Mappers' dialogs - Using Unreal Ed questions

Okay, do we have a really good mapper here? I need to pick a brain.

Recently, it was brought to light that a cool map had some derrogatory remarks written on the floor in an obscure part of the map. Being that I heard several peeps comment on how they liked the map, I decided to see how hard it would be get rid of the offensive materials and quickly found out I have NO CLUE what I am doing and am not ashamed to say so.

I edited the map CTF-Bedrooms][remix_vFAL and took out the offending projector textures and everything went well until................dun, dun, dun...........

UT Ed stated that the "package" had changed and I needed to save it AND the hardware had changed and I had to save that. Hmm, doesn't make sense. These changes should be incorporated into the map......unless it has to be compiled in some fashion. Any takers on this?

I am gonna run the tutorial gammut and see how much more I can cram into my head before it explodes.

Chyster wrote:

Okay, do we have a really good mapper here? I need to pick a brain.

Recently, it was brought to light that a cool map had some derrogatory remarks written on the floor in an obscure part of the map. Being that I heard several peeps comment on how they liked the map, I decided to see how hard it would be get rid of the offensive materials and quickly found out I have NO CLUE what I am doing and am not ashamed to say so.

I edited the map CTF-Bedrooms][remix_vFAL and took out the offending projector textures and everything went well until................dun, dun, dun...........

UT Ed stated that the "package" had changed and I needed to save it AND the hardware had changed and I had to save that. Hmm, doesn't make sense. These changes should be incorporated into the map......unless it has to be compiled in some fashion. Any takers on this?

I am gonna run the tutorial gammut and see how much more I can cram into my head before it explodes.

Call the Orkin man, maybe he can help.

Thanks for the dry humor Fodder

It was very helpful, he knew exactly what the problem was.

Me and the Orkin Man got it to work, now I need a host site to store it on for dwnloads. Tried a couple that wern't to good. Any Ideas?

you might want to make sure that you use a seperate texture file if you added a new texture, if not the old one should work as long as people have the origional.

Thanx Continuum. I wasn't adding, I was subtracting.

You might try hosting it on filefront. They don't charge anything and it's easy to download from.

Thanx for the input folks, it's a done deal. The offending materials have been removed and the map is back in rotation.

Chyster wrote:

Okay, do we have a really good mapper here? I need to pick a brain.

Recently, it was brought to light that a cool map had some derrogatory remarks written on the floor in an obscure part of the map. Being that I heard several peeps comment on how they liked the map, I decided to see how hard it would be get rid of the offensive materials and quickly found out I have NO CLUE what I am doing and am not ashamed to say so.

I edited the map CTF-Bedrooms][remix_vFAL and took out the offending projector textures and everything went well until................dun, dun, dun...........

UT Ed stated that the "package" had changed and I needed to save it AND the hardware had changed and I had to save that. Hmm, doesn't make sense. These changes should be incorporated into the map......unless it has to be compiled in some fashion. Any takers on this?

I am gonna run the tutorial gammut and see how much more I can cram into my head before it explodes.

I map a bit, and anytime I use textures or meshes, it asks if I want to save a package. I have no idea why, and I always say no, and everything turns out alright.

Thanx Oki, so far that I have seen, your right. Everything works with no problems when you don't save them.

You don't want to choose yes. It's asking if you'd like to save the package you took a texture from. If you accidentally edit that texture, maybe chage a property in it, or change the skin of a mesh, it'll save it that way and you won't be able to play maps with that package, I don't think (because you could edit stuff to cheat with)

Tidu, I just realized you are the same Tidu o'er at the Atari Community forums... that's too cool. I'm trying to get in to map making, any suggestions for a newbie?

didn't know I was so well-known

All I can really say is to just practice a lot. I've released about 4 maps, and in my Custom Maps folder I have about 20 half-finished ones. When you first start, don't release a map that's very crappy. Finish it and start on a new one. I've seen people put out their first map and get wrecked with criticism, and that's sometimes intimidating.

And draw your map first on a piece of paper. Draw the layout, then go into the editor and make it out of BSP, then decorate it. Or, what I do sometimes (and what I just did yesterday) is subtract a small cube/hallway, and decorate it like you would the whole map, to see if you like the theme. Then subtract the rest of the map and decorate it. Something that discourages me a lot is opening up a map and seeing that it looks like crap. Sometimes stopping for a couple days is helpful, you can get new ideas and such.

You should also to notice of your surroundings for ideas. Two nights ago my mom was watching "HGTV Dream Home" and in one of the shots, they showed part of the house, which gave me the idea for my map now.

Just don't give up. If you need any help, just PM me sometime

If new map makers are interested, try to swing over to the following link for some tuts that are very useful to get accustomed to the editor and build a 'first' functional map. After going through them, take a look at Unreal Wiki for the more technical approach. Some of the stuff there just plain gives me a headache but there is a whole lot of good information there for advanced mappers.

I found out the hard way that most info out there on UED3 is more geared toward UT2K3, but the link below is good for 2K4 and Unreal Wiki will let you know if something is 'new' or 'obsolete'.

http://www.planetunreal.com/architectonic/first_level.html

Indeed. UnrealWiki, the UDN, and the Atari Community forums are a great place to get help at.