How to build a simple map

[Cpt. Barbossa]

Time for another editor thing explained. Today: Building a useable ladder. This is nothing really difficult, but if you read this you can save a lot of time. So for making a ladder you'll need two things:

1. A ladder (probably attached to a wall)

2. another ladder :wink:

Maybe the second ladder needs some explaining... As you may already have seen, in the pop up menu of the game view window (right click) there's a menu item called "New ladder". When you use it, somewhere in your map there should be a blue, vertical object that looks a bit like a prism. This makes your ladder useable for the soldiers. The only thing you have to do now, is place the blue "thing" in front of your ladder. Both ladder and blue "thing" need to have the same direction. Now double click on the blue "thing" and you can enter how much stairs the ladder will have, where 4 stairs are equal to one floor. Other values than multiples of four doesn't make sense, as they make your ladder unuseable. When your done it should look something like this:

https://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~uxgh/Ladder.jpg

I hope there won't be problems with ladders anymore!

[LoTekK]

Cool stuff. I've been having trouble with the terrain holes and terrain spots, among other things. Whenever I add one of those layers, I can't click on the options box for them, and I can't seem to do anything in the editor window with them, either (tried ctrl-click-dragging). How do you get those to work?

[Mr. Adequate]

Cool stuff. I've been having trouble with the terrain holes and terrain spots, among other things. Whenever I add one of those layers, I can't click on the options box for them, and I can't seem to do anything in the editor window with them, either (tried ctrl-click-dragging). How do you get those to work?

 

Terrain spots: Add a terrain spots layer, then add the "Spots" tab to the pane on the right side of the editor (under "Zone"). The stuff from the Spots tab can be dragged to the spots layer as usual.

 

Terrain holes: haven't tried yet.

[Cpt. Barbossa]

Another possibility to create Terrain spots would be to use the menu item "New Terrain spot" in the game view context menu (right click). The problem here is, that you may have some trouble finding your spot, because it may be placed some random place in the map, or even out of the map. So I think Mr Adequate's solution is somewhat more comfortable

 

With Terrain holes it's almost the same. Again, enter the game view context menu (right click ) and choose "New Terrain hole". Here once again, you might have to look around the map to find the terrain hole you just created. I think the settings you're asked before creating a hole should be selfexplaining, but if not: first you have to say how many vertices you want and then what radius it will have (because terrain holes are generated as approximated circles). Last thing is the depth, where -2 is equal to one floor down - if I'm not completely mistaken. By the way: if you enter a value greater than 0 as depth you'll get something like a piece of cake

You can also manipulate the vertices of the terrain hole by simply selecting and dragging them.

[Munch]

After I place objects they dont show on the map, when I click the play button the walls and what not are there, but I cant see them in the editing window . Is there any way to get them to show up?

[LoTekK]

Menu -> View -> Update game view

 

or

 

click the button that looks like two arrows circling each other

[Matt Helm]

I have followed the steps listed at the beginning of the thread but, alas, I am having problems.

 

My centre screen turns all black after I reate a new item, I don't get any option to set any size variables, and the new layer button doesn't seem to do anything.

 

Any idea what I am doing wrong here?

[LoTekK]

First, make sure you're creating a new item under the "Templates" tab. Next, once the viewing window goes black (this is normal), try to move the camera around (the editor uses the same camera controls as the game), and you should be able to see a white grid (size is dependant on the values you input into the "create new item" dialogue.

[Matt Helm]

I see, thanks. The original post says "object tree", that is what threw me off the track.

[LoTekK]

I've been messing around some more with creating buildings, and found out, to my disappointment, that the constructors (walls, floors, etc) can only be oriented in the 4 cardinal directions. Which means no rounded buildings (there goes my castle with round parapets).

 

[edit]

On second thoughts, there are some maps (in the test templates section) that have off-angle walls, most notably the ones grouped together with the "stonehenge" map.

[/edit]

 

[edit2]

So that's how they did it. They cheated. While the walls are still limited to 90-degree rotations, templates suffer no such limitations. So they created a template consisting solely of one wall, and proceeded to insert that template into the map. The drawback? Since they're templates, they don't lock together like regular walls, so you can't really construct "proper" buildings. But it seems like it could work with some imagination.

[/edit2]

[Embryodead]

I can not change my white grid from anything else, everytime I Try to brush something onto it nothing happens.

What am I doing wrong?

Material is set to Grass_64

I have a Texture layer

 

...sigh, they really make you do so many steps for something so simple as painting onto the map. I've been trying to brush/erase with no luck forever, it just stays a white grid.

[Flippah]

are you trying to brush with the tool names "brush" ? dont use it.. use the normal pointer

[Embryodead]

Thank you Flippah, that worked. I had tried that before but this is where my new problem has cropped up.

 

I can paint textures, finally, yay! But ... I can only paint 1/4 of the area, the other 3/4 won't be affected. Well, this isn't all the time but it has happened more times than it should oddly, and I am using powers of 2 (currently 32 and only getting 1/4 painted)

 

Rofl. For example, I can paint in the part labeled O but the X's won't fill in.

 

XX

OX

 

A few more quick questions so I don't clutter up board.

 

Can someone post a list of where certain objects are located, I can't find walls for buildings or such like that but I can find all other things ... O_o.

 

I hope the manual is really in-depth, or someone makes a tutorial website because this is pretty confusing. Can you even move items after they are placed, or do you just get one shot? I am so confused and I used to map quite a bit for Quake 1-3.

[Biggles]

It's not powers of 2 that the map needs to be.. it HAS to be a multiple of 8

 

8

16

24

32

40

48

56

64

72

80

etc etc etc

 

So a 8x72 map is OK, but 36x36 isn't

 

That could be the problem

[damocles]

I don't think that's the problem for two reasons:

 

1) a power fo 2 that is larger than 8 is automatically a multiple of 8.

 

2) I've used weird sized maps (but always a multiple - not power - of 2) and have seen no such problems.

 

Unfortunately I cannot think of anything that would cause areas of the terrain to be unpaintable

[son_ix]

Unfortunately I cannot think of anything that would cause areas of the terrain to be unpaintable

 

oh yes, just try a map 30x30 then u'll have a 2 squares white border on your map that is not paintable with texture brush

[damocles]

So it does. I've never come across that one uhtil now - I must have just been getting lucky on the sizes I was arbritarily choosing

 

Doesn't help Embryodead though - he said his map is 32x32, so there's no reason why he shouldn't be able to paint it all.

[VicTabac]

I dont find any reference so maybe that means this is a real easy one. Simple really, Ive got a 2 story house, need to add a flight of stairs. Ive found the stairs in the Constructor tab, but Im drawing a wild blank on how to get that middle landing that connects the two flights.

 

This is one of those I know is right in front of my face.

 

 

Cheers

vt

[Cpt. Barbossa]

There is an extra layer for "semi" floors that you need. It's used the same way as the floor layer, so really no big deal. Using that should make your stairs work and look quite fine

Hope that helps you!

[Unsterblich]

I can add floor texture layers and walls... but I don't know why I can't add roofs and floors (message: "Only wall can be selected").

 

Any ideia what am I doint wrong?

 

I'll continue to bash my head into it, but it really feels like a blind man walking in unknown territory... without a stick.

 

Edit: Also, I can't see the trees.. I just moved the objetcs to the screen but they don't appear. Only their green rectangles and squares.

[vs322]

The problem of not seeing objects is probably because you have your object an a floor above what you are looking at. If you press the plus on the numeric keypad while the main editor is active you can see the next floor up, which maybe where your object is.

 

The roofs are under solids and you place them just like walls and floors. Is it that you don't have the layers active that you can't ad floors? (you press the piece of paper looking button in the layer window and it brings up a list of all the possible layers).

 

I am confused that you can add "floor texture" but not "floors"- what are you trying to do? add building spots (textures) of just add floors. It sounds like you are trying to add a floor while in the wall layer- you need to have a layer for both.

-vs

[Qaz]

The roofs are under solids and you place them just like walls and floors. Is it that you don’t have the layers active that you can’t ad floors? (you press the piece of paper looking button in the layer window and it brings up a list of all the possible layers).

Not necessarily. You can add roofs in floors layer too. Sometimes it is useful.

[vs322]

Qaz; Yes its true that you can put a roof into the floor layer, one disadvantage to this is that you can not turn the visibility for just the roof off, If you need to do work on the same floor, but lower than the roof. Where if you use 'solids' and 'intermediate solids' you can control the visibility. You can link the layers as well if you need to.

 

But I would like to know the advantages to having the roofs being on the floor layer?, what are they?

[KoMik]

Sometimes it is useful to put roof-solids to to wall-layer:

-Linking intermediate solids-layer and solids-layer is necessary if want to get rid of those blinking overlapping textures

-Linking make both layers as one (solid-pieces uses specific places and wipe all overlapping)

-If you don't want to wipe overlapping (complex roofs) then place some roof-pieces to wall-layer

-Linking both solids-layers and floors-layer is necessary if you don't want the roof-edges inside house (try it... you will see)

So my advice is don't place solids to floors-layer because you will need it to link solids-layers but wall-layer you don't have to link.

 

Btw floors can be placed also by holding ctrl and clicking map (with yellow-lined box-pointer).