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Mapping 101 - An Outside Area - Tutorial 4

Ok, for this next tutorial we are going to make an outside area for out map, this will cover the basics of skies, and a few more useful tools.

First load up the tutorial3 map and save it as tutorial4.

Before we get cracking, you may have heard me talk about leaks, and I don't mean the vegetables, so what are they?

Quite simply a leak is a hole in your map, if your map has a hole it will not compile and you will see the "**** leaked****" error message when you try and compile it.

To demonstrate this select o­ne of the ceiling brushes and move it in any direction 32 units, now go to the Bsp menu and select "bsp_NoVis". You should see the error mentioned above. Move the brush back into it's correct place.

It's easiest to think of your map as being a series of containers which must be water tight. Imagine pouring water into your map starting at the player start position, this water should not be able to get outside of the map.

Now o­n with the show...

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1. 

   Using the techniques learnt in tutorial 3 copy the 2 rooms and make the joining passageways so it looks like figure 1. Don't forget to set your grid to 16, and to miter the corners.

2. 

   The cross shape in the middle is what we a going to turn into our outside area, a small courtyard. First we need to seal the bottom, easiest way is to make a brush that touches the edges of the cross like Figure 2.

3. Make it 16 points (1 grid unit) tall and line it up to the bottom of the rooms. Figure 3.

4. You can apply the "1_concrete_floor" texture from the armory collection, to the top face.
   

5. Repeat step 3 but place the brush level with the ceiling. Figure 4.

6. While the brush is still selected apply the blue "sky" texture.

7. Now we have to fill in the gaps between the sky and the passageways. Make a brush 16 x 160 x 32 and place it as in Figures 5 & 6.

6. Repeat or copy the brush for the right side.

Now we are going to use some more of SoFRadiants tools.. Look at figure 7.

Figure 7.

These are the flip & rotate buttons, from left to right : flip x, rotate x, flip y, rotate y, flip z, rotate z.

7. Copy o­ne of the 2 brushes you just made and paste it in the center somewhere. Make sure you are in top view.

8. Now click o­n the rotate z button. while the brush is still selected. Place it in the correct position at the top, between the passage roof and sky brush. Repeat for the bottom passage. Make sure all 4 brushes have the "sky" texture.
   

9. Now we need a way to get into the courtyard. Punch a hole in the top passageway, 48 x 60 x 80, using the CSG Subtract. Center it in the passageway which joins the courtyard. Make sure it is lined up with the floor of the passageway NOT the courtyard floor. Figure 8.

10. Copy o­ne of the lights and place it in the center of the courtyard. (Sky lighting will be covered later)
    

11. Now all we need to do is tell the game which sky we want to use. Press N to bring up the entity properties window, see Figure 9, scroll down and select "worldspawn". At the bottom type "sky" in the Key box and "tut" in the Value box. For a full list of skies you can use click here. Press N again when you are done to close the window.

12. Finally tidy up any texturing that needs to be done. (The tops of each building, if you haven't already done it)

Compile and run the map, it should look like figure 10. Now save it as tutorial4, and move o­n to tutorial 5.

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