GENERAL
EDITING TIPS FOR UNREALED2
"Machismo"
E-Mail:- cool_machismo@yahoo.com
INTRODUCTION
This tutorial will deal with some common editing tips
and things that
tend to slow down levels. Very essential info but not deserving of a separate
tutorial. Its actually just a rambling on various topics of interest ;). This tutorial is
subdivided into:
You can easily determine the order in which the editor
compiles brushes. Why do you ever need to order the compiling process?.
Well consider consider the following:
SITUATION I: I have
a simple room like this:
Check out the picture and u can see that the arch is made of two parts (in
case you are wondering the textures are from ShaneChurch.utx). Now when I subtract
the connecting room at the end, the arch gets screwed up, like this:
Hey we cant have that happening now can we. First it looks horrible and
the left and right arch are actually two different textures. This can be
solved easily. Select the two arches right click on them and choose order
>to last:
Now rebuild the level and see what u get, the original texture surface of
the two brushes is now restored like this:
"Clean as a whistle!". Its easy to understand how it
happened if you look at the situation this way: say you had
subtracted the first room and then immediately subtracted the second room
and only then added in the arches they would be perfect. Actually
the arches originally have been added in first so how shall I put it .....
their order in the rebuilding process is first (i.e. the editor knows and assumes
actually that the brush was actually put in first and only then the second
room was subtracted). Now when you order the brush to last you just
reverse the position - you tell the editor that the second room should
first be compiled and then the arches have to be compiled. You'll find
yourself in this situation a lot since it is difficult most of the times
to anticipate the order in which to put in brushes in your level (hum...
not really the above situation could have easily been anticipated and
should have been ;).
IMPORTANT NOTE:- Just
as you ordered the arches to last, you could as easily have ordered the
second subtracted room to first. And you would get the same result since
the second room would first be compiled and then the arches would be
"rebuilt".
SITUATION II: Before
subtraction:
After subtraction a part of the lamp is lost.
A simple selecting the subtracted brush and ordering it to first (or
selecting the lamp and ordering it to last) will get back the brush like
so:
They best way to ensure that your level is fast and will
play well is to keep stict control over your level design and not let it
get too out of hand. They best way to do this would be to make use of the
following. NOTE: These can be used in both UnrealEd2 (by typing it into
the command bar at the bottom) or within Unreal Tournament/Unreal 1
itself. The four favorite stats that I use are:
-
stat fps : Frames per second, amount of visible nodes
in one screen and polys being displayed.
-
stat global : Displays a collection of all stats
-
stat zone : Number of visible zones
-
stat occlusion
What I mean by clean brush surfaces is that the brush surface
must be split in as less segments as possible - here I am referring to
both the original brush and the surface of the brush. I made a mention of
this in the 2D Editor
Tutorial. Here's how to do it again:
-
On using the 2d editor to make shapes your are
probably going to end up with some thing like this:
That's not very good for the level frame rates, notice how I am able
to select different pieces of the surface of the end of the brush.
-
METHOD I - There are two ways to fix this. Both very
important in different situations. The method you use will be based on
the type of brush that you are dealing with (and also the level). I recommend
you use the first method on curved rooms. To correct the
"error" select all the pieces of the end of the brush that
you want to join together. NOTE: U should use the shortcut key SHIFT+C
(Select surfaces that are ADJACENT COPLANARS) to select all the
surfaces of the end of the brush. You could use Shift+W in this case
but its always easier to use SHIFT+C. Now that you have the surface
you want to join selected, got to that surfaces properties and do two
things, under the alignment tab:
Make sure that you align the surface using both wall
direction and wall pan or it will not work. Now select the brush whose surface
you want to merge, right click on the brush and go to the selected
properties like this:
Once you've hit the merge option, rebuild immediately and select the
surface of the brush, you'll see that it has been joined/merged into one.
The best way to find out - where previously the node count was 25 it fell
to 20 . Now imagine your level had 900 brushes - theoretically you could
have the "laid the smack down" on 4500 nodes - now you tell me
that merging polygons speed up a level or what!.
The separate option works in reverse if by mistake you
have merged unwanted areas of the brush (especially happens if that brush
was made by an intersection of several other brushes) separates merged
polygons.
-
METHOD II - Actually the above method is better to
use on curved surfaces rooms etc, where intersection is not an option,
or just plain time wasting. Now since the above brush was just
straight, I took the builder brush and intersected it against a flat
brush (what CliffyB calls a building box) and only then subtracted the
brush. Now compare the new brush with the previous one:
No need to merge polygons here.
The "mode scale" command does not allow for precision.
Umm......... this part is actually very very basic but it could be missed
by some. To employ precise scaling go to the builder brush or brushes
properties > brush > main scale > scale. Here you can enter the
precise values for x or y or z or whatever. Like this:
This is especially helpful for shapes made in the 2deditor
and or outdoor terrain. You can make the shape or terrain on a small scale
and then "scale" it up as much as you want!. Besides the
2deditor only handles 2x scaling (e.g.: 256 then 512 then 1024). I'm
repeating myself but its especially helpful for making large outdoor
terrain - where you make the shape in the 2ded
or a third party software and then scale it either x or y or z or
however you want to have it.
Enter "texture cull" without quotes in the
command bar of the editor. If you find that whenever you load a level,
some texs that you previously used in the level but don't use any more are
loaded just hit this. Besides this, the texture cull command gives a very
useful reading of the names of every texture used in your level.
"mode facedrag" - Select the brush and enter
this without the quotes in the console. Hold down control and drag with
the left mouse button in the various views to contort the shape into weird
stuff.
Continued .................................
General Editing Tips - Part II ..........
Click Here to Continue!.
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