring it up to around S7

[Resetti's Replicas]

Cool.  If you don't mind me asking, when do you expect to have it available?  I'm not rushing you, it's just that if it becomes available, it might become the arena I start using in my replica videos.

[JoeBlo]

side projects such as that are done in my spare time or if im getting to tired of other projects so it will vary

[Jonzu95]

And why the RW arena is a mirror version of the original? o_O

[JoeBlo]

I dont know if its program related or not but its just how its built

[NFX]

I did notice that sometimes the skins are mirrored. Can't imagine it'd extend to the entire GMF file, though.

[JoeBlo]

I cant imagine it would for the GMF.

its either done that way or another guess of mine was the skin was mirrored like others then the rest of the arena was built afterwards on the mirrored skin.

either way it doesn't really bother me all that much.

[GroudonRobotWars]

Darksec7 made a Robot Wars arena were both heavy weights fit in the pit, all that would need to happen is for a reskin to look real like I am doing, just look for a thread called: eureka I has found it. That is the name of the thread. But the bots begin in the same position as the DSL one and the pit always stays open.

[JoeBlo]

yes as I already posted it was done before.... I helped Darksec7with the python tweaks he made to that arena

the pit staying open was another tweak IIRC as he wanted it like the S2 arena

[Thyrus]

Trov is helping me to build an arena that is somehow like the one you want sonny. When it`s done (don`t know when) I can send it to you if you want.

[Serge]

You know, my decompiler and compiler are both open-source, you can grab the source, modify it to scale everything down when decompiling, recompile and... recompile.

[JoeBlo]

I did wonder if you could do that since you had to do similar for the RA1 compatibility

would be awesome for components (both enlarge and reduce)

[Clickbeetle]

But resizing objects has always been a snap with the magic of Excel.


Step 1 - Copy and paste all of the MESH_VERTEXes into Excel like so.





Step 2 - Make a duplicate of the three columns of numbers.





Step 3 - Enter a formula into the top right cell; this can be anything.  To shrink the object by half, type "=" (the = sign designates a function) "J1" (the copy of that cell that you made; this represents an original value to work with since you can't create a circular reference by telling a cell to divide itself) "/2" (simple divide by 2.  You can also do *2 or +2 or /10.5 or (J1+1)/3 or anything).





Step 4 - Click the little black box in the lower right corner of the cell and drag it down.  This copies that formula you typed into all the cells in the column, automatically increasing J1 to J2 and J3 and so on, so you can halve the whole column at once.  Then click it again and drag it across the remaining two columns.  Presto, instant resize.





Step 5 - Copy and paste the MESH_VERTEXes back into the gmf file, MAKING SURE TO INCLUDE ALL OF THE EMPTY CELLS TO THE LEFT TOO.  If you don't paste those back in, the indentation will be off and it won't work.  Also, when you paste from Excel it automatically does an Enter and starts a new line under your selection.  Get rid of this too so there are no blank lines in the mesh.





You can easily do this with any size of object.  Resizing something with over 9000 vertexes is really no harder than resizing something with 8.


The only other thing is, if you're resizing an arena, you also need to resize all of the TM_ROW3 coordinates in the RBCollection and in the start points and lights.  This can get tedious if there are a lot of objects as there is no quick way to do them all.  But if there are just a few big objects, then Excel should make it easy.

[Badnik96]

You know, my decompiler and compiler are both open-source, you can grab the source, modify it to scale everything down when decompiling, recompile and... recompile.

Cool. Could we possibly get a tutorial on this? Maybe we could use this to scale down Razer for the RWS3 mod.

[JoeBlo]

or you could just look up at Clicks post

I dont know why I never thought of using excel ??? I use it for similar applications as this already

[Badnik96]

My computer doesn't have Excel

[Trovaner]

There are loads of free excel alternatives out there if you're interested in getting it.

I use excel all the time when resizing/rotating pre-made objects. Besides excel, there are 2 component resizers out there (one was made by Duck and the other by AlienTech). Excel just happens to be more user friendly IMO.