Sky box, LOD and other stuff

[Asterix]

Hello fellow mappers!!

I am finding this forum to be very helpful along with various tutorials which you have pointed me to. As I started working on my first map, I came across many questions. Please do not laugh while you answer them as you were all n00bs at one point.

Quick project description:

Title: The Fortress

Game: MOHAA

Map type: Multiplayer Map, Team Deathmatch

Goal: Team 1 begins on a small hill trying to defend their small base.
Team 2 attacks by assaulting either up the hill's slopes or through a
secret tunner running under the hill to the base.

1. What is the LOD? Is it the level of detail?
2. My map is essentially a terrain added from a .tga file (black/white coloration done in Adobe Photoshop) enclosed in a giant box. Does this box which I created piece by piece (no hollowing method) need to have a bottom side, the one below the terrain?
3. Once compiled, my map is dark inside and placing a few ligths with high brightness values does not have much of an effect. How do I place a single light source (Sun) which will illuminate the whole map?
4. Do I need to build houses brush by brush or are the models already included?
5. How do I build a sky box texture? I heard TerraGen is good - please mantion any other programs that are easier?
6. What is the maximum number of players we can have in a Team Deathmatch map (MOHAA)?
7. Do I need to caulk the sides of a big box?
8. Is Quake Radiant the SDK... I know that SDK means software development kit but does working in Radiant constitutes working in the SDK.
9. Are there gonna be any mappers from our forum @ this year's QuakeCon in Dallas? Where are you gonna be @?
10. Has anyone ever come across a complete tutorial on how to build a multiplayer map from scratch... It does not have to be a complicated map but an average one that focuses the tutorial so it captures all the major steps in making a map...
11. How come when I enter my compiled map I do not have any weapons on?

That's all for now folks Muchas Gracias on your help.

Asterix

[Serph]

2. dont use the hollowing tool, very bad bad bad.. piece by piece is good.
3. hit the "n" key in radient and go to world spawn

Key: Ambientlight
Value: 70 70 70

4. Brushes by Brushes, although you may find some small prefabs on some other sites...
5. Umm, there is an easier way, some skybox textures already included in radient, type sky in the keyword text box in radient
6. I would say put atleast 32 spawns, I have seen one or two servers with 64 max server clients.. but theres only one or two servers like that.
7.??? explain
9. not me..
10. nope
11. you mean youve chosen your team and weapon, and when you spawn you get no weapon

[Asterix]

Thanks on your answers.

Here are further explanations to my questions:

7. Should I caulk texture the outside sides of the giant box which encloses my map?
11. I loaded the map via MBuilder. What I should have done is to load my map in the multiplayer section of MOHAA... My bad

Asterix

[wacko]

2: Yes, the skybox must have a bottom brush to be sealed, because LOD and patch meshes, detailed brushes don't seal the box, just structural brushes do.

3: Select one brush of the skybox, press 'n' enter new key/value pairs:
suncolor / 70 70 70
sundirection / -80 -80 0
this should make some daylight from somewhere above.
sundirection values are:
1st is sunheight (-90 is highnoon)
2nd is map direction: 0 is north, 90 is west...
3rd is nothing

Sunlight casts shadows, ambientlight not. A combination of both is what u will like most.

4: lol: There are even ready made maps, why not take these? But seriously: No there aren't any included, but u'll find some prefabs in the web: buildings and other stuff if u don't want to map urself, but why??

7: it was once written in this forum, that no u don't have to caulk the outside of the skybox, because it's done by the compile process. Maybe compilation is a nanosecond faster if u do it urself.

[mike]

a off the topic question but when i think of that map that u discribed i get the image of the old day of defeat map called DOD_Hill are you remaking it?

[Bjarne BZR]

1: No idea what LOD actually stands for... but its a way of making natural looking terrain ( not flat ).

Check my tutorial on LOD: http://www.planetmedalofhonor.com/rjuka ... rrain.html

[Asterix]

Thanks on your replies. Mike, this map is not a remake of the map you mentioned. I will upload the .map file and the compiled files so you guys can check it out...

Also does anyone know how to make a tunnel in the LOD? Basically I want to create a tunnel that goes under the hill...

[SlasherZ]

you can delete faces... im not sure how though

[Jack Ruby]

To delete pieces of lod you need to use the facet editor,

select your lod, hit shift + f, then ctrl/shift left click pieces of lod to select individual triangles, check the delete flag, they will be deleted when you compile, though will still be visible in radiant.





Then to make your tunnel you can either use regular brushes, or why not try using some meshes, much nicer tunnels. I made these tunnels just an hour ago

[Asterix]

Thx on the help and screenshots. One final question:

I have made my map and it is a .map file. I have compiled it via MBuilder and the end result are 3 files. Ok, I am able to load them. However where does the pk3? file come to play...

Please help - I know it is a n00b question but I am not able to find the answer...

Do I need to convert the 3 compiled files into pk3?

Thx

[Serph]

first download pakscape

open it up

go file new

then in there create a folder maps

and in the maps folder create one name dm

or if your map is objective name the folder obj

then in either the dm or obj folder depending on the gametype of your map put the .bsp the .prt the .vis and the .min file the .min file is so mac users can play your map, to get the .min file you need to play the actual map once in moh, and then it will create the .min file

save it as

user-(yournameofmaphere)

and make sure its saved as a .pk3 file

that should do it

[[AoHx]Omnicient]

in the compile dont u need a urc and a scr too?

[Serph]

.scr is if you made a .scr file thats scripting and stuff for your map, but if you just made a simple map with no scripting and made no .scr file your fine with that, theres also several tuts on this i think one on .map too..

[Balr14]

You should always have a script file to preload and initialize your map.

[Bjarne BZR]

in the compile dont u need a urc and a scr too?

Not to compile, no.

The scr file contais the scripting ( like bomb setup, Status screen pictures and messages, objective completion and so on ). There is no need for this file bot any map will look more professional with it.

The urc controls the loading screen only. Again, not needed, but looks a bit more professional.