Hello and welcome to the articy:draft X Basics tutorial series. In this lesson we will check out the Location editor.
Let me start with an important note: articy’s Location Editor primarily serves as a means of communication within the team. In addition to that it can also assist the writer by providing a spatial view on the project. The Location Editor is no level editor and was not designed to create game levels for direct use in the game engine.
With that out of the way, let’s dive in. Click the Locations button on the Jumpstart page (1), or alternatively the location system folder in the Navigator (2). There is a location object called “map” in here, which we can open by double-clicking the tile (3).
In the content area on the right side the location is displayed (1), in the Navigator on the left (2) you get an overview of the elements that were used.
Here you can also toggle the visibility of elements (1) or lock them in place (2) with a click next to the element’s name.
Like in the Flow you can zoom in or out with the mouse wheel and pan around by clicking middle or right mouse button, hold, and drag.
Images
Let’s look at the elements that have been used for this location so far. For the background, a concept art of the game world was used. To use an image asset in a location, click the Image icon in the toolbar, or use the hotkey “Shift + 9”.
The background element is locked, to not move it unintentionally, while working on other elements.
Zones & Paths
If you want to draw your own levels or mockup maps you can choose from different zone and path options. These are custom shaped zones (1), rectangular zones (2), circular zones (3), path (4), or free-hand path (5). They can be selected via the tool-bar or with the hotkeys “Shift + 1 to 5”. With the hotkey “Escape” you get back to the Selection tool (6).
For our map, zones were used to highlight special areas. The orange zones are the ones where the scenes are part of the this demo project. In Dracula’s mansion the “First meeting” dialogue is supposed to take place and the harbor is the location for the “Final confrontation”. The cut scene takes place in Mina’s house, which is not yet highlighted. I choose the custom zone tool by clicking the icon on the toolbar or by using the “Shift + 1” hotkey and draw a shape roughly around the house in the center of the map.
As soon as the path is closed the tool changes to the selection tool and the newly drawn shape gets selected. We now have a second, context-sensitive toolbar, with a lot of options to further edit the zone element.
With Transform (1) we can scale or rotate the zone as a whole, Edit shape (2) allows us to move single points to change the overall shape. We can add points by a left-click on the zone’s border or delete points by holding “Control” and left-clicking the point we want to remove.
Next we can select color and opacity. The color options are divided between fill and outline. As Mina’s house is a location where one of our project scenes takes place I will change the color to the same orange the other scene locations are marked with. I will also increase the opacity a bit to enhance visibility.
With the controls on the right side we can decide if we want to display the zone’s name and if yes in what color and size. Now we can properly read the name. Well, we could, if it wasn’t called “Untitled Zone”. To rename a zone double click it in the content area or select its entry in the Navigator and use Rename from the rightclick context menu.
Spots
To mark a point of interest, we can use Spots.
Flag or cross styles and three different sizes are available to choose from.
Text & Anchors
If you want to add some additional text to a location, you can use the “Text” tool.
Text and images can be anchored to clearly indicate where they belong to. Anchors can be created and removed via the right click context menu. To delete a single anchor select it with a single left click and press Delete.
Links
A great way to add reference points to a location is the Link tool. Links are used to position other articy objects like Flow Fragments, Dialogues, or Entities inside locations. They can also be used to connect different locations with each other. By double-clicking a link, you immediately jump to the referenced object.
Click the “Link” icon in the toolbar or use the hotkey “Shift + 8”.
Choose the “First meeting” object as the reference object and confirm with Okay.
Then move the link to the desired position and place it with a left click. Another way to place a link is to drag and drop the object directly from the Navigator.
In the object selection pop-up we can use the filter to quickly find specific objects. In addition to the dialogues I also want to mark the position of the Stake item, so that the level-designer already gets an idea where this item needs to be positioned to fit the story flow.
Of course you can move and re-arrange links and other elements later. Just make sure they are not locked, then left-click the element, hold, and drag to the new position.
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