Ut99 editor tutorial- don't reply

[Fortress]

Hey all, welcome to my first UT99 Ed tutorial. For those wanting to learn how to map, I can teach the basics, from geometry, to lighting, and to basic triggers. Please DO NOT REPLY TO THIS THREAD. IT MAKES THE WHOLE TUTORIAL MUCH SMOOTHER.

First order of business, we will discuss the the many utilities and buttons to click within the editor itself.

[Fortress]

This is the main screen for the UT editor, with all viewports, buttons, and the like.

[Fortress]

These buttons are the ones located at the top of your screen. They include access to your actors, textures, and music/sounds. First, let me discuss these buttons.

Actors: Anything from spawnpoints, to lighting, to weaponry, actors are basically the things that give "life" to your map. Without actors, all you have is just geometry, and it plays particularly dull without them.

Textures: self-explanatory, these textures range from moving textures, to plain textures. I'll get into that later.

Music/Sound Browser: The music browser allows you to choose and listen to music within your editor. You will not use this as much as your sound browser. With the sound browser, you can choose between a myriad (a lot) of sounds. There are like 10 sounds just for wind alone within the editor.

As well as these buttons, you have some more functions to choose between. We'll start with the 2D editor.

2D editor: The most versatile, and maybe useful tool, the 2D editor allows you to create any shape you want. A very important tool if you want to make your maps very detailed. Note that you view objects created in this editor mode from above.

UT script Editor: I'm not exactly sure, but I think with this, you can edit any actor to make it exactly what you want. I don't play around with it much.

Actor/Surface Properties: I will explain this later, when I show how to make an actor and edit textures.

Final Build Tools: You must run this every time you make changes to your map and wish to play it. The geometry builder only compiles physical objects (walls, boxes, etc.) and the lighting builder compiles lighting only. It's best to press Build All, does everything for you.

Mesh Browser: Allows you to look through an archive of meshes, including things like weaponry, player models, etc.

[Fortress]

These building tools allow you to actually add your objects, carve out of them, and mess with some texture options. First, I'll talk a little about the more important functions on this toolbar. Add and Subtract.

To first make a map, you need to look at your editor. Do you see the gigantic, blue, wireframe? Imagine that that wireframe is a big, marble, cube. And you are inside of it. You have no more room inside to ADD anything, so you have to first SUBTRACT out of it.

Before you do that, even, you must first pick the shape of your choosing. Look through the list of objects (they are colored turquoise), and pick which ones you want. When you do, you should see a pink wireframe of the object you picked inside of the blue wireframe.

The object you see is a cube. By RIGHT CLICKING the cube tool in the editor, you can bring up a screen to edit the shape's dimensions. As you can see, it is currently set to 256x256x256. Those are the default dimensions. (A player in game fits perfectly into a cube with the attributes 128x64x32.)

[Fortress]

Let's see what happens when we subtract an object in the editor.

You now see a cube, with a moon-like texture applied to it. It does look a little ugly, doesn't it? This is where the tutorial actually begins. We will now start, with applying a normal texture to it.

IF YOU ARE BEHIND ON WHAT WE ARE DOING SO FAR, WE HAVE DONE THE FOLLOWING

cube builder>256x256x256>subtract

[Fortress]

Open up your texture editor, and click file>open. Type, or search yourself, for the texture package UTTech1. Within a texture package, you have a selection of groups. Some of these deal with walls, floors, and lights. For now, I want you to choose the grouping called "Wall". Within this, you will find a nice selection of wall textures to choose from. Click each wall while holding CTRL (to select multiple surfaces at once), and click the texture called BMWALL3.

[Fortress]

After you have selected and chosen textures for all of the surfaces within your cube, you should have a nice looking room (prison cell). Let's expand a little bit. This kind of a hole is good for a spawnpoint, but we want to be able to move around. Open your cube editor again, and set the dimensions to 512x1024x1024. Look to your TOP veiwport now. The large pink cube (the brush, which outlines what you are about to create) should now surround your box. By holding CTRL, and using left mouse, drag your brush so that it is touching the small cube with just an edge. Subtract, and texture the surfaces to your liking. You should now end up with something like this...

[Fortress]

Now that we have a little room, let's take a look around. You see how the textures "repeat themselves"? We want to scale the room textures to look a little better. Right click each of the walls in your new room, and click surface properties. You should end up with a window with three tabs. Go to the tab labeled "alignment". See the little tabs under scaling labeled "U" and "V"? enter 1 for U and 2 for V. Your room should look a little better now. Here's a before and after image.

[Fortress]

Continuing our tutorial from last night. Now then, we have our room, now let's add a little detail to it. Go into your CUBE DIMENSION EDITOR, make the dimensions 512x256x256. Now ADD. If your cube is not in the center of the large room, do the following: Highlight the cube (by clicking it) in your TOP VIEWPORT. By holding CTRL and LEFT MOUSE, drag it toward the center of the large room. You may not see a difference in the 3D view until you BUILD ALL. The 3D view is always behind the 2D ones, meaning if you move an object in 2D, it will not updated in 3D until you BUILD ALL. I'll post screenshots of this.

[Fortress]

Take a look at the first screenshot. Notice anything strange? The cube in the 3D view appears to be in the corner, when you actually moved it in the TOP 2D view. The second screenshot shows me pressing BUILD ALL. You should end up with something pitch black. Don't freak out and start clicking around. I'll post a screenshot of what you should click.

On each window (3D, TOP, SIDE, FRONT) there are a set of tools next to the name of the window. On one of these screenshots, I posted what you need to switch between. A picture of two boxes with polka dots. Click the one to the left. Your map should now be visible. This is a term called UNLIT. Meaning that light does not affect these objects, and you will see them regardless weather you have lighting or not. Now that you can see, we're going to add some light to this room.

[Fortress]

RIGHT CLICK in the corner shown in the screenshot. ADD LIGHT HERE should be in the list of options. The actor "light" is always auto-selected by default, and will always be in that list, so you never have to go searching for it. Anyway, add your light. You won't really see a difference being in UNLIT mode and all. Click the polka dotted cube with the little shadow behind it, you should have a pitch black map again. No worries, though, just press BUILD ALL again, and dig this.

[Fortress]

Not the prettiest room out there, but hey, it looks a thousand times better than before, and all you did was add one light. I'm going to get in depth with lights now, and editing their attributes. Double click the light in either the 3D or 2D views. You should get a window full of options for your light. Open up the options labeled "light color" and "lighting". From light color, you can edit, well, the color. As well as the saturation, hue, and brightness of the light. In the lighting options, you can edit all sorts of things to give your light special effects. For now, play around within the Light Type and Light Effect options. (IMPORTANT: ALWAYS MAKE SURE THAT THE LIGHT TYPE IS SET TO ANYTHING BUT "NONE", NONE PRETTY MUCH TURNS YOUR LIGHT OFF).

[first-day-dead...]

Hey thanks again Fortress,

{MØZ}DAMNJULIO made this tutorial for me, its how to add music to your map. Enjoy

http://btmoz.com/Tuts/UTCustomMusic.html

[FUN]first-day-dead...