UnrealScript and UnrealEd full guides

[Feralidragon]

So, given that I am about to start some stuff again in UScript, to be used in the map I am about to create for the new mapping contest, I have been digging through my old "treasure boxes" (external HDDs and such) looking for my old tools to see what I would need.

During this small endeavor, I have found some interesting resources I had sitting here for several years, which I am not sure if the community is aware of them or even if they are hosted anywhere.

The first resource I found, is a 47MB help file entitled The Complete Unreal Ed Reference Guide, which you can download from here:

The Complete Unreal Ed Reference Guide.zip

(46.3 MiB) Downloaded 232 times

This "guide" is actually full documentation in many aspects, in a format which you can easily navigate by, search for, etc, covering almost everything about developing for the game, not only UnrealEd, but also UnrealScript, some C++ stuff, formats, etc, etc, everything you may imagine.

It also contains documentation written by Epic itself, not only by Tim, but also 7 other Epic employees (Erik, Steve, etc, totalling 8 Epic developers' worth of documentation and contributions as well).

Which means that probably a lot of the questions you may have in your mind about mapping, modding and etc, may be already covered by this guide alone.
And if you're giving your first steps into mapping, or modding, or both, then this guide is probably the first thing you should read.


The second resource I found was much smaller, but may also come in handy for modders:

UScript_Tutorial.zip

(163.41 KiB) Downloaded 181 times

It's an old DOC file, which has a 144 pages long tutorial just about UnrealScript.

If you open in a modern document editor, you will see the formatting is not really the best, so it's not as easy to read or navigate, but it contains a LOT of info covering a LOT of stuff about the language and many of the objects.
So for modders currently discovering the engine, and even those still starting to script for the game, this could also be a good resource.


Other than this, I found a personal ZIP file of mine which I called "UT_Developer_Essentials_Pack", which is a zip with all the important tools that I used and which I believed to be absolutely essential, and also hard to find or in danger of disappearing.

It is a bit cluttered with a lot of tools which are long outdated, with much better alternatives nowadays, but I may take this chance to later on build a ZIP file with all the essential tools which are still important nowadays and which most do not know about their existence.
Stuff like LithUnwrap, UMake, UnCodex, UnrealFX, UTPT and Bright, but I will need to dig a bit deeper into finding the rest of the stuff I used or am going to use now.

[Neon_Knight]

Excellent!
This should also be a good read for mappers: http://www.hourences.com/product/the-ho ... -design-2/

[Buggie]

which I am not sure if the community is aware of them or even if they are hosted anywhere.

The first resource I found, is a 47MB help file entitled The Complete Unreal Ed Reference Guide, which you can download from here:
The Complete Unreal Ed Reference Guide.zip

https://www.oldunreal.com/wiki/index.ph ... =Tutorials

[Feralidragon]

Oh, nice, so they were both there all along (even the UnrealScript one), together with plenty of other resources, very nice.

The OldUnreal wiki is seriously underrated, maybe there should be a sticky post with a link to that here in the forum, these resources are extremely useful, especially for beginners.

[Neon_Knight]

I'd really like some help in the OldU Wiki, especially organizing the topics.

I'm lacking the time to do anything lately.

[The_Cowboy]

Thanks a lot for the guide Feralidragon! I can see the similarity of this thread with Qumran Caves!

[sektor2111]

Tutorials are good if are completed by user's research or else some these stories are pretty much a BAD solution because these fascinating ideas might not have more things in common with networking especially in ages before any 469 patch. Here is the evidence about who is talking stories for kids:

Let me see, here this solution was not tested for 1 minute in a net server. When you are screwing up important properties of an actor it's not like your doing is the right way. Strategy is completing work with a minimal set of tests. Some of these actor properties should not even be visible in Editor giving free hand in messing up maps.
I believe I won't waste time with more reading as long as I have my way in setting up keyframes for movers by not moving mover, but using some stock dedicated for coding/modding/mapping and those nice Mover commands which Buggie did and editing mover as you edit any other actor without to drag mover anywhere.

[Feralidragon]

Every single one of those pages has the author name in front of the title, and as you can see most of them were done by the community, at a time when there were both myths running around, as well as when the offline play was as strong as online play (most mods didn't really work online at the time), so it's fair to say that most of the mapping advice there is not something that was tested online, because that wasn't the focus, and even what you highlighted is fixable fairly easily.

The same goes for the Beyondunreal Wiki for instance: it has a lot of inaccurate info in it, and even yesterday I confirmed with Anth and Caco one more thing the wiki has wrong, namely:
https://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Operators#New_operator
it says that the default for Outer is None, but it isn't: the default is the object that instantiated the new object (which was the reason why people had issues before with instantiating objects [fixed in 469], and why Caco was using None explicitly before for Outer).

However, you have also a specific section written by Epic employees in the document you referenced, including one from Tim Sweeney, which should have more accurate info.

[sektor2111]

It's understandable but... there are people reading these and trusting them as valid ones...

I'm happy that Higor knows pretty much of these and perhaps 469 will work in the right way - but not old stock which would need some "extensions" for mitigating evil effects.

Errata for previous "data":
Lights and actors attached at Movers which previously were bStatic can be bNoDelete=True. Actors stays On-Line and it will move. A closer situation is for "asteroids" from that SkyBox ripped from CTF-Face and having the same bugged nothing On-Line in every single map. Those boulders can be visible and bAlwaysRelevant - they are not too many after all. If their movement is disturbing because it's not smoother, they can be deleted and scripted for client side and story will be completely changed. This what patch plugin does in MH-AfterDark[final] and asteroids are normal and really good looking things exactly as Off-Line.

Self call: sektor, please put your scripting helpers into a builder, you left them in 227, bring them back in UT...

[Neon_Knight]

Looks like a new Wiki with more accurate info is in order to be done...

[sektor2111]

Yeah... Wiki. Perhaps some of these trash fake stories should be eradicated from the whole galaxy regarding to pathing subject...
Let's see what Sharky is saying:

If you have any elevators/lifts in your level you must place a lift exit where you want the bot to wait for the lift/elevator and a lift center where the lift is on the ground. Next you assign their lift event to the name of the mover's tag.

Mental instability, Sharky, simple as that.
First of all Polge did not said anything matching what this dude is saying about lifts - you forgot to explain if your lifts were ever working this way...
A minimal combo connected "LiftTag" -> "Mover.Tag" and nothing concerning "Events" is THREE points working in both directions down-up up-down, which means Two LiftExit types entry-exit, exit-entry and the mid-point which is a LiftCenter - sub-classes of these are following the same rules - including TranslocDest and the rest of special related actions, and "LiftTag" is required even if in stage there is no Mover but things must get connected and map has other such combos which don't need to be connected through walls each-other.

But because these boys are triggering some mental instability from me to go out of my brain-box, I'll post in a related tutorial another "HowTo" without too many words... but using demo-samples in UNR file format known by friends as UT maps. No, Mover won't be "TransformPermanently", I don't need that. Yes, I'll use Editor for building paths not 2021 assets for ReachSpecs definition.

Here Other type of Mover/Lift Paths, aiming fast movers without too much camping on Lift.

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Automatically merged

SpeechLess here...

I want to find out what's next when 200 mappers will save their own MyLevel.

[NemesisNeS]

Excellent job mate, thanks a ton!