Mapping/map file file format

Author: blondandy (talk, contrib)

Structure

A .map file is composed of a number of entities which contain brushes (defining geometry) and attributes (key-value pairs). Most brushes are usually found in the first "worldspawn" entity and "func_group" entities. Common brushless entities include models, lights, actor spawns and particles. Map files created using UFORadiant 1.5 have no indentation.

// entity 0
{
"classname" "worldspawn"
// brush 0
{
face_0
...
}
// brush 1
{
}
}
// entity 1
{
"classname" "some_other_entity"
"another_key" "another_value"
}

Brushes

Each brush consists of a number of faces, and a face is a "directed" plane (half-space) and texturing info. Plane is given by listing its 3 points, if these appear clockwise when viewed from a point in space, then the point is outside of the face. The polyhedron defined by a brush is an intersection of its half-spaces or you may say that a point is inside the brush if it's inside all its faces.

( x0 y0 z0 ) ( x1 y1 z1 ) ( x2 y2 z2 ) tex x_off y_off angle x_scale y_scale cont_flags surf_flags surf_value 

• (x0, y0, z0) ... Points coordinates are usually integers, but can sometimes be real.
• tex is the path to the image file for the texture
• x_off y_off are coordinates for the texture on the face
• angle the angle of the texture
• x_scale y_scale the scale of the texture
• cont_flags Content flags
• surf_flags Surface flags
• surf_value E.g. the light value for surface lights

Flags are optional, if they are missing one should assume they are zero.

Attributes

One attribute is obligatory, namely "classname" that defines what an entity represents. Each class has a different set of meaningful other attributes. See the entities article for a full list.

worldspawn

The first entity defining world geometry and some globals.

• maxlevel
• maxteams

func_group

Some additional geometry.

misc_model

External model to be placed on map.

• model (path to a model file)
• origin
• angles

light

A point lamp.

• origin
• _color (note the underline)
• light

info_human_start, info_civilian_start, info_alien_start, info_player_start

Phalanx, civilian, alien or multiplayer spawn.

• origin
• angle
• team (only with info_player_start)

misc_particle

Particle generator.

• origin
• particle

Levelflags

see Mapping/Levelflags

LEVEL1 0x0100
LEVEL2 0x0200
LEVEL3 0x0400
LEVEL4 0x0800
LEVEL5 0x1000
LEVEL6 0x2000
LEVEL7 0x4000
LEVEL8 0x8000