Need help with mapping Read this

[Lovett]

Hope this helps you in your mapping

 

 

 

Setting up GTKRadiant

I’m not going to go through all the details of setting up radiant. All I am going to say is look at the manual file that comes with radiant, it explains step by step, with nice little diagrams and everything, how to set radiant up.

One piece of advice I will offer is, when setting up the view you want to use, select the third diagram along in the preferances. This is the one that splits the screen up into 4 quarters. Top right window is Camera, top left window is top down, bottom right window is front and bottom left window is side. This is the easiest view to use (in my opinion anyway, also those who use worldcraft will feel most comfortable with this view)

 

Basic Controls

Commands

First, for a list of keyboard commands, go to the help menu in radiant and select command list.

 

Camera

Controlling the camera is simple, but it takes some getting used to. There are two ways to control the camera

Use the arrow keys. I find this way slow and jerky but sometimes it is needed when you want to get really close to something.

Use the mouse. This is the way that takes some getting used too. Holding down the right mouse button in the camera window will cause it to more. Put the mouse at the top and right click and the camera will go forwards. The bottom of the screen goes backwards and the left and right sides of the screen turn you in the corresponding directions. HOWEVER the further you move the mouse in any one direction the faster the camera moves, so if you have the mouse right at the top of the window you will zoom off forwards at a rate of knots. Putting the mouse close to the middle of the screen and moving it outwards leads to the best control over the camera.

If you hold down the control key and then hold the right mouse button in the camera window and drag the mouse, you will go up and down and be able to strafe from side to side.

 

Grid Windows

Clicking on a window selects it. Once you have clicked on a grid window Insert and Delete will zoom in and out. Holding the right mouse button and dragging the mouse will enable you to navigate the view.

 

Grid

To change the grid size use the number keys or click on the grid menu at the top of radiant. Snap to grid is also located here.

 

 

 

 

Basic Brush Manipulation

Creating brushes

Just so you know a brush is a block.

Creating a brush is easy. Go to one of the grid windows and drag a box (it will be red). That’s all there is too it, you just created a brush. You can see how big it is by looking at it in the camera view, or by looking at it in all 3 of the grid windows.

 

Brush Commands and Basic Manipulation

To deselect a brush (so you can draw another etc) press escape.

 

To delete a brush press backspace.

 

To select a brush hold down shift and click on it in the camera window. (Note - You can click on a brush in the grid window but in a complex map you will have many brushes overlapping each other and its almost impossible to select the one you want)

 

To move a brush, select it and press and hold the left mouse button inside it. Then drag it to where you want.

 

To resize a brush, select it and then press and hold the left mouse button outside the wall you want to manipulate. Move towards that wall to make the brush smaller in that direction, and pull away to make the brush larger. (Note - This is the basics of brush manipulation, you can make all sizes of squares and rectangles by doing this, and therefore you can create objects by placing different sized and shaped brushes together)

 

To copy a brush, select it and press space.

 

Flipping and Rotating Brushes

This is another simple thing.

 

Flipping

To flip a brush, select it and then go to the selection menu, then to flip, and then select the axis you wish to flip it in (Note - Flipping mirrors the object in whatever axis you selected)

 

Rotating

To rotate a brush, select it and then go to the selection menu, then to rotate and then select one of the options. Selecting Rotate X, Rotate Y or Rotate Z will rotate the brush through 90 degrees around the selected axis. Selecting arbitrary rotation will allow you to rotate the brush through as many degrees as you like about any of the 3 axes.

 

Creating a Room

To create a room simply draw a brush to the size of your room. Then set the grid size to the size you want the thickness of the walls to be. Then select the brush, go to the selection menu, then to CSG then to Make Hollow. This will hollow out the room and make the walls as thick as one square on the grid. (Note - This will split the brush into 6 separate brushes (one for each wall) so if you want to resize the room you will have to move/stretch each wall individually)

 

 

 

Adding Entities

An entity is something like a gun, or ammo, or light.

To create an entity, first create a brush. Make sure you have that brush selected. Then press T. This will bring up the texture window. Click on the Entities tab to bring up a list of entities. Double click on the entity you want and the brush will change into it. You can then move it around the same way you move a brush.

 

Texturing

Texturing a map is slightly harder than everything else.

First go to the Texture menu. The bottom section of this menu has a list of words such as base, common, effects, gothic etc. Select one of these words (or one of the selections in the sub menu’s) and it will load that texture set for you to use. Press T and you will see all the textures appear in the window.

To texture a brush, select it and then click on the texture you want to apply. It will then go immediately onto the brush. If you only want to select one face of a brush for texturing, hold down control AND shift and click on a brush face. Then select the texture you wish to apply.

 

Adding Light

Another simple process. In one of the grid windows, right click. This will create a menu. Click on light and then type in a number for the brightness (you will need to experiment to get a feel for how bright each number is). To select a light source you do the same as selecting a brush. It appears as a white tetrahedron in the camera window.

 

Adding a Start Point

To add a start point, right click on a grid window somewhere inside your room. This will make a drop down box appear. Move the mouse over Info and a sub menu will appear. Select Info_player_start for a single player start and Info_player_deathmatch for a multiplayer start.

 

Compiling and Running Your Map

First save the map to the baseq3/maps directory

 

Compiling

To compile the map quickly so you can test it go to the BSP menu, then click bsp_fastvis (light -extra).

To compile the map fully go to the BSP menu, then click bsp_fullvis.

 

Running

To run the map, load Jk2. Open the console and type SV_Pure 0 and press enter.

Then type /devmap mapname and press enter and your map will load (hopefully)

 

Regards

Tony.L