Animated briefings - preparation

To show you how this works, I'm going to create a briefing and show you what I did. To do so, I created a new mission file, and created 5 flight groups:

FG name: 1, shiptype: X-wing, IFF: Rebel
FG name: 2, shiptype: Y-wing, IFF: Rebel
FG name: 3, shiptype: A-wing, IFF: Dinas
FG name: 4, shiptype: B-wing, IFF: Dinas
FG name: you, shiptype: TIE Fighter, IFF: Imperial

For purposes of this briefing, I created an IFF called Dinas, in the blue IFF group. The mission window will then look like this. Note that you can download my mission file under the downloads link to see everything, and play the end result in your game.

First thing to remember, is that only flight groups that have a briefing point set, will show up on the briefing map. You can activate the briefing point on the navigation tab in the flight groups window, or by clicking on Edit FGs in Briefing on the briefing map. Select the flight groups you want to see, and hit the OK button. For this mission, I selected all flight groups.

Next, you can click-and-drag the different dots to be where you want them to show up on the map. Here is where a little thinking before you start comes in handy: it's nice to have a general idea of what you want, so you know where to put the flight groups.

The next thing I do when creating an animated briefing, is type out the text that is to be displayed. I pick one text that always shows above the briefing map (the title text), and then put it aother few lines shortly describing the mission (the caption text). You can access this via the menu Briefing -> Edit Strings.

I entered the following strings:

>Animated Briefing tutorial by LT Dempsey for TM/3
You are [alone] in space. Your mothership has [left you behind] after a fierce battle.
Two [Rebel starfighters], an [X-wing] and a [Y-wing], have jumped in and are attacking you.
And just when you think you survived, the [Dinas] return: they have sent an [A-wing] and a [B-wing].
You need to survive until your mothership comes back for you. They will need five minutes to do so.

Next step is the text displayed on the briefing map. This can be simply a list of the fight groups that show, but you can also add some extra information. These are called tags and can be created via the menu Briefing -> Edit Tags. I entered the following tags:

X-W 1 (Rebel)
Y-W 2 (Rebel)
A-W 3 (Dinas)
B-W 4 (Dinas)
T/F you (you)

Now, with all the preparations made, we can start creating the briefing.

¤ introduction ¤ ¤ the creation (1) ¤ ¤ the creation (2) ¤