Think of triggers as switches that are operated by an event that takes place during the course of a battle. Triggers can be turned on by a structure being destroyed or even being destroyed .They can be turned on ,or off by the passing of time. They can be activated or deactivated by the death of a specific unit or units. As you can see they are very versatile. This tutorial will cover the basic triggers that you can use quite handily in multiplayer maps. These would include sounds, sound effects, camera movements and reinforcing the NEUTRAL house. This tutorial comes complete with pictures that will help you through the learning process.

Placing actual sounds on your map:

Sounds can be placed at specific areas of your map. This is accomplished with the placing of waypoints or places on the map that you would like a certain sound to come from. First click on WAYPOINT in the left menu, and then on CREATE WAYPOINT WITH SPECIAL ID. You are now ready to place the waypoint ...but where? Let us assume that you have a river in your map. Place the waypoint at a spot that you think would have a high likelihood of traffic during the game like near a bridge). Place it in the water . DO NOT use waypoint numbers 0 thru 7..these are reserved for starting points.

Next click on EDIT and then on TRIGGER EDITOR. A trigger "form" will pop up. Click on NEW TRIGGER and then type in a name for your trigger, an example would be "river sounds". House can be anything for this type of trigger, but we will select neutral because everybody will hear the sounds we are making. Now click EVENTS from the "form" and (click) on NEW EVENT. The box should say event 0. Click on the "event type "arrow and a dropdown menu will appear. The best selection for this trigger would be 8, any event. This means that our sounds will start at the beginning of the game and stay on until the game ends....or any event. We could have also selected 13, Time Elapsed, and then given it a parameter of lets say 3, that means our trigger would start after 3 seconds into the game and continue until the end.

Next click on ACTIONS, then NEW ACTION. The box should say action 0. Click on the "action type" arrow and again. a drop down menu will appear. Go thru the selections and you will find number 99 "PLAY SOUND AT LOCATION". Click on sound in the ACTION PARAMETER BOX. Now click on the "parameter value" arrow and a drop down menu for this will pop up. Run thru the list until you find "_Ambries".

Click on special waypoint in the action parameter box and then type, or select (from the drop down), your waypoint number here. Please refer to the picture on your right.

Now select "unknown" and then type in 7. CONGRATS YOU HAVE JUST MADE A RIVER SOUNDS TRIGGER!
This technique is used for all the AMBIENT sounds that you would like to place. ie: bird sounds, waterfall loop, oil derrick loop etc.

If you have any questions concerning making maps using Final Alert, please contact our map making expert, RVMECH at rvmech@cncgames.com