Another beginners guide to mapping

!!! THIS TUTORIAL IS INCOMPLETE !!!!
...75% missing.



Please don't ban me for making this post.

I made this tutorial because lots of people want know how to make maps.
There are tutorials on the web but it's scattered around. There is even information on this forum lol.

This tutorial will:
-help you set up your mapping environment
-include a brief introduction to:
*shaders
*q3map2

At the moment this tutorial requires some very very basic knowledge of mapping.

First, lets download the latest NetRadiant. Many use gtkRadiant but its outdated. NetRadiant will include a special version of q3map2 that will allow better lightning and various other benefits (read more: http://www.warsow.net/forum/thread/13191/1 )

NetRadiant is a fork of the well-known map editor for Q3 based games, GtkRadiant 1.5. The focus is put on stabilizing and bug fixing the included map compiler, q3map2, so it can become a reliable tool for map authors.

Update: NetRadiant main site is down but you can access the download page, for Linux users these builds are dated. See the how-to few lines bellow.

Latest Windows version(at time of writing this article):
http://www.icculus.org/netradiant/files/netradiant-1.5.0-20120301-win32-7z.exe
Source code for *nix:
http://www.icculus.org/netradiant/files/netradiant-1.5.0-20120301.tar.bz2

On linux it has a lot dependecies but most can be installed from a package manager.
If you have trouble compiling it post the terminal output here.

/*** LINUX™ ***\
How to compile xonotic branch of netradian on Arch linux (and other distros).


1. Get netradian pkgbuild for Arch here: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=36239
-------------
For other linux in terminal:
git clone git://git.xonotic.org/xonotic/netradiant.git
cd netradiant
make

2. On Arch run makepkg in extracted directory
----------------
For any other Linux run ./build

3. If there are errors try to find and install missing packages

4. If you're having premission errors in the compile foler then run $ chmod -R ug+w /netradiant-build

5. Arch user have to do a $ pacman -U netradiant VERSION .pkg.tar.xz
-----------------
Others just execute install/radiant.x86

6. Execute the installed package on Arch:
/opt/netradiant/radiant.x86
And change the warsow intall path to:
/opt/warsow -if you used "pacman -S warsow" for install


/*** MAC OS X ***\
You got to find packages for net radiant, search the internet. I'm not going to do a tutorial unless someone asks for it.
////////////////////////////////////////

If you managed to successfully install NetRadiant, it will ask you the game and the engine path of your warsow installation.
For example, on Arch linux it's /opt/warsow/, on Windows its probably C:\Program files\warsow\.

NetRadiant has warsow specific entities preconfigured so there shouldn't be a problem with that.


This is the window layout you should see,




but I mayself prefere 4 way layout(like Hammer has):




So to change the layout go to Edit-> Prefernces -> Interface -> Layout and there should be small previews.
Note: You have to restart NetRadiant to changes to take effect.
Also when you're at the preferences you should disable far-clip plane from settings -> camera.

To create a brush select re-size(Q) and drag your mouse across one of the 2d views. To use 3D view right click on it (mouse will be locked onto it) and use mouse-wheel to move forward and backward.
If you want to create another brush you have to DESELECT ALL ITEMS by pressing Esc.
To select a deselected item/brush hold shift and left-click on it.

Note: I strongly suggest you to watch some videos on YouTube about Net/gtkRadiant. DO NOT proceed further if you have absolutely no idea about mapping.

I hope that you are ready to make your first room!!!!


First create a brush with minimal size about 300 * 300 * 300 using the resize tool.




Texture it.




Now use the Hollow button to get an empty box in a easy way.




Add an info_player_start entity to your map!!! like on the picture. (right-click)




Add a light in the same way as you chose previous. It will pop up a small window and there you should select the size, value 300 or more should be fine.

This is what you should be looking at.




Now save your map in your warsow user folder.

Build your map (I will get to this later).




Start warsow, select local game and find your map form the list.
This is the result.








Now we have covered the part that 90% of people can figure out without a tutorial :D .
Time to move on to q3map2.
So what is it?

Q3Map2 is an enhanced command-line BSP compiler program for games powered by id Software's Quake III Arena engine.

Well that didn't say much for a newcomer. Q3map2 is a program that will "convert" your basic text map file to playable map!!! And it can calculate the visibility data to save performance and ray-traces light.
In NetRadiant theres the Build menu with different q3map2 parameters to compile ("convert") your map.
There are lots of options, but for testing for the fist time it would be good to use (single) BSP, that doesn't calclate lighning but just converts your map file to plain looking playable map.
If your map has a leak, NetRadiant should notify you and show it with a red line on all views.

Now when your map works you are probably wanting to try some light so add a light entity to it and choose "Quik test" build form Build menu. This gives a simple lighmap to your level, but doesn't calculate any bounces.
"Bounces???" you ask. Bouncing light means that mostly the brush that is lit can bounce the light further on so if you have a strong light coming from the hole in the ceiling you wont be having only a spot of light with the shape of the hole on your floor, but the room will get brighter around the spot.
Think of bouncing as just the reflection of the light, more bounces == more realistic lightning. Usually 3 should suffice at first, but you can find light compile with 7 bounces from the Build menu.
Note: always be careful with (single) tag in build menu, because it only calculates the specific thing without updating the rest of your map, so when you decide to use single 7 bounce setting always compile the bsp (and vis), otherwise you waste hours of CPU time for nothing.



Setting custom q3map2 parameters

There are lots of parameters in q3map2 but I will cover two most important here.
1. Bounce
2. Samplesize

/**/

Here is a WikiBook about q3map2:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Q3Map2

To be continued...

Skip...
Skip...
Missing lots of important information!
Skip...

Often map compiles can take a very long time because q3map2 tries to make the edges of the shadows sharper and when doing it it increases the lightmap size dramatically.

I ran some tests and here are the results:
IMPORTANT: all tests were done with q3map2 downloaded from official site.

samplesize 32; samples 2; 18 seconds; 256KB
samplesize 32; samples 4; 18 seconds; 256KB
samplesize 16; samples 4; 52 seconds; 448KB
samplesize 8; samples 4; 93 seconds; 640KB

Visual comparison:





Here is the compile time and file size of my new slide map:

samplesize 8; filter; 9600 seconds; 40000KB <- LOL
samplesize 32; samples 2; 4500 seconds; 6400KB

And here is a filter test with another map.

samplesize 32; filter; 180 seconds; 3600KB
samplesize 32; samples 2; 185 seconds; 3500KB
With NetRadiants q3map2:
samplesize 32; samples 2; 278 seconds; 2600KB
Warning: the original q3map2 can ruin your flares/sprites in your level.
Probably because its missing lots of parameters and also some shader keywords the compiler may use(need to confirm this).

TODO
Lots of information missing. I think when this tutorial gets fully finished it will be 10 pages long.
Add some nice screens.
Start actually doing something
(updated 2013-02-11 15:37:32)

Really nice initiative Ultrak1ll,

I hope this will get some new people interested in level design, it's such a wonderful learning journey. Also, don't forget to show some new screenshots of your slide map in the WIP-thread!

Added samplesize tutorial i had actually written a week ago but hadn't posted it anywhere.

I hope this will get some new people interested in level design, it's such a wonderful learning journey.

Thank you. For me the journey has lasted almost 8 years for now. I started when i was 12 with Max Payne and Far Cry, then some years passed and i started making maps for CS:S, HL2 even tried to start my own singleplayer mod there but failed to put together a team.
Now i have played wsw from the beginning of the year. qFusion was absolutely a different experience than Source enigine, here you have to use more of your brain :D.

Also, don't forget to show some new screenshots of your slide map in the WIP-thread!

I feel that that map was doomed (not the game) from the beginning. I didn't make a plan so I expanded it randomly and I feel its going to be just a avarage looking map (shitty). Btw I'm working on even more awesome map now, posting pics soon.

PS. One reason why I'm making this tutorial is to save the knowledge before it gets deleted because old quake 3 mapping guides are disapearing from the net VERY fast.
(updated 2012-03-30 11:20:51)

Hey Ultrak1ll :)

Some notes: You should NOT use samplesize for smoothening out skylights (default is fine for everything actually), there are better ways to tune both sky and entity lights. Proper way to 'fix' these fallouts it to tune the shader, I blogged about skylights here, and for the regular lights, use _extradist 100 key to get really smooth lights.

Also check out more light parameters here, you can also do sky lights with sun entity which is capable of producing fully smooth sky falloffs without touching samplesize.

I could perhaps contribute some notes how to optimize maps propely, with proper optimizations you can easily at least triple details in map compared to sloppy mapping practices :)

Thanks..
I would probably have missed that part (i have seen some alternative solution to this but cant remeber exactly). Still a n00b at qfusion/q3. Gonna analyse this tomorrow.
In Source/Hammer we had this(lightmap grid):



A very easy way to control shadow quality.

... need to learn coding faster :D


PS. I have a bad feeling that this is going to end up as a "complete guide to wsw mapping"
, but at the bright side, wiriting tutorials is the best way to learn something.
(updated 2012-03-30 20:55:11)

If youre gonna do beginner quide for mappers I think you should just skip all unrelative parts and focus on most important part like:

a)How to get famillar with netradiant
b)How to design decent gameplay.
c)Basics of adding details and basics of lighting

I think this sort information about lighting settings + writting your own shaders is too advanced information and therefore is unessential.

Altho I repsect your effort and I agree that It's good method to learn.Hopefully youre able to finish this

The very first thing a mapper should do when starting a new map from scratch is going to the worldspawn and adding the fields:

_lightingIntensity 1.75
_floodlight 255 255 255 768 100 (this one to be tweaked for the ambient prefered by the mapper)

<never use _ambient in the worldspawn. Ambient lighting is generated by floodlight>

That sets the basis of proper lighting for Warsow.

I don't see the point in messing up with q3map2 options for a new mapper. Not even for most advanced mappers. I spent a lot of hours creating the radiant menu so it included options that bring out the very best you can achieve from q3map2 in several quality/performance levels. Only in case of wanting some special effect a mapper would need to worry about q3map2 setup.

As for the shadows smoothness. In case a light is too pixelated go to the light entity and use the "deviance <samples>" field. This blurs the pixels. In case a light overburns the walls with too intense light use the "_extradist <value>" parameter.

In case you are looking for one shadow to be particularly sharp (as for the shadow of a grate) select the brushes receiving that shadow, group them in a func_group and add "_samplesize 4" (range from 1 to whatever, 1 being the most detailed).

I strongly recomend NOT to use shader lighting, but only entities. Including the sun.
(updated 2012-03-31 17:38:27)

I think floodlight influence should be minimal, but yeah strong ambient light setting suits beginners.

I don't see the point in messing up with q3map2 options for a new mapper. Not even for most advanced mappers. I spent a lot of hours creating the radiant menu so it included options that bring out the very best you can achieve from q3map2 in several quality/performance levels. Only in case of wanting some special effect a mapper would need to worry about q3map2 setup.

I partly agree but if one wants a bounce 3 on a large map theres no option with larger samplesize. .. and the main point wasn't smoothing shadows but bringing down the filesize.


I have got feedback from some beginner mappers and they want a longer netradiant part.

As moto said earlier:

a)How to get famillar with netradiant
b)How to design decent gameplay.
c)Basics of adding details and basics of lighting

so i gonna focus on that at the moment.

Maybe leave everything else out and add the rest later to the wiki tutorial (if it gets up and running in the future).

Hi everyone. I'm posting here because I'm making preparations to make some video tutorials for netradiant and wsw mapping.

I will want to cover:

Tutorial 0
*Getting Net Radiant
*Setting up Net Radiant

Tutorial 1
*Basic Net Radiant interface
*Basic brush manipulation
*Basic entitys

Tutorial 2
*First room
*Two rooms and hallway
*Placing player and light

Tutorial 3
*About lightmaps
*Texture placement
*Clipping brushes
*Intermediate entitys (triggers, jump pads, etc)

Tutorial 4
*Patch meshes
*Performance friendly mapping
*Detail brushes
*Advanced brush manipulation
*Using "Common" shaders

Tutorial 5
*Advanced entitys
*Advanced lights
*Sky portals
*VIS
*Patch mesh texture placement
*Fog
*Engine limitations

Tutorial 6
*Installing custom shaders and textures
*Releasing your map

Tutorial 7
????

PS.
Someone should suggest me a nice desktop recorder that works well with opengl applications.
(updated 2012-08-02 00:44:36)

fraps,xfire,bandicam

i know a subject for tut 7 :+)

Remember to do text/screenshot version also, in my opinion having a piece to read what to do, following with video which actually shows how to do what you just read is more effective way for tutorials.

If you actually get around it, I could write few up few chapters about map optimization :p

crizis wrote:
Remember to do text/screenshot version also, in my opinion having a piece to read what to do, following with video which actually shows how to do what you just read is more effective way for tutorials.

If you actually get around it, I could write few up few chapters about map optimization :p

I would be interested in the map optimization chapters since I will be beginning mapping for warsow here shortly. Just in the process of making a layout on paper at the moment but in between working on that and other stuff I like reading tutorials/guides on mapping. Also I've never really seen anything on optimization besides condensing brushes.

map optimization:

For a start, you are good with making brushes only as big as they should be, and put the caulk texture on every single face that you the players cannot see.
Tricks like cutting the underlying edges of stairs so the game doesn't make more faces than neccessary and splitting brushes to get a lower vis count etc.
After that, you can make detail brushes, but they don't work how they should in warsow so you could also transform some detailed parts of your map into ase models and then clip them in the editor properly.
And the last part which you can do are hint brushes.

Is there anything else?


oh, regarding the chapters, you could also make one with the differences of the gametypes in warsow and what you have to look out for, e.g. chokepoints on bomb, ways to make a mirror-mapped ctf-map (mirror on x-axis, y-axis, or on xy-axis), item-placement for duel maps, properly clipped ca-maps and vision-blocker etc.
Nothing like this, but just a small explanations and hints so mappers know how to map differently for each gametype.
(updated 2012-08-04 00:43:18)

Really wonderful and informative post Solid. Really great to see you're still mapping!

Congrats to Jal and the devs for seeing everything through to 1.0. Really happy to see it's still chugging along :)

Is there anything else?

Yes. Actually rendering itself is pretty cheap - bigger source for lags is collision detection (which is all CPU). Either fullclip EVERYTHING to as simple clips as possible and/or use nonsolid models for all detail stuff which doesn't have to be solid.

And then there's hinting/vis work too.

WHAT!! wrote:
Really wonderful and informative post Solid. Really great to see you're still mapping!

Congrats to Jal and the devs for seeing everything through to 1.0. Really happy to see it's still chugging along :)

oh, hey What!
Sadly I don't have that much time for mapping like I used to have, but I still try to help here and there in the forums ^^

ultrakill: It is okay so far, but I don't think you should start talking of compile options right after the "make your first room"-thing. Starters don't need to know complex compile options, they should do just fine with the given ones. I don't say that it is bad that there is a part in it explaining compiling options, but you should put it more at the end of the tutorial imo.

added as a link to http://www.warsow.net/wiki/Mapping

would it be OK if i add this topic as a page?

Wazzup..

So I made a first test tutorial. Gonna try a narrated version too.

This is the first part of my NetRadiant tutorial series. In this part I'm going to show you how to get and set up your work environment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRGO4oV8c0Y&hd=1

LARGE HD
(updated 2012-11-16 19:11:55)

I got a question for my tutorial.

In the sdk 1.3 there is in win32 foler with qfmap2, but in lin32 folder there is q3map2.

And anyway whats the differents and should I use qfmap2 ?

I did some searches but returend results from 2006.

Updated the guide
(updated 2013-02-09 02:19:52)