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Unreal Editor Vocabulary
Tomasz
Millennium Jachimczak
(tomasz@planetunreal.com)
I will start this
tutorial by explaining a little of how
the editor actually works. This editor is
unlike many other editor that are around.
It also differs from many 3D Programs
taht are available for purchase. You will
find that most programns that are
available will start the screen off with
a huge "empty" area. Thus if
you would want to build something, you
will have to "add" to the
world. What makes the Unreal Editor
different is taht the world that you
start off with is actually a huge great
SOLID block. It does not have any empty
or blank space in it. Thus if you would
like to create a room in the world, then
you actually have to "subtract"
it from the world. If this may seem a
little "backwards" with the way
that most editors work, then I agree with
you, but at the same time, I do also
think that this does make a lot of sense.
In most of the other editors, you would
have to create a solid "wall"
to show the last part of a level (or
world) before the editor would allow you
to actually see it. Thus you would hahe
to create a large number of addition
brushes simply to have a finite size of
the level. With the Epic Editor (for
Unreal) you do not have to create a
"final" barrier to your world,
but simply each time you subtract a room
(or space) from the editor, then it
automatically adds to the area that you
can travel in the game. Thus, it does
make our lives somewhat easier, and also
does make a smaller load on the processor
of the PC playing it, as it does not have
to count and use as many brushes, as if
you would have extra brushes to mark the
final point of a level. Ok, now that we
know a little of how the editor works,
let's get into some of the more technical
words that you will probably hear
mentioned a lot in my tutorials and other
people when they talk about the editor.
The amount of detail I will go into will
vary on how important I think something
is, and if it is really important that
you know what each word means.
Brushes
Solid
Brushes
A solid brush is a brush
that has been placed into
the level, and the
builder brush that
created it was solid at
the time. When you select
the properties of a brush
(from a primitive) you
will be able to select
one of two options. You
can choose SOLID which
means that the brush you
create is a 3D shape that
has got no
"insides" to
it. It is a basic shape
that has got an outline,
but no "inside"
to it. If you add a brush
like this, you will add
in a new section to the
world, and there will be
no way to get into it.
Hollow
Brushes
A hollow brush is a brush
that when created,
actually is an outline,
and has got "another
smaller shape"
inside it. Thus when you
add (or subtract) it into
the level, you will have
a shape that appears
hollow on the inside.
This gets hard to explain
here. Let me use an
example here. If you
create a cube that is
hollow, you will actually
have a brush that is more
like a cardboard box,
rather then a childs
palying cube, that is
entirely solid in the
middle.
Builder
Brush
The builder brush is
actually the RED BRUSH
that you first see as a
red cube when you open
the editor. This will be
your most important tool
when you are creating and
editing levels. While it
might seem a little
"primitive" at
first, you should find
that with a few of the
things that you can do
with it, you will be
making it into whatever
you like in no time al
all. If you choose to
click on any of the
primatives (The shapes on
the toolbar to the left
of the screen) then your
builder brush will change
to that shape, and you
can then add and subtract
with that brush.
This Tool, is olny a
temporary brush, and does
not actually make any
difference in the level
itself. When you are
"rebuilding"
your level, you will find
that it does not affect
anything at all, as it is
really only "a
fake"until you use
one of the other tools to
make it permanent.
Subtracted
Brush
A brush that has been
subtraced will show on
the editor 2D views as an
orangy brown color. This
has been made from the
builder brush at one
time, and then the
subtract tool has been
used, to permanently
place it in the level. If
this brush has been
placed in an area that
was solid before, then
you will be able to
travel into that section
of the game. If you
subtract a hollow brush
into the game, then you
will be able walk inside
the brush.
Added
Brush
When you "add"
a brush into the world,
you are actually creating
another solid. Thus, you
can only "add"
a brush into the world
where there is a hollow
area, otherwise you will
be adding something to a
place where something
already exists (This
should mean completely
useless) When you add a
brush to the level, you
will see it appear as a
Bark Blue shape in the 2D
views.
Special
Brush
A special brush can be
added to just about
anywhere in the world.
You will see them as
Green colored shapes in
the 2D views. Special
Brushes can be used to
add water, a transparent
"barrier" and
many other useful things,
although you will most
likely find these out
either for yourself, or
as you start reading some
more of the tutorials.
Mover
Brushes
A mover brush is a brush
in the world that will
actually move. This can
be created by either
joining a
"trigger" to
the mover, or by touching
the mover, but that is
all explained in the
related tutorials. You
wil not see the textures
on a mover in the 3D
view, but only see the
purple outline and there
will be no way to change
the texture alignment or
anything like that, so
you have to be sure that
everything is perfect
before you create it.
Movers
Movers are brushes that
can be set to move in the
level, and are explained
in the Brushes section.
Triggers
A trigger can be used for a lot
of things. The most common use it
to activate a mover with a
trigger. A trigger will appear in
the editor as a little question
mark next to a cube. To set a
trigger to activate a mover,
simply change the "tag"
of both trigger and mover to be
the same. Triggers are explained
once again, in tutorials, so I
will not go into to much detail
here, although they can be used
for just about anything in your
level (world).
Intersecting/Deintersecting
You can create many things with
the primatives that are supplied
in the editor, although a lot of
the time you find that your
geometry will overlap. If you
have things that overlap, you can
find that your level may not
rebuild properly. You can find
that things will appear to have
large "black" area that
do not work properly. You can
however use the two tools
(intersect/deintersect) to make
the builder brush either cut
everything OUTSIDE the solid, or
to make the builder brush appear
only within the brush (s). This
can be rather tricky to explain
here in text without being able
to show a quick animation, but
what it means is that means is
taht your red builder brush will
be "cut" to only what
is either inside or aoutside the
bushes that are in your level
already.,/li>
Rebuilding
When you have created a brush (or
more hopefully ;) then you will
have to compile it into an actual
level. When you press the rebuild
function (Either press F8, or
choose rebuild from the options
menu) setting it to
"rebuild" will take a
few seconds to quite a f ew
minutes (depending on the
complexity of the level) and it
will be all ready to play. There
are a few settings within the
window that you can choose to
either turn on or off but they
are explained under their own
heading, although there is a list
of them here. BSP, LIGHTING,
GEOMETRY, OPTIMISATION. When you
rebuild make sure that you do
save the level, as you will
sometimes find that there may be
errors and some of the can
actually crash your system.
Actually it is a good idea to get
into the habit of saving the
level quite often and having a
few little "backup"
files that are kept there just in
case...
BSP
This is what will decide where
the player will be able to go,
and where they will not be able
to go. Any SOLID brushes will
affect the BSP of the level. If
you have got an area that has got
a large amount of adding and
subtracting in the same place,
then you may experience something
that is called BSP holes, wich
appear as large black holes in
your level, and most often also
result in the player not being
able to move through the area
properly. If this is near the end
of the level, or near an area
that "ends" with a
solid area, then you may also
experience the dreaded HOM. (This
is explained below).
HOM - Hall of
Mirrors
This is the bane of all editors.
You will have most likely seent
eh HOM before, but simply put it
down to bad level editing. It is
- kinda. You will most often see
the HOM where you have got an
area or even maybe a transparent
texture that is in the last place
in a level. Ok, this is hard to
explain, but for example, if you
have got a room in the level, and
there is nothing beyond the room.
You would normally place a
texture on the walls that is not
see through right? If you placed
a texture that has got invisible
areas, when you try to play the
level, the game engine will try
to "cover" the holes
there, and it does it by
"mirroring" the last
thing shown there. If you ever
find a shimmering area where
things have stopped moving and it
looks bad, then most likely this
is what has occured. There is no
"one way fix" to get
rid of the HOM, but please check
your textures to make sure that
they do not contain any areas of
transparecy, and that in the 2D
views bits of your map are not
dissapearing.
Lighting
Lighting in the level is pretty
basic. It simply means taht you
will have some sort of
illumination that is in your
world so that the players will be
able to see where they are and
what they are doing. Lighting may
however take the form of many
different things. The easiest way
to make a light is to right click
in the level on a texture (in the
3D view) and choose "add
light" from the drop menu.
See also Dynamic lighting.
Dynamic Lighting
Dynamic lighting will greatly
enhance the look of your level,
although it may actually slow
down the level, and cause some
less powerful machines to drop
frames. Dynaminc lighting simply
refers to lights that do things.
You can create lights that
shimmer, or lights that are spot
lights and rotate, lights that
pulsate, or lights that simply
"strobe". There are a
LOT of things that you can use,
but as mentioned earlier here,
they will use a large amount of
resources (compared to a normal
light that is) to use, and some
lower end machines may suffer a
large drop of frame rate.
Geometry
Geometry refers to the actual
brushes that are in your level.
These are the things that your
players will walk over, and also
where they will be able to see.
To learn how to create brushes
and geometry, refer to the
Brushes section of this document.
Optimisation
There are a lot of questions
asked about the
"Optimisation" settings
that can be changed within the
rebuilder, although you should
not actually change any of them
in the BETA Editor that has been
released by Epic with Unreal. I
have played with the optimisation
settings before, and the only
good that it did, was to kill my
level. Trust me on this one,
until there is a fix for the
settings - Do NOT change them.
Zones
Zones can be created in the
editor. Zones will be able to
hold specefic areas in the map. A
zone is really kinda like a level
in itself. For example, if you
have an area with water in it, it
is actually a "water
zone" or you can create an
area with fog in it, and to make
the level play faster, you cn
restrict the area that the fog is
visible from, then create a Zone
around it. This will then allow
the CPU resources to be used for
other things in the game (like
framerate).
Portals
Portals can be created in the
level, to allow players to simply
"walk" (or fall, or fly
or whatever) from one place in
the level, to another place.
These have a nice tutorial
written on them, so I will not go
into too much detail here.
Textures
Textures are simply images that
are used to "paint" the
brushes in your level with, so
that people can actually see what
is stopping them from going
forward, or what is stopping them
from falling through the ground.
Wave or .wav
This is a format for storing
sound. It is the basic format
that most people use to import
sounds into the game and then
save them for use in the levels.
Wave files can be explained much
more thoroughly in the Booklet of
your Sound-Card, so I will not
explain them here in any more
detail.
Texture Packages
or .utx
These are simply files that
contain many images for use as
textures in the levels. There are
tutorials on this site, that will
explain how to create texture
packs and how to import files
into the engine for use.
Scaling -
Textures
When you have a texture on the
brush, you can actually change
the size of the display. If you
have an image that is too large,
or small for the brush, you can
actually change the scale in
which it is displayed.
Scaling - Brushes
Brushes just like Textures can be
scaled to change the size of
them, however, if you want to
create a mover from anything, you
CANNOT (and I can't stress that
enough) used scales brushes
during any part of the
construction of the mover. If you
do, everything will appear to be
fine, until you actually try to
use the mover or try to walk up
to it. At this point, you will
find that the brush that was
scaled, will actually still be
"unscaled" even though
it may look like everything is
fine.
Skybox
The skybox is the part of the map
that is dispalyed whenever there
is a texture 9or face of brush)
that has been set to "Fake
Backdrop". This is most
useful when you have to make a
"sky" or a background
that you want seen from any part
of the map.
PlayerStart
A Playerstart will be the place
in your level that the player
begins when you start the level.
These can be placed just about
anywhere you like, although it is
a good diea to make sure that
they are not ina place that the
player can get hurt immediately.
PainZone
A Painzone is an area of the map
that is zones all around, and
when the player walks into it,
they will start losing health
points. This loss of health will
continue until the player either
leaves the pain zone, or dies.
Water is actually a painzone,
although there is a delay in it.
The delay is there to allow the
player to use the air in his/her
lungs (ie hold their breath) and
when they start running out, they
will start to lose health.
KillZone
A Killzone is quite similar to
the above zone, although rather
then just making the player lose
health slowly, they are actually
killed in the spot. It does not
make a difference if the player
is in GOD mode or not. They will
die as soon as they step into a
Killzone.
Frame Rate
Frame rate is really simple. It
refers to the number of frames
that the computer can show in a
second. The higher the number,
the smoother the display will be.
To try to improve your frame rate
on a level, make sure that there
are as few a number of brushes
and as few a number of Dynamic
lighting as possible. There are a
large number of influences that
will determine the framerate, but
generally speaking, try to use as
little "goodies" as you
can, and the level will play
better.
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