Mapping for Dummies?

[Wanderer]

Is there a help file or something similar to help me learn to use the tool at all on a Windows box?  The help file that installed with the Map tool doesn't function (go me!), and the wiki tutorials assume you already know how to drop a building onto the grid (and then reselect it).

Basically I'm looking for the idiot proof "Okay, here's how to build a building with a door, a window, a stairway, and a second floor."

Heck, I only found out by accident how to use the arrows to use that 'view point' icon on the map at first.  I kept trying to figure out how to change its brush so it wouldn't make a diamond shaped building.

Thanks in advance.

[Mattn]

there are some german video tutorials at http://mattn.ninex.info/videos/

and a few mapping tutorials in the wiki at http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Mapping

[Wanderer]

and a few mapping tutorials in the wiki at http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Mapping

I found these, at least the keypressed helped.  Unfortunately I don't understand German so the tutorials at best help to see what might be done, but not so much how to do it.

I'm kinda learning by inference.   A slow process for some of these pieces.

I guess I'll have to stumble my way through it and hopefully post/make one if I can get far enough to make something remotely usable.

Thank you for the links, though.

[Mattn]

feel free to ask any question you have - or join the irc channel to discuss problems you have

[Wanderer]

Okay, bumbling along in the map editor.  Starting to understand it's... quirks.

Intuitive it's not.  However, it seems powerful.

Now, a couple of things.  All my textures come up as a series of alternative blue and black checkerboards, even when I CTRL-A to 'show all textures'.  For example, I'm loading the map farm08d.

Second, I appear to be running into different people's file pathing when trying to examine their maps.  IE: C:\programme/map/base... I don't even know where that's supposed to go (I can assume, but the split between / and \ royally tosses me for a loop).  Is there a way to redirect a map's md2 storage location?

Third, I know you guys are creating a library of lovely toys.  GK only appears to have 'prefab imports'... and none of these objects are prefabs.

Fourth, and I know this is gonna sound dumb but it's very frustrating... how do you scroll the top-down X view?  I can get the viewpoint to wander around, and center, but I can't fine control the top down's viewable region.

Thanks!

[Mattn]

Now, a couple of things.  All my textures come up as a series of alternative blue and black checkerboards, even when I CTRL-A to 'show all textures'.  For example, I'm loading the map farm08d.

that happens if you set a wrong base path - which version are you using? (game version) where did you install it and what is the project path (see radiant options->paths)

Second, I appear to be running into different people's file pathing when trying to examine their maps.  IE: C:\programme/map/base... I don't even know where that's supposed to go (I can assume, but the split between / and \ royally tosses me for a loop).  Is there a way to redirect a map's md2 storage location?

radiant can handle this - i suppose it's the wrong projectpath, too - if you see textures in the texture browser (hit t) - you have set the right path and you should also see the models.

Third, I know you guys are creating a library of lovely toys.  GK only appears to have 'prefab imports'... and none of these objects are prefabs.

Yes, i always open a second instance, select the stuff i want to copy and then do normal copy & paste

Fourth, and I know this is gonna sound dumb but it's very frustrating... how do you scroll the top-down X view?  I can get the viewpoint to wander around, and center, but I can't fine control the top down's viewable region.

hold the right mousebutton in the x view window and move your mouse (if i get you right)

[Mattn]

reminds, me: there is a problem with our current mapcompiler - it can't handle compressed archives yet - you have to extract colormap.pcx from the base/0pics.pk3 and copy it to base/pics folder (create it if it's not there)

the pk3-files are normal zip files

[Wanderer]

All my textures come up as a series of alternative blue and black checkerboards.

that happens if you set a wrong base path - which version are you using?
(game version) where did you install it and what is the project path (see radiant options->paths)

Game Version: 2.1.
Install Path: "C:\Program Files\UFOAI21\tools\" (for the q3radiant.exe)

base path: Erm... Radiant options... you mean Edit-> Preferences?
I've got a couple here.  Game path thinks it's looking for quake2...
Prefab path is C:\Program Files\UFOAI21\base\
User INI is blank.  I had use PAK/PK3 checked which I cleared because I've unpacked everything.

I appear to be running into different people's file pathing when trying to examine their maps.  ... Is there a way to redirect a map's md2 storage location?

radiant can handle this - i suppose it's the wrong projectpath, too - if you see textures in the texture browser (hit t) - you have set the right path and you should also see the models.

Well, I see the list of textures, but they're black and blue checkerboards.  I assume that is not what you meant?

I know this is gonna sound dumb but it's very frustrating... how do you scroll the top-down X view?  I can get the viewpoint to wander around, and center, but I can't fine control the top down's viewable region.

hold the right mousebutton in the x view window and move your mouse (if i get you right)

You did, thank you.

[Mattn]

wait - you are using the q3radiant version? i'm sorry, but i can't really help you here - i've never used it myself. i always used the gtkradiant ( http://mattn.ninex.info )

[Wanderer]

Alrighty, switched over to gtk.  I was just using whatever installed itself with the game, silly me.

And, woot! We have a working manual... thank goodness.  Time for a good read.

Textures are visible here, although farm crashed me to a data dump on closing, no idea why.

So, Matt, thank you for the assistance, and I'm sure I'll be here to pick your brain once I get done with the instruction book and try some stuff out.

[Wanderer]

Matt, in the regular view, any idea where the 'z' stripe window went that's over on the side?  Little mug's on vacation and dunno where he got off to.

[Mattn]

this was removed (don't ask me why) from the 1.5 version by spog (afaik)

[Wanderer]

NARF!  Well, this is amusing.

The instruction manual at least got me through some basics, however, I found I'm having a few more lovely issues, so, if I could ask for your assistance again Matt...

First: My map is a simple, x960 x y1028 x z64 slab of concrete.  It's visible to all levels of cutaway.  On top of this I've dropped 8 info_alien_start, 8 info_human_start, and 8 info_civilian_start objects.

When I try to load the map in UFO:AI after doing a final build that gives no error, I end up with an error stating 'z levels between 7 :255.', (16 of them, specifically) then it loads a nice big black screen.

Remove the info_ items (and rebuild the bsp), and I don't get the error, and I still get the big black screen.


Second question:  I can find in the plugins menu a way to set the worldspawn ambient to day/night, but I can't figure out how to adjust the settings once the worldspawn's in place.  [EDIT: I set the worldspawn, I believe, through the plugin menu] [EDIT 2: Answered my own question... partially]  Following the advice in http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Mapping/Tutorials/Setting_worldspawn_flags, I found what appears to be a blank entity?  (Yes, I looked before I posted the first time... I must have blanked at 11 PM last night.)

I see the following in the second window of the worldspawn entity:
"light"      intensity of the sun light
"_color"   color of the sun light (normalized) RGB
"angles"   direction of the sun light [pitch yaw roll] - pitch (up/down), yaw (left/right) and roll (fall over)
"ambient"   ambient light (NOT normalized)
"maxlevel"   highest selectable level
"maxteams"   max multiplayer teams (default is 2)
"fog"   activate fog
"fogcolor"   fogcolor (rgb)

In the third window all i see is
classname  worldspawn

When I look through the entities in the first window, I don't see any values such as 'fogcolor' to be able to modify.  Do I modify these values in this second window?  Seems more like a description.

Thanks in advance.  At this point I'm just trying to make sure I can get a basic format to work before continuing.

[Mattn]

First: My map is a simple, x960 x y1028 x z64 slab of concrete.  It's visible to all levels of cutaway.  On top of this I've dropped 8 info_alien_start, 8 info_human_start, and 8 info_civilian_start objects.

When I try to load the map in UFO:AI after doing a final build that gives no error, I end up with an error stating 'z levels between 7 :255.', (16 of them, specifically) then it loads a nice big black screen.

Remove the info_ items (and rebuild the bsp), and I don't get the error, and I still get the big black screen.

are you sure, that you start in the zero origin of the map? did you ever load one of the other maps to get a feeling for the dimensions? don't use a z-level lower then 0 - don't - that's really important!!

Second question:  I can find in the plugins menu a way to set the worldspawn ambient to day/night, but I can't figure out how to adjust the settings once the worldspawn's in place.  [EDIT: I set the worldspawn, I believe, through the plugin menu] [EDIT 2: Answered my own question... partially]  Following the advice in http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Mapping/Tutorials/Setting_worldspawn_flags, I found what appears to be a blank entity?  (Yes, I looked before I posted the first time... I must have blanked at 11 PM last night.)

I see the following in the second window of the worldspawn entity:
"light"      intensity of the sun light
"_color"   color of the sun light (normalized) RGB
"angles"   direction of the sun light [pitch yaw roll] - pitch (up/down), yaw (left/right) and roll (fall over)
"ambient"   ambient light (NOT normalized)
"maxlevel"   highest selectable level
"maxteams"   max multiplayer teams (default is 2)
"fog"   activate fog
"fogcolor"   fogcolor (rgb)

In the third window all i see is
classname  worldspawn

When I look through the entities in the first window, I don't see any values such as 'fogcolor' to be able to modify.  Do I modify these values in this second window?  Seems more like a description.

if you open up the entity inspector, there is a key and a value field - just type the key and the value and hit enter. that's all - no magic ;-)

[Wanderer]

First: My map is a simple, x960 x y1028 x z64 slab of concrete.  It's visible to all levels of cutaway.  On top of this I've dropped 8 info_alien_start, 8 info_human_start, and 8 info_civilian_start objects.

When I try to load the map in UFO:AI after doing a final build that gives no error, I end up with an error stating 'z levels between 7 :255.', (16 of them, specifically) then it loads a nice big black screen.

Remove the info_ items (and rebuild the bsp), and I don't get the error, and I still get the big black screen.

are you sure, that you start in the zero origin of the map? did you ever load one of the other maps to get a feeling for the dimensions? don't use a z-level lower then 0 - don't - that's really important!!

Error: Grid-Height: Warning: z level is bigger than 7:  255

Africa04d map, Z goes below the 0 line (the well).  However, my map does not. Most of the other maps surround the x0 y0 point, I just went to the Northeast.

The oddest part of this is in either case my map doesn't want to behave, but I only get the errors after right-click, info, info_alien_start (info_human_start too).

Can a map be loaded and visible in UFO:AI without any info_start points so that I can try to determine one problem at a time?  (Seeing as how it's black no matter what I do I'm trying to remove variables.)

I ... attempted to rip them out of one of the prebuilt maps to rename and test loadability but once all those maps are assembled selecting anything out of the mob becomes interesting, at best.