- UnrealEd 1.0 is tied to the UnrealEngine 1 for Unreal and the unpatched version of Unreal Tournament.
- UnrealEd 2.0 is tied to the UnrealEngine 1 for Unreal Tournament with normal patches.
- UnrealEd 2.1 is tied to the UnrealEngine 1 for Unreal with the patch 227 by OldUnreal. In effect, it is UnrealEd 2.0 with additional tools and many bugfixes.
- UnrealEd 2.2 is tied to the UnrealEngine 1 for Unreal Tournament with the patch 469 by OldUnreal. In effect, it is UnrealEd 2.1 with additional tools and many bugfixes.
- UnrealEd 3.0 is tied to the UnrealEngine 2 for Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004.
- Later versions of the editor are no longer numbered. Here we enter the realm of Unreal Engine 3 and subsequent iterations, and the UDK.
- UnrealEd is the abreviation of Unreal Editor, and is shortened UEd. UnrealEngine is shortened UE. Do not confuse these.
- In this tutorial, CTRL, ALT and SHIFT refer to the Control, Alternate and Shift keys of the keybord. LMB and RMB stand for the Left Mouse Button and Right Mouse Button. For basic manipulations, see here for mouse and here for keyboard shortcuts.
UnrealEd 2.0
UnrealEd 2.0 is the "barebone" version of UnrealEd: all its tools are available in all the other versions. It is also the version that is available for Unreal Tournament.
Manipulation Modes
These are tools to manipulate objects (textures, brushes, camera).
Camera. This is the "viewing and selecting mode"; it is activated by default. Usually, you click on it only to get out of another mode, such as Vertex Editing.
Vertex Edit. Allows you to select vertices and move them. Select a brush. Keep CTRL and the LMB pressed, and drag your mouse around to draw a red frame around the vertices you want to select. CTRL+SHIFT+LMB allows you to add new vertices to those already selected. Then, keep CTRL+LMB pressed and drag the mouse around to move vertices. Explanations here in English, here in French.
Scaling Mode. Allows you to change the scale of a selected brush. CTRL+LMB scales the brush on the X axis. CTRL+RMB scales the brush on the Y axis. CTRL+Both mouse buttons allows you to scale the brush on both sides at the same time.
Rotate Mode. Obsolete tool, as you can already rotate any actor by selecting it, pressing CTRL+RMB and moving the mouse. Brushes always rotate around their pivot.
Texture Panning. CTRL+LMB lets you pan the texture of the selected surface on the U axis (by default, the horizontal axis for a wall). CTRL+RMB pans on the V axis (by default, the vertical axis on a wall).
Texture Rotate. Allows you to rotate the texture of the selected surface. The pivot around which the texture revolves depends on texture alignment.
Brush Clipping Tool. Allows you to place markers to draw a line along which the selected brush or brushes will be clipped. You need at least two markers to draw a line. If you place three markers, they will define a plan along which the brush will be clipped in 3D. You can place as many markers as you want, but if you place more than 3, only the first two will be used for a linear clipping. In UnrealEd 3.0, you cannot place more than 3 markers. This tool only places the markers. You clip and change the behaviour of clipping with the four next tools. The line between markers 1 and 2 always features a small perpendicular line: this is the normal. It is defines which part the brush is the "main" one and which one is the "clipped" one.
Clipper Tools
These tools define how the Brush Clipping Tool works.
Brush Clip. Cuts the selected brush along the line or plan defined by the markers places with the Brush Clipping tool. The part of the brush on the side of the normal is deleted.
Brush Split. Splits the selected brush along the line or plan defined by the markers places with the Brush Clipping tool. The two parts of the brush are kept as separate brushes.
Clipping Normal Flip. Flips the normal of the Brush Clipping Tool. Allows you to change which part of the brush is deleted with the Brush Clip tool.
Brush Clip Delete. Deletes all the markers of the Brush Clipping Tool.
For more information about clipping, see here in English, here in French.
Brush Builders
This next batch of tools change the shape of the Red Builder Brush when clicked. Right-clicking them allows you to change the size and settings of the resulting shape.
The Red Builder Brush is an invisible shape which only acts as a mold to create actual brushes. It always exists, if only as a single vertex in the map. It does not exist in the game and does not directly interact with the map; When several actors are selected simultaneously and rotated, they rotate around the pivot of the Red Builder Brush instead of their own. When creating a new blank map, the only existing thing is the Red Builder Brush and the set of cameras used by UnrealEd.
Changes the Red Builder Brush to a cube.
Changes the Red Builder Brush to a curved stair. All the steps reach the ground, so that you cannot make it more than 360°.
Changes the Red Builder Brush to a spiral stair. Each step has a fixed height, and you can thus make a spiral as high as you want.
Changes the Red Builder Brush to a normal linear stair.
Changes the Red Builder Brush to a terrain, a big cube with a subdivided lower side which can be vertex-edited to be a terrain. Explanations here in English, here in French.
Changes the Red Builder Brush to a cylinder. The cylinder can be set to be hollowed.
Changes the Red Builder Brush to a square sheet. A sheet is a single polygon without thickness, and thus no collision. Usually used for zone portals, masked decorations and panels.
Changes the Red Builder Brush to a cone. The cone can be "capped", and thus have its summit cut off.
Changes the Red Builder Brush to a Sphere. The "extrapolation" field sets how detailed the sphere is. It very if the value is beyond 4, the sphere soon becomes very detailed, but features an astounding number of polygons and might bring the editor and the game to a crawl, as well as completely imbalance the geometry.
Changes the Red Builder Brush to a set of crossed sheets. Usually used for volumetric masked decorations such as chains, flames, etc. As normal sheets, they have no thickness, no collision, but are two-sided by default.
CSG Operators
These tools make CSG operations with the Red Builder Brush. CSG stands for Constructive Solid geometry: these are all the brushes you see in the 2D Viewports. Out of them, UnrealEd compiles a BSP structure which is the "real", playable and visible geometry of the level. BSP is compiled from CSG when you use the Build Geometry and Build All commands.
By default, the "void" of UnrealEd is not "empty", but "full": the emptyness is actually solid. Building a map entails the subtraction of volumes in which the players can play, and the addition of solid brushes inside them to build solid pillars and decorations. The very first step of creating a new map is almost always the subtraction of a first brush.
CSG creates "temporary" BSP when created, but is not playable until the geometry has been built: testing a map with temporary BSP kills the player instantly because the engine cannot decide what part of the map is solid and what part is empty.
Because a subtracted brush can contain a solid brushes which contains a subtracted brush, and so on ad infinitum, brush order is very important and canbe modified by right-clicking on a brush or a set of brush and choosing Order => To First or To Last.
CSG operations are detailed here.
Additive Operator. Creates a solid brush out of the current shape of the Red Builder Brush. Additive brushes are dark blue in the viewports, light blue when selected.
Subtractive Operator. Creates a subtractive brush out of the current shape of the Red Builder Brush. Subtractive brushes are brown in the viewports, yellow when selected.
Intersection Operator. Changes the Red Builder Brush: all the parts of the Red Builder Brush currently inside subtracted space are deleted. The resulting brush may have complex polygons. Very often used to create a single brush out of a complex structure: put the structure into a large subtracted space, place the Red Builder Brush around it and Intersect.
Deintersection Operator. Very scary name. Opposite of the Intersect Operator: deletes all the parts of the Red Builder Brush currently inside additive space.
Further explanations about Intersection and Deintersection here in English, here in French.
Special Operators. Opens a window for several special types of brushes, and allows you to create your own special brush with flags and solidity types. Special movers can have two colours depending on their solidity types: dark green (light green when selected) if they are non-solide, pink when semi-solid.
Add Mover. Creates a mover out of the Red Builder Brush. Right-Clicking this tool gives you access to specific types of movers. Movers are dark purple in the viewports, purple when selected. Mover explanations here in English, Mover reference here in French (with UEd 3.0 additions here).
Visibility Masks
These tool act on what you can see.
Show Selected. Hides every actor in the map except the ones which are currently selected.
Hide Selected. Hide every actor in the map currently selected.
Show All. Cancels all visibility masks. This cancels the two previous tools.
Invert Selection. Deselects all currently selected actors and selects all actos currently not selected.
Camera Speed. Chooses between Slow, Medium and Fast. By default, the camera is medium-speed. When clicking this tool, the highlighter arrow changes. The longer the arrow, the more rapid the camera is.
Tarquin Building Brushes
These are new building brushes created by Tarquin. They give new possiblities.For detailed information, see the archive of Tarquin's website. Download them here for UT99. UT2003/4 versions also exist. Download them at the bottom of this page.
Tarquin Spiral Tool. Similar, with more options, to the spiral stair.
Tarquin Torus Tool. Changes the Red Builder Brush to a tore.
Tarquin Cylinder Tool. Similar, with more options to the cylinder tool.
Tarquin Panorama. Creates a set of square sheets, arranged in a square ring. Useful for moutain skyboxes.
Extended Parallel Sheering. Similar to the sheering tool from UnrealEd 2.1.
Extended Wave Builder. Similar, with more options, to the terrain tool.
Tarquin Extruder Builder Tool. Complex tool: allows you to input a polygon and an extrusion path along which the polygon is extruded. Explanations here in English, here in French.
UnrealEd 2.1 and 2.2
UnrealEd 2.1 is the improved version of UnrealEd 2.0 for the UnrealEngine1. It is featured in the 227 patch for Unreal. Along with all the tools from UnrealEd 2.0, described above, it has several new tools.
Manipulation Modes from UnrealEd 1.0
These tools were present in UnrealEd 1.0, became deprecated, and are not included in UnrealEd 2.0. They are brought back by popular demande in UnrealEd 2.1 for Unreal.
Sheering Mode. Sheers the Red Builder Brush.
Brush Stretching Mode. Stretches the Red Builder Brush.
Snapped Scaling Mode. Uses the same icon as UnrealEd 2.0's Scaling Mode, but keeps the brush snapped to the grid. As a result, the normal Scaling Mode has another icon in UnrealEd 2.1 and 2.2: This is a recolored version of the UnrealEd 1.0 icon.
New Visibility Masks
Align Cameras. Centers all the viewports on the 3D Camera.
Select Inside. Selects all actors currently contained (even partially) inside the Red Builder Brush.
Select All. Selects all actors in the map.
UnrealEd 3.0
UnrealEd 3.0 features all the tools from UnrealEd 2.0, as well as several others.
Newbrush Manipulation Modes
Geometry Edit Mode. Only appears in specific games. Unreal 2 for instance. Doesn't seem to do anything, clearly an obsolete tool.
Freehand Polygon Mode. Allows you to draw a polygon and extrude it.
Face Drag mode. Selects the edge of a polygon and move it. Only available in UnrealEd 3.0, it is pretty much useless there. However, the commands needed for this tool are already present inside UnrealEd 2.0, but without any dedicated tool.
Terrain Editing Tool. Opens the new terrain editor. Explanations here in English, here in French. For the roundabout procedure in Unreal 2, see here in English, here in French.
Matinee Editor. Opens the Matinée editor to create scripted sequences and machinimas. Explanations here in English, here in French.
Newbrush Builders
Changes the Red Builder Brush to a terrain. This is actually the old BSP-based terrain with a new icon, as the old icon is now used for the Terrain Editing Tool.
New CSG Operators
Antiportal Operator. Creates an Antiportal from the Red Builder Brush. This acts as an occlusion polygon. Antiportals are orange in the viewports (bright orange when selected). Explanations here in English, here in French.
Volume Operator. Creates a volume from the Red Builder Brush. Right-Clicking on this tool lets you choose specific volume types. Volumes are pinkish in the viewports, white when selected, and visible through geometry. Basic Volumes discussion here in English. Volumes reference here in French.
Add StaticMesh. Does not add a static-mesh to the map, contrarily to what it seems. Creates a static-mesh from currently selected geometry. If nothing is selected, converts the Red Builder Brush. Static-meshes are cyan-green in the 2d viewports and in the wireframe 3D viewport.
Intersect and Deintersect Operators. These are the same as UnrealEd 2.0 and 2.1; however, the icons have been switched.
Mirrors
Camera Align. Centers all viewports on the currently selected actor.
Mirror X. Mirrors all selected actors along the X Axis. (horizontal axis of the TOP viewport; equivalent to an East-West axis)
Mirror Y. Mirrors all selected actors along the Y Axis. (vertical axis of the TOP viewport; equivalent to a North-South axis)
Mirror Z. Mirrors all selected actors along the Z Axis. (vertical axis of the SIDE and FRONT viewports; equivalent to an Up-Down axis)
Clip Z. Executes the "Actor Clip Z" command. Mastering Unreal Technology states it used to clip actors along Z in wireframe mode, but the command no longer works in the version packaged with UT2003 and 2004.
Select Inside. Selects all actors currently inside the Red Builder Brush. Notice that this icon is different from the one used for the same function in UnrealEd 2.1.