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Creating Your First Map

This is the first lesson in a series which will take you through each aspect of UnrealEd map creation. If you wish to donate a tutorial or tip contact jcsmith@gameznet.com and we will try to accomodate you.

In this lesson you will learn:

How to create a brush out of primitive objects.
How to drag your primitives around.
How to add textures.
How to add textures to specific faces.
How to add lighting.
How to add a player start position.
How to add weapons to your world.

Let the lesson begin:

buildcube.jpg (891 bytes)First thing we need to do is click the right mouse button on the Build Cube Button(represented to the left).
Select Cube Properties from the listing. This will bring up a menu similar to what you see below:

pbBuildCube.jpg (10394 bytes)
You may edit these properties to fit your needs. A few things should be noted however. 256 is the standard room height. You do not have to go by standard room sizes, but it better fits into the texture wrapping techniques if you do so(for multi level maps). It's easy to think of Breadth as Depth.

After you select your options hit the Build button to build your primitive. You may not like the placement of your object and may wish to manuever it around your world. To do so click on the object in one of your 3d windows(not the viewpoint window). It should highlight. Hold down CTRL to manuever it around the viewpoint.

Now for a bit about manuevering through viewpoints. You can hold down either the left, the right, or both mouse button's to move around the three axis'(x/y/z). If you do not have the obejct selected, and are in move camera mode(the default) this will move your camera and not any of your brushes.

Now is the time to select a texture for our brush. We could place textures(and will) after carving our primitive into the world, but this technique allows us to select a texture for all walls at once.

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Make sure your Browse location(upper right hand corner of screen) is set to Textures. It should be as this is the default. Select load from the bar underneath it(represented to the right). Select the Load button. This should bring up a menu of available textures. You can select any texture set that you wish. I personally like the Ancient set.

Next browse the texture list and select a texture you wish to use. You should choose one that would make a good wall texture. Click it one time with the left mouse button. This should highlight that texture.

subtractbrush.jpg (852 bytes)We are now ready to carve our primitive into the world. You do this by clicking the Subtract Brush From World icon. Why are we subtracting it from the world? Remember Unreal is much different from creating a Quake map. Remember our woodcarving analogy from the Intro To UnrealEd tutorial. After clicking the Subtract button we should now have a textured brush in our viewing window.

However, unless we are artistically challenged, we do not want our ceiling and floor to have the same texture as the walls. So in the viewpoint window click the left mouse button on the ceiling. This should highlight only the ceiling. Simply choose a texture from the texture menu and click the left mouse button place it onto the ceiling. It is this easy to place textures onto your faces. Do the same for the floor.

Now it is time to render our scene. You must render from time to time to update the viewpoint window correctly. We do so by hitting the
F8 key. When the render window comes up select the option Rebuild Geometry. Now you are probably wondering what happened to my textured cube?

Well in the viewpoint window there is a menu titled
mode. Click on this menu and select Textured and you should regain your brush. Why did this happen? Because we were in Dynamic Lighting mode. We were viewing the way we would if we were playing the game. What we need to do now is add lighting to our scene.

Click the right mouse somewhere inside your room. From the menu that opens select
Add Light from the menu. This should create a light in your scene. Remember to move it around click the object and hold down the control key. This should add a light to your room. You may wish to add more than one light source to give better lighting. Hit F8 again and select Rebuild Geometry. Now change our viewpoint mode back to Dynamic Lighting. This is a pretty good representation of how our room will look in the game.

We are almost ready to test our level, but first we need to add a starting point for our player. Change our
Browse option(in the upper right hand corner) to Classes. Expand the Navigation Point item and highlight Player Start. Now go to one of your 3d windows and hit the right mouse button. Select Add Player Start from the menu. It is that simple.

Our room won't be any fun with the standard weapon, so let's add a new one to our map. Under the Classes menu expand
Inventory, then expand Weapons. Highlight Razorjack. Once again click the right mouse button somewhere in the map and select Add Razorjack.

We are now ready to test our game. Hit
F8 once again, and select Rebuild Geometry. Go to the file menu, and select Play Level, or hit CTRL+P. Enjoy your first level.

You have now learned several of the most important functions to map design. You may download the sample map that we have created by clicking
here.