GENERAL ZONE CREATION NOTES

TIP: Tips on how to create zones for that particular type of zone info has been included under that topic.
Say you have a 256x256x512 room and you want the room to be divided into two separate zones the method that I favor is to create a sheet larger than the space, in this case say around 260x260 and hit the add special button and choose zone portal, 2 sided and then hit add special. This is the method I would suggest that you use in virtually every case. You should know by now that a zone portal is a "non-solid" brush that does not block the player in the game. If you have a huge room and at the end a massive, hugely decorated arch and want to separate it from the rest of the level, using a cube brush to create the portal would most probably cause problems, that's why its better to just use a huge sheet so you need'nt intersect it etc and add in the portal.

ZONE INFO

This is just a normal zone info that can be used in places where the other zone infos don't fit the purpose. The applications are so wide that I cannot deal with all of them here, so I will discuss a select few that will be most widely used. If you feel that you need more information please feel free to email me.
1. Location Strings: These are used in team games to let team mates know where to go to cover a team mate who is getting his ass kicked. Create the zones by using the sheet builder brush and dividing the rooms so that they are separated completely from each other. Say you have made them into three zones namely the red base the blue base and the center hall. Place this normal zone info actor. Go to its advanced properties and expand location strings. Give the name under zone name like red base. Now this will appear in the in game HUD letting you know where to go to save butt. For a more in-depth description read any of my team game tutorials.
2. FOG: If you want fog to appear in that particular zone set bFogZone to true and add in the lights for that room. Under the lights properties, in lighting you just need to set Volume Brightness, Volume Fog and Volume Radius.
 3. DamagePerSec: If on stepping into this zone the player will start losing health points and if so how much. You need to set one of the zone types to true (see below).
4. Zone Types:
(a). bPainZone- If the player feels "pain" and so starts loosing health points. If you set this to true don't forget to set how much health points the player will lose under DamagePersec.
(b). bFogZone- See Above (fog).
(c). bKillZone- If set to true the player will be killed instantly. This is different from the pain zone in that the player gets killed gradually, whereas here death is instantaneous.
(d). bDestructive - Set to true for the above.
The rest have preconfigured types that are more convenient to configure. See that type for more info.
5. Entry Sound and Exit Sound are the sounds that are generated when the player enters that zone and when the player exits the zone. Think of the water zones.
6. Damage Type- Enter strings like fell, drowned, etc. 

RETURN TO TOP

 WATER ZONE

You should know how to create a water zone by now. But just in case you don't here's a quick intro. Make the box that you want the water to go into. Build a sheet larger than the box, choose a water texture from genfluid. Hit the add special button and choose water from the pull down menu - everything is preconfigured - and hit add special. That would have created your water sheet. Now just locate and place water zone inside the box but below the water sheet. That's all you now have your pool!. Now if you were to go to the water zones properties you'll notice that all Epic has done is changed bWater Zone to true and added in the entry and exit sounds so that everything is pre configured.
TIP: To make water (or lava) look like it is moving around check both Big Wavy and Small Wavy under the waters surface properties. To see the effect in the editor turn on real-time by making sure the joystick is unchecked in the 3d view.

RETURN TO TOP

LAVA/SLIME/TAR ZONES

The creation process of al these zones is just like the water zone. Add the brush by hitting the add special button and choosing water. The reason you need to bother with all these zones is that they get stored in your ngStats (like picture on left) - the main reason though is that there is no substitute for a lava zone. The lava and slime zones will kill you off slowly, but the difference between them is that the of the death messages. If you die by falling into a lava zone it gets stored in the ngStats suicide totals as "burned". A tar zone (by default) does no damage to the player, it just gives the player a feeling of moving through a bucket load of tar. How were these effects achieved?. All these were done by just editing the properties of the normal zone info that we first discussed and changing some other properties. The tar zone effect was achieved by just increasing the value of the ZoneFluidFriction.
TIP: If you want the player to be killed instantly on entering a lava zone the value that you need to increase is the DamagePerSec from the default 40 to a higher value - 2000?
TIP2: There may be some zones where you don't want the player to get hurt (like the tar zone) if so make sure DamagePerSec is 0.

BACK THAT THANG UP

NITROGEN ZONE

The only reason that I am even bothering to mention this zone separately is that this is the one that was used in the Floating Pyramid map by Inoxx. It gives you the feeling of floating in space. Make sure that when you use it that the zones are properly placed. Great to have in a completely sealed off box with a big height and small width and breadth.
TIP: Some zones do not have entry and exit sounds, if you want to set them hit the use button under the relevant section in Zone Info. The standard sounds are located in the Unreall sound package (generic submenu).

RETURN TO TOP

VACUUM ZONE

Personally speaking I don't use this zone too much, I prefer to use a trigger and special event to do death events. Oh well, setting it up is not that tough. Say you have a pit so that when the player falls into you want him to die with screen flashes etc, this is how to do it. Make the pit into a separate zone and add in a vacuum zone. Got to the zones properties and expand VacuumZone. Set its properties to the following (see picture): StartFlashFog and EndFlash Fog will make the screen appear as though it is "full of fog" so to speak. This will be affected by the end flash and start flash scale. Kill time is how long the player gets to float around in the zone before going kaput.

RETURN TO TOP

PRESSURE ZONE

I don't know the point of this actor. It does the same thing as the above one.

RETURN TO TOP

WARP ZONE INFO

Lets you see from one zone into another and on stepping into it taking you to that other zone. It makes it look as though two disparate places are joined together. The effect is awesome - players will step into a box and come out at another even though you can make out its a box by going round to the back seemingly as though they are just separated by a shimmering "portal" - players not familiar with editing are going to enjoy that experience. Here's the how and why of setting it up:
1. Make the two boxes (could be any shape or size) that you want to be able to step into and step out of and two totally different places in your level. Say one at one end and the other right at the other end.

2. Time to make these two boxes into separate zones. Build a sheet slightly larger than the entrance of the box and and add in a zone portal using the add special button. Be careful, make sure that both the boxes are completely enclosed and are two distinct zones. Remember the box is a different zone and the rest of the level (having its own different zones) are two distinct zones.

3. Time to add the zone "teleportation effect" so to speak. Some nice textures are located in SpaceFx (the worm series - my favorite) and in HubEffects. Use the same sheet that you used to create the zone above. Hit the add special button choose regular brush - check nonsolid, 1-sided (remember that the boxes will look connected so one sided is economical), transparent and regular masking. Make sure that this is in front of the zone portal that you added in, in the previous step.

TIP: If for example you made your box as an arch using the 2ded (read my 2ded tutorial on this site if you don't know how), after you make the shape go to the loft menu and hit build sheet. This will build a sheet exactly in the shape of your arch and it will be easy for you to make the teleportation effect and the zone portals, other wise you would have to create the shape in the 2ded independently. 

The above two points are very important. If on playing the level you find HOM effects you have probably screwed up in one of these steps.

4. Time to place the warp zones in your boxes. Locate them and place two in each box. Open their properties and expand WarpZoneInfo. For now you need to worry about only two - othersideurl and this tag. This is intuitive - the first warp zones other side URL should be the second zones this tag. e.g.: Set the first ones other side tag to b and this tag to a; and the second warp zones other side URL to a and this side URL to b.

TIP: You can change the rotation that the player is put through by changing the rotation values under movement in the warp zones properties. For example the second warp baby can have a yaw of -40000 or something - a value to be arrived at by experimentation.

5. I still haven't been able to get this working. One thing to remember though unlike Unreal in Unreal Tournament you should link two levels by giving this in the URL of a teleporter: DM-Delete2#secondteletag?peer. Here DM-Delete2 is the name of the level that you want to be taken to on stepping into the first teleporter note the missing .unr, secondteletag is the tag (under events) of the teleporter in the second level. Even if you set this as the destination of the warp zone it doesn't seem to work. I'll update this section when I get some more information.

BACK THAT THANG UP

SKYZONEINFO

No way in hell am I going to explain this crap again, its been done too many times already!. Oh well ..... damn ..... ok, just create your sky and place this zone info into it. Go to the level and in the place where you want the sky to appear in the game set the surface property of that texture to fake backdrop (under the effects tab). Read the other sky box tutorials on this site for more info.

BACK IT UP BUDDY 

ROCKING SKY ZONE INFO

The easiest way by far to make rotating sky boxes like Facing Worlds. Lets jump into a quick example to see how it works:
1. Carve out a box 2048x2048x5000. Select all the surfaces and set it to fake backdrop. This is where the building that you want rotated should be added.
2. Add in a plank or room that you want to see rotating. For now just add in a simple plank (40x1024x1024?). Place the player start and lights, do a rebuild to see how it looks.
3. Now for the skybox. Build as room 2048x2048x2048 (for now use the night sky texture). Next build a sheet 1024x0124 and place it on the floor of the sky box (adjust using the side views). Add this in, rotate the brush and keep adding it in till you have the four "sides" added in. Apply the inxspc texture sequence from Xbfx so that it looks like a complete earth. Change the scale of the texture so that it fits the box. Add in decorations and other stuff like lens flare, etc. I used some of the moons from under decoration.
4. Place a  rocking sky zone info in the first skybox and set bStatic under advanced to FALSE. That's all now play the level and see it rotating the hell out of you. Didn't like it?, if not set new values for Movement/ Rotation under this infos properties. 
TIP OR NOTE OR WHATEVER OR ARE U EVEN BOTHERING TO READ THIS IMPORTANT STUFF: If you were to jump off the plank you wouldn't die till you hit the ground. To rectify this place a trigger below the plank and above the bottom of the level and place a special event nearby. Tag them up and set object initial state of the special event to damage instigator. Under special event set a high number like 50000 for the damage field. To set the proper collision radius of the trigger set it to a number, select the trigger go to the top down view and check Radii view in the actors menu. It will appear as a red circle, adjust it till you have the right amount.

RETURN TO TOP

MISC (USELESS?) ZONES

Totally. Forget about it. What the teleporter zone does it to set off the teleporter whose tag you enter into teleporterzone|teleportertag. Make sure that the zone barriers have been set up as usual. You figure out the uses of this one. Also level info cannot be added in to a level via the info menu. Access it by hitting the F6 key - this is where you store author name, default game type, etc.

RETURN TO TOP

THE END. Want more info?, email me.