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Hi there. I'm learning to use UnrealEd right now. However I noticed it's somewhat challenging for me to make less blocky maps and make more organic maps. I'm wondering if any of you guys have any tips for making maps that more resemble an outdoor location and less like it was made out of lego.

Either terrains and-or the 2D brush builder, and deco packages with plants. or rocks.

Make the skybox look really good

Use water and waterfalls
And nature sounds.


Go play some SP maps , some great cave work, and still have structures though. like the base, or the dock

Red_Fist wrote:Either terrains and-or the 2D brush builder, and deco packages with plants. or rocks.

Make the skybox look really good

Use water and waterfalls
And nature sounds.


Go play some SP maps , some great cave work, and still have structures though. like the base, or the dock

My attempt at using terrain

Just remember there are very real limits you will encounter if you try to make something that looks like it's current gen. BSP issues are the real limiter for what you can do in Ued. Some of the best, most solid maps use the "fake it till you make it" school. Caverns aren't as uneven as they appear, it's more rectangular than you think but good lighting (specifically dark areas), decoration placement like boulders and stalactites, cobwebs, etc all combine to make it appear natural but overall it's just not that involved BSP-wise.

My best advice is to play a lot of coop maps and open up the ones that strike you the most in editor and see how it was accomplished. I run an Unreal 227 server that has hundreds of maps. If you try and like it I can let you FTP copy the server and you'll have the maps.

I agree with posts above. Play Unreal if are able too, if not that's ok. We can send / point some maps out which are problably compatible with UT.

I struggled with this too, many times. Last year I had this beautiful, small, but damn fine christmas map, almost ready. Then when I was about to release it, the BSP #$%^& the whole map up. It was unfixable.
Editor crashed time after time, if I try to fix it. If you have free time, I highly suggest you make this map as 'experimental test' map . Go make weird, strange shapes. Trial and error will give some good and bad results.

So yeah, not to destroy your ambitions, but geometry and terrain bsp, is a real...... ####### .


Be careful what you make, and make a LOT OF BACKUPS.. Trust me, you need backup every 5-10 minutes or so.

Edit: GenEarth.utx is your package for the most nature texturing.

Typing this makes we wanna remake the map...... ......oh yes mapping fever take me over


more from me on this later. oh and by the way, nice to see more posts of other mappers happily mapping.

If I can help you T, let me know. I collect Christmas maps like fat kids collect candy bar wrappers.

JackGriffin wrote:If I can help you T, let me know. I collect Christmas maps like fat kids collect candy bar wrappers.

Yes, I'd like have a little collab between me and you some time. Like you and Paper did. Ever since I made my CM series, I wanted to have this actor that make the crystals give health, or powers.
So if you are near a crystal, or statue or looking at mystic glass or presention of something, a health or armor generating thing would be cool.
So if you feel up to a nice project, I'll go make some more MH maps, even the christmas map. I will send you a PM soon. If I forget , pm me back.
This also applies to your other MH -mod- thing project. I think we can help each other out. Will reply there too.

---

Some more ontopic :

@ Mosin

Here are some example of stock UT maps you might want to take a have look at for inspiration and ideas how things are done.
But this depends on how much you know on making brushes. Have a look at them and hope this helps.

AS-Guardia ( indoor terrain )
AS-Rook ( outdoor terrain )
CTF- Kosov ( in and outdoor terrain )

Terraniux wrote:

This is actually more what I'm interested in making. I've been experimenting with using terrain however it's been somewhat slow going since a lot of the time I get BSP errors and my player character just falls through it.

I'll also say it's a bit of a planning thing since I dunno if I should mold the terrain how I like first and then build the rest of the level or build the level out of simple shapes first and then create the terrain. Since I haven't found a way to insert vertices into simple shapes like blocks yet and I'd imagine it would be a lot of trial and error to generate dozens of terrain types only to find myself having to insert more/less vertices. The only other way I'd be able to get around this is to duplicate a single square wall into a bunch of identical ones and then manipulate vertices similar to how one creates terrain for Quake.

I'm mostly just looking for the most efficient way to do this sort of work.

Want me to make simple terrain video tutorial? I'll do it gladly.

Terraniux wrote:Want me to make simple terrain video tutorial? I'll do it gladly.

That would be really nice

If you want to make terrain, keep in mind not to use the default cube brush but the tessellated one. This will prevent vertices to overlap the actual polygon face.

My Map CTF-NorthernLights Uses heavily those tessellated cubes.


And one of the best Maps CTF-Disposable Heroes is a very good example for terrain mapping.

JackGriffin wrote: "fake it till you make it"

^This ... And the textures. Good texture alignment is you friend in Terrain mapping.

MosinMocachino wrote: I'm mostly just looking for the most efficient way to do this sort of work.

Not sure how committed you are but eventually you will want to use an external modelling program to really make the terrain you want. Anything generated inside the editor is going to be various levels of "Well, that will do I guess".

I'm just thinking out loud but can you use the terrain generator from UT2004 and just export the mesh? IIRC it had a fairly decent and easy to learn terrain maker.

JackGriffin wrote:

MosinMocachino wrote: I'm mostly just looking for the most efficient way to do this sort of work.

Not sure how committed you are but eventually you will want to use an external modelling program to really make the terrain you want. Anything generated inside the editor is going to be various levels of "Well, that will do I guess".

I'm not opposed to making terrain in something like Blender but at the same time it's not something I feel comfortable doing without any real frame of reference as to how it was intended to be done.

For me it comes down to things like "how do I know my terrain is the right size? Would it be faster to just import into blender, mold, export or just move the vertices? What causes bsp errors and what doesn't? That sort of thing runs through my head.

You can make terrain pretty easily just by making sure your boundaries are what you want. If you have a canyon and it needs a footprint of 2048 long and 512 wide then you just model your canyon so it fits those ratios. You can always scale things on import. It's better to use an externally created mesh since it will be formed without holes or weirdness and this becomes more true as it becomes more complex a shape.

As for BSP errors, well there's no rhyme or reason sometimes. They just happen and you learn to deal with them. More than once I've had a map totally ruined by errors and get completely fixed by selecting the whole map and moving it one unit then rebuilding. It makes no sense sometimes.

JackGriffin wrote:You can make terrain pretty easily just by making sure your boundaries are what you want. If you have a canyon and it needs a footprint of 2048 long and 512 wide then you just model your canyon so it fits those ratios. You can always scale things on import. It's better to use an externally created mesh since it will be formed without holes or weirdness and this becomes more true as it becomes more complex a shape.

As for BSP errors, well there's no rhyme or reason sometimes. They just happen and you learn to deal with them. More than once I've had a map totally ruined by errors and get completely fixed by selecting the whole map and moving it one unit then rebuilding. It makes no sense sometimes.

No no no no no no.

You are right in your knowledge in certain ways , but you need to be very basic, very more basic Jack. You are WAY out of his league in terms of knowledge.
When it comes to Editor knowdledge, always start the possibilities from within the editor THEN GO OUTSIDE THE EDITOR.
You are already AT Z while the guy is barely starting at from C. ( counting from a.b.c. etc.) Let me post my stuff, then we see what needs to learned.

The same is with me learning coding 1 day. POSTING CODE for me is HOCUS POCUS, first a basic knowledge then advance for advanced stuff.

i made a video, It covers basic brushbuilding, vertex editing and rotating brushing, and subtracting.
It covers the BSP based terrain + tessellated brushed + morphing them into anything you like.

My video assumes you have basic editor and movement knowledge. If not I forward to this :




created - compiled - and uploaded fresh tonight. took me some work but here it is.
tnM_13z_KE4

if this is too advanced , or hocus pocus for you, let me know. I make a even more basic video.

Edit : There are more ways to make terrain , but for now lets present these.


Hopefully basic and understandable for you.
If not I explain every movement for you.

Regards Terraniux