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Creating a simple room

November 24, 2007, by Sebultura.

Setting up a new mod directory

The easiest way to do this is to use the "SDK Launcher" tool. You can start the launcher via your Start Menu, or go in your "<ETQW>/SDK 1.2 Beta" directory and launch the "sdklauncher.exe" file.

Here's what you'll get:

I suggest that you put the following information:

Retail Path: the previously named "<ETQW>" folder (where your game is installed).
Save Path: put the EXACT same folder here.

Now to create your first mod directory, just click the "Create" button in front of "Mod Name". You should now get an almost similar window:



Path: this will contain the same path you put before (so what you see on the screenshot should be different than yours).
Name: this will be the name of your mod directory. Put "mymod" to begin.
Description: this is the name of your mod that will be displayed in the game. Put "My First Mod" to begin.

Now click "OK" and you should see your mod in a list in front of the "Mod Name" field: your mod directory has just been created!

Quick explanation:
By doing so, the program simply creates the "mymod" directory in the "<ETQW>/" directory, plus a "description.txt" file in "<ETQW>/mymod", containing your complete mod name.

You could have done it yourself too, anyway in all cases you'll have to setup the "Retail Path" and "Save Path" once for things to come...

At this point, note that all you will create in the editor will be saved in your mod directory: again, no original data will be modified this way.

Launching the editor

Now that your mod directory is ready to welcome your future creations (and I hope there'll be plenty cool ones for the community!), we will launch the main tool of the SDK that is the World Editor.

First, start the SDK Launcher tool.



IMPORTANT: each time you want to work with the editor, don't forget to select your mod in front of the "Mod Name" field.



The tool we will use will be the World Editor, so select the "editWorld" tool and click "Launch SDK" to start it all.

Now serious stuff begins :)
Depending on your system configuration, you may now see 4 windows opened with the 2 last at the bottom of the screen going behind your Windows menu bar.

If it's the case, here's what to do to see all on screen:

1. Click on the "Inspector" window to select it.
2. Click on the title bar of that window and without releasing the mouse button, move your window up.
3. By doing so, you'll see and feel that the bottom part of that window (that was previously behind the Windows menu bar) will "stick to your bottom visible screen (i.e. just on top of the menu bar).
4. Now put your mouse cursor on the top edge of the window, then resize it to the bottom, until the top part "sticks" under the "Camera" window.
5. Do the same with the "2D and textures" window.

Now let's see rapidly what each window will bring you:

2D and textures

This is the place where you will manage all your map geometry as well as all objects of the game.

One important thing here is the top left coordinates: this will help you to know what you face in that 3D world and by using the CONTROL + TAB keys, you will cycle between the "Top", "Front" and "Side" views.

Here are the other important keys:
The MOUSE WHEEL will make you zoom on the grid.
The RIGHT MOUSE button will open a menu to place entities (see next).
The RIGHT MOUSE button pressed + a mouse move will make you move in the current view.
The LEFT MOUSE button will create shapes (called "brushes") by default.
The BACKSPACE key will delete all selected brushes.
The SHIFT + LEFT MOUSE button will select a brush or an entity (see next).
The ESCAPE key will deselect all selected brushes and entities.
The CONTROL + MIDDLE MOUSE button will place your camera under your mouse cursor (the camera is the blue thing appearing at the center, use MIDDLE MOUSE button only to rotate the camera).
SPACE will duplicate the currently selected brush.

Camera
This is your 3D view in the world where you'll be able to see the scene in a basic way (low memory cost) or in a more "complete" way (almost like in the game, needs more memory)

Here are the important keys:
the UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT keys will make your camera move in the scene.
The RIGHT MOUSE button will lock / unlock the "free view".
The SHIFT + LEFT button will select a brush or an entity.
The ESCAPE key will unselect all selected brushes and entities.
The F3 key will switch from the "basic" Render Mode to the more "complete" mode and vice versa.

The Camera window will help you to access certain brushes that are hard to select in the 2D and textures window, represent the textures on your brushes and help you get an idea of your position in the scene.

Inspectors
This is where you can control the options of the game from the editor, change objects properties, and see the results of your actions in both the editor and the game.

Now let's start the room.

First, select the 2D and textures window, by left-clicking once on it.
Now see your displayed view at the top left and cycle through each view (CONTROL + TAB) so that you get the "XY Top" view.

Now let's create the room shape first.

Left click the mouse and while keeping it pressed, move your mouse to create a rectangle of a custom size.

Now release the button, we will see how to directly modify your brush.

First, put your mouse cursor inside the rectangle, left click and while keeping it pressed, move the mouse: by doing so you're moving the rectangle in the space.

Now release the button, put your cursor in the outside of the rectangle, near a side of it, then do the same with the mouse: this will resize the rectangle from the side you put your cursor. Notice the X or Y value changing while doing it.

I think that you get the idea. Now as the following screen, give your rectangle the X : 360 and Y:320 dimensions:



Now cycle to the "XZ Front" view and resize the rectangle to the X:360 and Z:224 dimensions:



Okay, depending on whether or not you moved your camera in the scene, you should already see your room in the Camera window. Now move in this window (use the arrow keys) to see the outside part of the shape:

Quick explanation:
By creating this brush, you haven't got a real room yet.

Just imagine that the grey part is the void, no player could live there. Now imagine that your brush is a simple shape completely filled with matter: in the same way, your player couldn't live in this!

So you will need to make some space in that shape so as to get a real room with real walls around.

To achieve this there are 2 ways:

• The first would have been to create only the walls, then move those in a manner that let your room be "complete": it takes time to make, set up the right sizes in the 3 views, etc...
• Or there's the way I choose for this tutorial that is creating a brush, then use the editor to generate the walls.

To do so, just click on the following menu icon:



Now you should see a little better what I meant:



Please, note that to keep things easy, I won't change a single bit of the resulting walls on the scene. Unless this is a very bad way of doing it - which you guys shouldn't hesitate to tell me – we'll keep the brushes in that position (overlapping, etc...)

Good, now unselect the whole scene (ESCAPE), move into the room and in the Camera view, select (SHIFT + LEFT MOUSE) the 4 vertical faces of the room:



Sorry for your eyes :)

We will now apply textures to these faces (in a quick and dirty way of course !), so click on the bottom "Media" tab of the 2D and Textures window, then in the textures browser, select for instance the "textures/base_wall/melting_metal_2" one:



Then, unselect the whole scene anew and select the floor and the ceiling (yeah, dirty way I told you!) and do the same with, let's say the "textures/base_floor/diamond05" texture.



Good, there is now one two last things we must do before testing the scene: it is first to add a light (see if you toggle the Camera view, all will be black).

To do this, return to the "XY Top" bottom tab in the 2D and Textures window, unselect the whole scene, then add a "light" > "light" entity (RIGHT MOUSE button) in the menu that has appeared:



Then move the newly created entity inside the room (ensure that it's inside in the 2D and Textures window). Here's what you should see in the Camera window:



And the final part (which I figured out to be optional here in this particular case, but was required in Doom 3) is to tell the game where the player will be created on the map.

In the same way as the light creation, just add an "info" > "info_player_start" entity inside the room (you're not obliged to position it right on the floor).

Now let's first save this room as "room01" in the "/maps" directory, then before testing it, we need to compile it: go in the "Compile" menu on the top of the screen, then click "1 – Normal compile".

If everything goes well, you should see the "Checking for pointfile... None found" line in the "Console" tab of the Inspectors window.

We will now test this room.

Testing the room

Now, what you must know is that the tools are, in a way, "attached to the game itself". This means that you can directly test your room by doing the following in the World Editor:

1. Hit the F2 key: the game will appear in a window.
2. Bring down the game console (' ² ' key or '~', depending on your keyboard configuration).
3. We must now tell the game that it will be set in a "single map" only, this is done by typing: si_rules sdGameRulesObjective.
4. And final thing, we must start the map: devmap room01.

Once loaded, you should now be able to move inside: congrats, this is your first creation, dude!

Quick global explanation:
By creating the "room01" map (or rather called "world" in Quake Wars), the editor generated the "room01.world" in the "<ETQW>/mymod/maps" directory (as well as other files during the compile step), and that's why the game can find it in the console.

Conclusion

I hope that you passed a good time reading this tutorial and that it'll give some people the lust to learn more!

In that perspective, I recommend you to see the following sites of great interest:

The Quake Wars Wiki the official stuff.
ModWiki.net a Wiki covering all things since Doom 3.
Doom3World for more indepth materials.

Any remarks, suggestions, questions, pizzas ? Don't hesitate to tell!