MILO starter guide! - 5mods/tutorials GitHub Wiki

I've always got the impression the Eclipse Tower was, at one point, meant to represent the pinnacle of downtown architecture. Personally, I've always deemed the Eclipse Tower rather unimaginative. So, I set out to take one of the fancy Eclipse Penthouse interiors, and move it to 3 Alta Street -- a much fancier building, IMHO, in the 'banking' district. I adapted my own (private) version of SPA for that. Today I succeeded:

https://youtu.be/tnwJd-qi0Kc

Since I ran into some snares along the way, I decided to make a small beginner's guide about MILO loading, so it will be easier for future peeps playing with MILO files.

For starters, what is MILO? I don't even know for sure, as this game's innards appear to be notoriously undocumented (at least officially); but it's reasonable to assume it stands for Moveable Interior LOader. The idea behind a MILO is rather brilliant, really. Instead of hard-coding all your build's objects coordinates, you create a ymap file with just relative coordinates (relative to a, preferably nearby, virtual 'root' prim). That ymap is typically embedded in a CMloArchetypeDef container, inside a ytyp file. Like apa_int_mp_h_08.ytyp, used in my project. It creates a CMloArchetypeDef called apa_V_mp_h_08, in this case. You can use this interior name in your own MILO loader. Like in the 3alta_aqua_interior_milo_.ymap I created (which is essentially just an adapted copy of apa_v_mp_h_08_c.ymap):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<CMapData>
  <name>3alta_aqua_interior_milo_</name>
  <parent/>
  <flags value="1"/>
  <contentFlags value="73"/>
  <streamingExtentsMin x="-12739.02000000" y="-10075.14000000" z="-989.30100000"/>
  <streamingExtentsMax x="7260.98200000" y="9924.85600000" z="5010.69900000"/>
  <entitiesExtentsMin x="-12739.02000000" y="-10075.14000000" z="-989.30100000"/>
  <entitiesExtentsMax x="7260.98200000" y="9924.85600000" z="5010.69900000"/>
  <entities>
    <Item type="CMloInstanceDef">
      <archetypeName>apa_v_mp_h_08</archetypeName>
      <flags value="1572864"/>
      <guid value="752431654"/>
      <position x="-266.301" y="-952.1876" z="95.0"/>
      <rotation x="0.00000000" y="0.00000000" z="0.5701291" w="0.8215551"/>
      <scaleXY value="1.00000000"/>
      <scaleZ value="1.00000000"/>
      <parentIndex value="-1"/>
      <lodDist value="60.00000000"/>
      <childLodDist value="0.00000000"/>
      <lodLevel>LODTYPES_DEPTH_ORPHANHD</lodLevel>
      <numChildren value="0"/>
      <priorityLevel>PRI_REQUIRED</priorityLevel>
      <extensions/>
      <ambientOcclusionMultiplier value="255"/>
      <artificialAmbientOcclusion value="255"/>
      <tintValue value="0"/>
      <groupId value="0"/>
      <floorId value="0"/>
      <defaultEntitySets/>
      <numExitPortals value="4"/>
      <MLOInstflags value="0"/>
    </Item>
  </entities>
  <containerLods/>
  <boxOccluders/>
  <occludeModels/>
  <physicsDictionaries>
    <Item>V_mp_h_08</Item>
  </physicsDictionaries>
  <instancedData>
    <ImapLink/>
    <PropInstanceList/>
    <GrassInstanceList/>
  </instancedData>
  <timeCycleModifiers/>
  <carGenerators/>
  <LODLightsSOA>
    <direction/>
    <falloff/>
    <falloffExponent/>
    <timeAndStateFlags/>
    <hash/>
    <coneInnerAngle/>
    <coneOuterAngleOrCapExt/>
    <coronaIntensity/>
  </LODLightsSOA>
  <DistantLODLightsSOA>
    <position/>
    <RGBI/>
    <numStreetLights value="0"/>
    <category value="0"/>
  </DistantLODLightsSOA>
  <block>
    <version value="0"/>
    <flags value="0"/>
    <name/>
    <exportedBy/>
    <owner/>
    <time/>
  </block>
</CMapData>

(Don't forget to set the proper physicsDictionaries too, V_mp_h_08 in this case)

One thing you'll notice, is that you really don't need a Parent loader (most game's MILO's are 'children' of often up to 3-4 levels of inheritance): it works well enough stand-alone. (I was a bit lazy on the extends, but the interior will be totally invisible from the outside anyway). Also note:

<flags value="1"/>

This is not the usual '0', so the ymap isn't loaded automagically on startup, but only on request. Other contentFlags than 73 are possible, but 73 is a sure bet.

As a sidenote, still well worth mentioning, I think, CodeWalker is awesome! You can just grab the 'root prim' of an entire MILO instance with it, and move/rotate it around as a whole, for your convenience! Chapeau for this great mod!

Now, back to business. One vital step, is that your own MILO loader needs a proper _manifest.ymf entry, telling the game where it can find the CMloInstanceDef dependency! Like so:

  <imapDependencies_2>
    <Item>
      <imapName>3alta_aqua_interior_milo_</imapName>
      <manifestFlags>INTERIOR_DATA</manifestFlags>
      <itypDepArray>
        <Item>apa_int_mp_h_08</Item>
      </itypDepArray>
    </Item>
  </imapDependencies_2>

(Thanks to @nkjellman, for having published his Leftover Interiors from Beta mod, so I could study it, and get a clue).

Using this bit of code snippet @Alex106 provided, earlier today (for disabling the MILO physics, after removal), you are now ready to use your own MILO:

int MPMapAltaStApt = Function.Call<int>(Hash.GET_INTERIOR_AT_COORDS, -266.301f, -952.1876f, 95.0f);
Function.Call(Hash.SET_INTERIOR_ACTIVE, MPMapAltaStApt, true);
Function.Call(Hash.DISABLE_INTERIOR, MPMapAltaStApt, false);

(You can use 'ToggleIPL' for this in SPA, btw: plenty examples therein).

That will be it for today! In a next installment, I will address how to make your own moveable CMloArchetypeDef map entries (we still need a good tool to re-calculate fixed coordinated to relative ones, IMHO).

And thanks to the above ppl, and to the always helpful @Cyron43, of course, for kindly giving me access to his bunker loader code. :)