How to name your files for your map correctly

Written by Wolfseye in the old Forum

I would like to mention a little issue I saw more and more in the last time, concerning the names of maps and how you save them in your Map Editor.

Remote Tools like for example WOLFRAT don’t like Maps which names are with spaces in between. If one tries to put them with Tools like for example WOLFRAT into a mapcycle, the maps will not work or load, they will just disappear out of the maplist again.

Either use – or _ for these spaces, but please, don’t leave them as blanks.

Example:

• AW2 BAD EXAMPLE PART1.npj (wrong!)
• AW2 BAD EXAMPLE PART1.WAC (wrong!)
• AW2 BAD EXAMPLE PART1.bin (wrong!)

 

• AW2-BAD-EXAMPLE-PART1.npj (works!)
• AW2-BAD-EXAMPLE-PART1.WAC (works!)
• AW2-BAD-EXAMPLE-PART1.bin (works!)

 

• AW2_BAD_EXAMPLE_PART1.npj (works!)
• AW2_BAD_EXAMPLE_PART1.WAC (works!)
• AW2_BAD_EXAMPLE_PART1.bin (works!)

That way you help Server Admins greatly to handle your maps and have them in their Server’s rotation. 

Thank you.

P.S: Please don’t mix that up, I don’t mean how you name your map in your Mission Editor. That actually looks best without things like _ or – but I mean the name you save the map to file. Thats what I mean.

Systematic nomenclature will avoid total chaos in your game directory and facilitate easy file management.

Use for example first four letters of your name followed by mapname or filename:

shemcrimea.wac

shemcrimea.npj

shemcrimea.bin

shemhod.wac

shemhod.npj

shemhod.bin

etc.

This will allow you to include additional files to get the most out of your maps. Here are some examples:

shemsoundxxx.wav

shemxx.aip

shemtextxx.txt

Now you can order files by NAME and keep the game directory tidy. If you are inconsistent and careless hosts will be unable to match all required files with your maps and decide to remove them. As a result your maps will look really stupid, e.g. vehicles will move around without animations. You may have seen helicopters floating around without spinning blades. It’s not a pretty sight.