Cheers I now know were I was going wrong. And instead of racking my brain for hours fixing more problems I've now created am starting from scratch.

Is there a way to exit a mission edit with out going back to the login screen.

There is a very simple adage, it's called the KISS rule. Keep It Simple Stupid.....

Having cool toys makes it complex.

I dunno if the question has already been answered at all, but could someone tell me whether they will include:

* Hostile fed NPC's for fed side *holding me up on two or so missions in development atm, undine influenced etc*
* Feature episode maps including characters. *I need Obisek for a Mission lol*
* And custom ships including factions such as romulans and remans.

cheers.

* Lovin Foundry keep up the great work cryptic*

So very true, But think of the possibilities. I think organisation is better than simple.

We've been very spoiled lately with the cut-scenes that were added to the revamped missions and included with Cloaked intentions for example.

I can see a CUT SCENE EDITOR as a great addition to foundry.
A method to create a "script" where you give assign ACTIONS to ACTOR and CAMERAS, and SCENES

ACTORS would need move-to and emote verbs,
CAMERAS would need pan-to, zoom-to and activate (for 2nd cam) verbs,
SCENES would need sfx to activate an effect and text-overlay verbs,
a WAIT command for dramatic pauses or to give the player time to read something,
With that you could easily build a quality cut-scene the same way you would write a screenplay dialog.

move-to, pan-to, zoom-to, and sfx would need a location parameter or "mark" to be pre-defined
so you could do something like ACTOR "Hakeev" move-to:<mark1>, for example.
Probably the most complicated thing in this proposal would be to build a tool to place marks.

Concretely how would this work;
I imagine that you would be inside the mission, in test mode, but have an additional tool/power called 'cut-scene'
This cut-scene power would start by pressing "pause world"
which brings up a new UI overlay with the text-based script,
and pre-populated list of ACTORS (NPCs and BOs) that are on the current game screen
and a Camera element at it's current position
So you start with all the elements in their current on-screen starting preset places.

Next press Play (like the director shouting "action" on scene)
and the events would step through a list of tasks in a text script,one by one.
Very linear, no multi-threading. or simultaneous actions required
After all you want the players attention focused on one thing at a time.[/color]

The back-end system would need to track each element's locations at each step so that the UI text screen could include the typical Play/Pause, Previous-step (rewind), Next-step, as the scene was debugged.

When you have the scene scripted the way you want, you press 'Record', the scene starts from the beginning, and is rendered into an object/file that is saved into your foundry mission.

That is probably where the real challenge is.
Remember all the debates about foundry mission not really being pre-built (compiled) beforehand the way Cryptic's in-house missions are? So with this scenario you get a hybrid, pre-build little piece, and have to push it back out to your foundry mission editor.
But clearly not insurmountable.

There are a number of things that could be added incrementally.
Adding new Actors, more cameras, more emotes, more Special Effects, etc.
Extending the max-length of a scene (I would expect it to be limited in both time and number of actions to start)

Thoughts?

remember cut scenes should kept short not as a feature lenght movie tied into the game, although im sure people would like to do that.

The option to skip cut scenes should be included as a standard. But you would need to effectivly take the AI out of the system else your cut scenes would fail.

You would need to put in specific commands similar to the dialog editor into the cut scene so that each person each ship would know exactly what to do.

Say borg sphere turns up and tractors the players ship it would need know where the players ship is and to tractor and not shoot its phasers.

that whole system would need to be a system on its own.

From what I here the Dev's don't like using it because it's to finicky. So I think any version on foundry will probably be only used by the more advanced authors. I also don't believe they will allow us to make epic cut-scenes because of bandwidth and all. I just hope the foundry version is not so simplified it becomes annoying within foundry missions.

I think a cutscene editor would only work well if the map editor became more like the one for Trainz/Railworks/et al where you're actually seeing everything in 3D.

Also, the 'pathed' talking options need more clarity (i.e. talking to a person for more than one text box) as the current wording/listing is unclear.

Ah I'm a huge fan of Trainz simulator type gaming. The amount of hours I've spent making maps on Simulators and not having anyone play them other than myself is a little sad, but thank you for Foundry. The only maps any one has every played I've designed is my friends playing Company Of Heroes via lan.

Not to sure what you mean about the second statement. I'm pretty sure every NPC contact, Popup tool and Talk to Npc tool now has Advanced Dialogue. The Advanced Dialogue is customisable to the brink of insanity, have you tried dragging the arrows at the bottom of the boxes. This might open up a world of possibility. However if your talking about the NPC chat Behaviour, Yes you only get one line. But it is my opinion that it is now obsolete and most will no longer be using it.

Seriously turn on an xbox and get a copy of halo. Then look at FORGE. I hope the 2d thing is very temporary if this is a level construction program. I don't mean to be a jerk and i know it is still under construction. Please if it is possible, look into this for creative people that want to see what they are doing.