The DarkMod Wiki - User contributions [en]

A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 3

2008-05-28T00:23:33Z

Nebrekker: /* Beams, Trim, Room Design */

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}

== Beams, Trim, Room Design ==

As said in the intro, I am not going to help with every architectural detail. In future missions that you make, consider using brushes as trim, decoration; try varying the shape of rooms to give interest and avoid the same old rectangles. Walls can be divided in two horizontally with different textures, panels, paints, wallpapers, stone. Recesses can be added just like we did for the door. Search the internet and other fan missions for inspiration. Here I shall just describe how to make a few very easy beams. Note that as we progress I am giving less and less detail of what we have covered before so just skip back if you need to remind yourself.

* Set grid size to 8
* In the small room, drag out one long brush the long length of the small room
* Make its section dimensions 16 units high and 8 deep
* Place it flush against the ceiling and against a big grid line somewhere in the middle of the room
* Look through the darkmod textures for some suitable wood and texture the entire brush
* Check the alignment of the texture only on the three visible surfaces; remember wood grain should align along the length

What about the surfaces that can't be seen?...

=== Hidden Surfaces, Caulk Texture===

You might find a lot of information on the internet about using caulk texture for hidden surfaces because caulk is not rendered so improving performance. In practice in most cases dmap does a good job of not rendering hidden surfaces anyway. Testing seems to show no detectable change in performance so generally don't worry about caulk. There may be special circumstances, for example the edges of glass panels, but otherwise it is probably not worth the effort. For more information read [[Caulk]]

Note: The outside of our mission, the surfaces in the void, will not be rendered. This is taken care of by the game software automatically so no need to worry about caulking any of them.

We have one beam in place; now what?...

=== Cloning the Beams, Single-plane Shifting ===

* Set Texture Lock ON (top button bar)
* Select the beam, clone it, and drag the clone 3 grid squares (24 units) to the side. There should be two grid square between it and the first beam.
* These beams are easy to move but while we're here, try instead Alt + the arrow keys to move. This nudges them along with no chance of sideslip. This is more useful when you want to drag something a long way. Another way to do it is LMB THEN Shift THEN drag (not Shift first) and the beam will stay in the first direction you drag. There is a knack to this. Practice it now for the future. You can drag right across a huge mission without any deviation from a line. Yet another way is a mode switch that locks in one plane or another on the [[Image:DRtranslate.jpg]] button on the top button bar. See 'Move (Drag, Translate) in one plane (Mode)' on the [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse]] wiki.
* Repeat until you cannot get another beam in - don't put one right against the wall. Then repeat from the original beam the other side so the whole ceiling has seven beams evenly spaced. There is one space with three grid squares but it's near enough.
* Look at the texture surfaces. Every beam is identical. Consider selecting surfaces and shift them along the length quickly to get a different look on some of them.

Now, clone a beam and drag it into the big room. Here resize it to 16 x 16 cross section and clone and place them in a cross along the ceiling (don't overlap in the middle but have smaller beams either side at the crossover) and rotate one (Texture Lock ON!) and clone it to form four vertical beams down the walls at the end of the ceiling beams. Check texture.

== Another 'Room' - an Open Yard ==

I'm using the term 'room' because we make it in just the same way as the rooms we made before but with a sky ceiling.

* In TOP view, drag out a brush to the east 256 x 640 and position on the big grid square in line with the north wall of our big room and overlapping the big room by one big grid square as shown in this diagram...

<center>[[Image:AZplan.jpg]]</center>

* In a side view, move it if needed so its floor is level with the floor in the big room.
* Drag its top up so the brush is 384 high
* Give it the texture: textures/darkmod/stone/brick/tiling_1d/old_worn_greybrick - suitable for the yard walls of a small dwelling
* Rescale the texture in Surface Inspector to 0.35 (vert and horiz.)
* Use the 'Room' button (LBB, left button bar) to hollow it out
 
 
* In the TOP view, reduce the length of the west (left) wall from the north down towards the south so it just touches the external surface of the south wall of the big room. Its length should now be 312 as in this diagram....

<center>[[Image:AZplan2.jpg]]</center>

* Raise the height of both the south and east walls of the big room to meet the ceiling of the yard.
* The south wall should also be extended a little to the east to be flush with the east edge of the east wall as in the picture below. (NOTE: This picture still shows a wallpaper texture I tried earlier! Yours should show the stone)...

From this... <center>[[Image:AZyard01.jpg]]

to this... [[Image:AZyard02.jpg]]</center>

* Texture the visible ''surfaces'' of those walls to be the same as the other yard walls
* Texture the floor of the yard with say cobblestones
* Ensure the texture of all the visible surfaces of the house are the same as the stone inside.

Now we need the sky...

== Sky ==

To add the default sky is fairly simple because we shall be using a ready made prefab. A prefab is part of a map saved separately so the whole thing can be imported into another map. Any selection, single or multiple, can be saved as a prefab via the File menu. It can then be imported into another map as a selection and dragged where needed.

Other skies are possible but need more work so we'll stick with what is easy...

* Set Texture Lock ON
* RMB menu in grid view and select Insert Prefab OR use File Menu > Load Prefab*
* Select tdm_sky_starry1.pfb
* Zoom out if you cannot see the selected prefab.
* Drag the selected prefab well away from our brushes both horizontally and vertically. The player does not enter it so in all your future maps make sure it is well away from any area you are likely to build. You can always move it later but it's easier to put it out of the way now.
* DEselect the prefab
* Select the ceiling surface in the yard
* Texture it with textures > smf > portal_sky. Do NOT use any of the textures under 'skies'.
* The yard walls are too high and we want to see more of the sky so...
* We use the same clone and curtain method as before...
* Select a wall at a time, clone it, size it downwards to a height of 128.
* Select the original wall and reduce its size from the bottom upwards to the top of the wall so it sits on top of the cloned wall we just made with no gap.
* Give the top part of the wall the portal_sky texture
* Repeat for the other two yard walls.
* RMB menu move player start into the yard. Check the side view too that it is not above or below.
* L to select the entity list; select the Ambient and ensure its radius covers the whole yard**.
* Ctrl + S to save. I suggest you then save again with a new name.

Now you can dmap and map and see how the yard looks.

(* If you have only the "Thief's Den" alpha installed, you will likely get an error inserting the Prefab sky. Please see discussion tab of this page on how This can be resolved.)

(** Remember, the position of your actual entity changes as you adjust the radius of your ambient light. Make sure the entity, itself, is safely inside your leak-proof map structure. Although it seems obvious to me now, my ambient light got stretched into the abyss as I was resizing it. This caused a leak which took several minutes for me to understand and correct at the time. See page 2 for original author's first warning about this).

Tip: In game, go back to the console and type and enter noclip. This toggles on and off the ability to fly and even fly through solids. Just look in the direction you want to go, upwards, and use the move forward keys the same way. You can soar up and see the moon to the east. Now fly over your other rooms and look down. You get a different sense of how it is all organized from up here! Take care in noclip mode. It can happen that if you get into the lower brushes you can sink down below the mission and fall into the abyss. Don't know why that is but you have to map again to get back in.

Spot the error in the big room? Our new yard protrudes into it at floor and north wall. We'll deal with that...

== The Clipper Tool, Cutting & Splitting Brushes ==

It is not fatal to make mistakes; it's normal. We just check our work after building and adjust. Our new yard protrudes into the big room so...

* In the top view, select the north wall of the yard and reduce its width from left to right so its left edge is level with the west surface of the yard.

The floor of the yard can be done a similar way by dragging it from west to east and inserting a new brush in the gap but instead let's use this opportunity to explain the clipper tool...

* Select the yard floor in the top view.
* Press X or select the Clipper button ([[Image:DRclipper.jpg]] on LBB)
* Zoom in a little to the middle left of the yard and click on the red line where it crosses the wall of the big room. A dot should appear on the line and the zero digit 0.
* Likewise, go straight along that grid line to the east side of the yard and click that red line. A digit 1 should appear and a red line joining the 0 and the 1.
* It should look like in the diagram below. If your line is not on the same grid line on both sides you can place the mouse over either 0 or 1 and a + appears so you can drag it where it should be. If it all goes horribly wrong or a 2 appears as well, just press X twice to clear it and try again.

<center>[[Image:AZclipper.jpg]]</center>

* At this point, pressing Enter would delete the north part of the yard floor but instead...
* Press Shift + Enter to SPLIT the yard floor into two brushes at the middle line we made.
* Press X to DEselect Clipper and go back to drag and resize mode.
* DEselect then select the north part of the floor we just made and reduce its width from the west like we did the north wall.
* REPEAT the whole process with the ceiling of the yard. This is not so critical as it protrudes above the big room and is not visible to the player but it is good practice to keep everything tidy.

For more details of using the Clipper Tool see [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse|Dark Radiant Controls]] and scroll down to Clipper Mode.

Now reduce the height of the north, east, and south walls of the yard to about half***. Ideally, do not make them so low that the player can expect to climb up. You can use clipper but its probably easier in this case to use my 'clone & curtain' method we did earlier. From a side vie you can easily clone and drag down a wall, then drag up the top part which you then retexture on the inside as sky.

(*** I'm thinking we already did this when told (above) to "Select a wall at a time, clone it, size it downwards to a height of 128.")

The yard feels much more open now but maybe retexture the house walls to be different to the yard walls? Or the other way round? Your preference.

You might also add buttresses against the walls if you want; just add solid brushes maybe 16 x 24 3/4 way up the walls. These should have sloping tops so there Clipper is ideal for clipping off angles. Remember, you only have to do one, adjust its texure carefully then clone it and space them out. I would set Texture lock on for this but depends. Try it both ways to see how it works. Remember also Modify menu > Rotate and Scale to turn for the other walls?

==Water==

Let's make a pool of water. It doesn't make much sense here but I need the opportunity to explain water. Alternatively you might make a water trough or open tank (the tank is easier if you feel lazy!)...

* Drag out a new brush (Oh dear! You forgot to DEselect first? Use Ctrl+Z to undo)
* Make the brush fit the big grid about 24 high and 64 x 128 (two big grid square in grid 8 mode)
* For a pool, place this just below the yard aligned to the big grid so its top is aligned with the ''underside'' of the yard floor brush (not the yard floor surface)
* For a tank, place it so it is one small grid unit above the yard surface.
* Give it a metal texture for a tank but for a pool give it the yard floor surface texture.
* Use the Room button to make it hollow then delete the top.
* The tank is now an open metal box but the pool is hidden by the floor. Use Clipper or my Clone and Curtain method on the floor to open out a hole. This is different from before because you need FOUR sides. Clone and drag out the two like parting curtains as before but then clone one side and drag to one of the gaps left and resize it to fit. Then clone that and drag it to the other side. Resize to fit if needed.
* Check for texturing and adjust if needed.

Now we need to fill it with water...

* Drag out a brush and insert it into the pool or tank
* Resize/Move it to fit EXACTLY the inner dimensions of the pool/tank but one small grid unit below the yard floor surface.
* Give it the texture common/nodraw
* With the whole brush still selected, RMB menu in grid view > Create Entity and select darkmod > func_liquid from the list. This gives the brush its liquid properties.
* DEselect the water brush and select just its top surface with Ctrl+Shift+LMB in the camera view
* Give it the texture water_source > water_clear
* In Surface Inspector, rescale the horizontal and vertical scale to 0.1. This will set the wave frequency for small pool. Use larger scale for a larger pool.
* Clone the ambient light or create a new one and put it in the water so its radius fits or overlaps but make it fit ''exactly'' to the surface.
* Set the ambient colour in Light Inspector to Red, Green, Blue of 0, 25, 25 (= 0.00, 0.1, 0.1 in Entity Inspector) for a dull greeny hue.
* Adjust the ''main'' ambient light so its radius just reaches down to touch the ''surface'' of the water (and thereby the top of the pool ambient light) from above.

See also [[Water]]

Create a light (RMB menu in grid view, place it low at about 40 units high and 40 or 50 units away from the corner of the pool to cast a shadow into it and give it the brightness VALUE of 30.

You can now dmap and map to check out your water. If you get a leak its not necessarily the water! More likely you left a gap when slicing up the yard floor. I did! Just use File Menu > Pointfile in Dark Radiant for the red line that leads to where the leak to the void is then dmap again.

== Z-Fighting Errors ==

If a brush overlaps another, that is, all or parts occupy the same space as another brush then you get what are called Z-fighting as in the picture below. The game is trying to render both at the same time. Always watch out for this. Just resize or move the brush(es) so they do not overlap...

<center>[[Image:AZclipping.jpg]]</center>

== Doorway from the Yard==

We need a door from the yard into the house...

* DEselect and create a new door models/darkmod/architecture/doors/door02.lwo from the model selector.
* Use Modify Menu > Rotate and Scale to rotate the door 90 degrees ''clockwise''. The door should open inwards so if you find it opens outwards later you can just rotate it back the other way no problem.
* Reduce the grid size to say, 2 and move the door so it lays flush against the inside surface of the wall and exactly in the second big grid from the south (see diagram below)
* Check the side view and raise/lower the door so it just touches the floor.
* Select TOP view again.
* DEselect then using Shift + LMB, select the three brushes of the doorframe in between the big and little room so you have all three selected.
* SPACE to clone them all and drag to roughly the middle of the east wall of the big room.
* Use the Modify Menu > Rotate and Scale dialog to turn the selection 90 degrees.
* Move the selection into position around the door until the doorframe aligns as closely as possible with the east wall and juts out into the big room.
* This door is a different size so select the frame pieces one by one and move/resize them to fit snugly round the door and align inside two big grid lines ( see diagram below)
* Remember to adjust the height to in the side view.
* Use Ctrl+G to snap it to the grid. If that changes the shape of any of the brushes then Ctrl+Z to undo and instead reduce the grid to.125 and move it manually more closely to the right position. Then snap to grid. Adjust the door's position if needed. Check it all looks to be in the right position.

Now we need to open out the doorway as we did before by cloning the wall and splitting it either side of the doorframe. Then clone again, resize, and move up over the doorway. Check back in [[A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 2#'Cutting' through walls, Joining Rooms|'Cutting' through walls, Joining Rooms]] if you can't remember the details.

There's a gap under the door - fill it with a brush and texture it concrete or something. We should really have made the floor of the yard one course of bricks lower and then we could have a step at the door but no matter.

Keep saving your mission as you go along and every 10 or 15 minutes save with a new name. Dmap and play test whenever you feel like it.

Throw in a few models in the yard to decorate it quickly - there's a wishing well, waterpump, wheelbarrow, and so on. Possibly make a static wooden gate from a brush. It does not need to open as the player will be dropping over the wall to start the mission.

When you've put in a few items we'll talk about the weather...

==Weather==

Weather can add a nice atmosphere to any mission...

===Fog===

The default fog is made with foglights whose volumes are rectangular blocks. These are OK in isolation or covering an entire mission but there is no obvious way to place these blocks together without the join showing. So a rectangular yard would have been fine but our yard is L shaped and so would need two foglights for each rectangle. If one were used to surround the lot it would show inside the house. Another problem is that sky penetrates right through the fog. This should be fixable with a different sky matching the grey colour of the fog or indeed no real sky just concrete hidden above in the fog! I have read a method for a special fog to be attached to the player but not tried it yet. So this is what I know of so far. It's easy to set up so you can see it...

* Create a light in the normal way in the centre of the yard and drag out its box to fill the yard north to south and from the east wall the wall with the door. It should have the height from floor right up to the sky.
* J for light properties
* Give it a brightness VALUE 25
* On the right is the list showing fogs and lights so choose fogs and select delta1_fog. You can try others but there is not a lot of difference and some do not seem to work.
* J to close light properties.
* In Entity Inspector give it the property shaderParm3 and a value of 600. This is the distance in units beyond which the fog is completely opaque. Our yard is about 640 units long so if you look from one end then the farthest wall is whited out. Take a few steps and it starts to appear.

But note the join between the lightfogs boundaries and also the sky above is black. But it is useable with some inqenuity and I have hopes of better methods in the future.

===Rain and Snow, Introducing Patches===

* A patch is a one-sided surface only with no depth.
* It is textured only on one side and the other side is totally transparent and the edges have zero height. It's like a big plastic sheet, and like such a sheet it can be warped and twisted into useful shapes and curves far better than brushes. Textures align around those curves whereas they would align in straight lines on a curved brush.
*Multiple patches can be placed together to surround a volume but it is a shell.
* With the same textures, patches are just as solid to the player as a brush and a steel plate just as impenetrable as if it were six feet thick.
* Patches do NOT seal against the void.
* Some example uses are:
# to shape terrain;
# as semi-transparent decals for example to place stains, etc.
# Later we shall use patches with a rain-emitting texture.
*Patches can be created directly or you can first create a brush and convert it.
*Patches are created with their visible surface facing the user out from the editor grid view so select the TOP view for a horizontal patch.

Now for our rain...

=== Rain and Snow ===
* Dark Mod rain and snow are particles emitted by a material.
* Only one surface is needed so we apply that to a patch and place it above where we want rain - much like a cloud in the sky except this patch is invisible.
* The rain is emitted at right angles from the surface but falls under gravity (currently - but may be changed) so if tilted it will emit at an angle then curve down unnaturally so don't use this to simulate wind slanting in the rain; place the patch horizontally.
* The patch should be right side up with the rain texture on top. It is set up to emit downwards through the patch.
* Rain falls through everything so avoid overhead overhanging roofs etc.
* There are various textures, eg, light and heavy rain
* Patches can be stacked above one another for torrential rain
* There is some perfomance lag with large areas and stacked patches

To make it rain in our yard...

* In the TOP view, create a brush the length and width of the yard but about 24 units from the house wall (else there is some spill over so a little rain would fall just inside.) Height of brush irrelevant.
* Patch menu > Simple patch mesh > 3 x 3 converts the brush to a patch.
* Rotate it upside down.
* In a side view raise it up to about half way up towards the sky. If too low the player cannot see it falling down when looking up. If too high it affects performance.
* Give it the texture textures/darkmod/weather/rain_downpour
* For extra heavy, clone it and raise up the clone a few units. Repeat for torrential rain.
* Clone and move into the south west corner of the yard and resize to fit that area not covered by the main rain patches

You could try the above with a snow texture (from the weather section) instead but would need to texture the ground with snow from the nature section.

Ctrl + S to save and dmap and map to test it out.

===Rainsplash===

* Create a brush in the yard.
* Stretch it out to cover the length of the yard and the width of it at the top. Height irrelevant.
* Patches are created with their visible surface facing the user out from the editor grid view so select the TOP view for a horizontal patch. If you use a side view then it will be created on its side (it can always be turned over of course later)
* With the TOP grid view the CURRENT window, select Patch menu > Simple Patch mesh and click OK to accept the default 3 x 3. These values refer to the vertices which can be dragged about in three dimensions to produce different curves - the more vertices, the more curves - but we only need a flat patch so accept the minimum 3 x 3.
* The brush should now have been converted to a flat patch.
* In a side view it should just be a line with no height.
* Drag it down exactly in line with the surface of the floor of the yard.
* Give it the texture textures/darkmod/weather/rain_splash_moderate. Try a different splash if preferred.
* In top view, clone the patch and drag and resize it into the south west corner to fit the floor area not covered by the other patch.

It's that simple. Dmap and map and take a close look at the ground to see the rain splashes.

=== Performance: Hiding Distant Rain ===

If you change the rain and splash patches to func_static entities you can add some properties that hide distant rain so improving performance. I used it in the extended released version of Thief's Den but it is not critical in this small yard so I will only mention it here briefly...

* hide_distance n = distance in n units beyond which a rain patch is 'switched off'.
* dist_check_period n = how often in milliseconds the distance is checked. Too-frequent testing reduces performance; too-infrequent will cause a visible delay. For rain I used 0.25.
* dist_check_xy n = if 1 then only horizontal distance is tested not vertical. Set to 1 for rain/snow.

== Sound Effects: Rainfall==

To add a background sound we could add a global ambient but this would be heard all over the mission, even indoors, so it's not suitable for our rain. Instead we have to use a local ambient which fades as you leave it so we need two with their sound overlapping...

* In the top grid view, RMB menu > Create Speaker (this is also available in the 'Create Entity' list.)
* Give it the following properties. To do this you can..
# Type them in the input boxes at the bottom of Entity Inspector and click the check button OR...
# RMB the top line Classname Speaker and select Add Property from the menu then the + to open the list. You still need to type the values so option 1 is probably the easiest, in fact, copy and paste them from here...

* s_volume 0 = loudness - depends on how heavy your rain - adjust to taste. Use negative values to deduct from 0(max), eg, -6 is quieter, -8 quieter still, -50 is probably inaudible.
* s_mindistance 0 = distance from speaker at which it starts to fade
* s_maxdistance 8 = distance (in metres) from speaker beyond which it cannot be heard (I estimated these units were 40 normal units.)
* s_shader sound/ambient/environmental/weather_rain04_loop.ogg = sound file
* s_looping 1 = plays over and over (if 0 would play sound file only once)

Place this in the yard midway between the door and the wall and almost at the height of the wall so it spreads upwards too. It is unlikely that the player would be able to climb up very high but just in case you change something later...

Clone it and place this one in the south east corner maybe 24 units from either wall. The speakers are the green squares with arrows as shown in the diagram below...

<center>[[Image:AZspeakers.jpg]]</center>

No need to dmap when creating or adjusting speakers just map and listen. Note that the door will not yet block sound when closed - we'll do that later. But the sound should fade nicely as you enter the house.

The sound files are in ogg format in the Dark Mod sound folder so you can create sounds in your missions for all types of things not just rain of course.

More details about sound speakers are in [[Sounds: Background and Local]]

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}

A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 3

2008-05-28T00:11:33Z

Nebrekker: /* Sky */

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}

== Beams, Trim, Room Design ==

As said in the intro, I am not going to help with every architectural detail. In future missions that you make, consider using brushes as trim, decoration; try varying the shape of rooms to give interest and avoid the same old rectangles. Walls can be divided in two horizontally with different textures, panels, paints, wallpapers, stone. Recesses can be added just like we did for the door. Search the internet and other fan missions for inspiration. Here I shall just describe how to make a few very easy beams. Note that as we progress I am giving less and less detail of what we have covered before so just skip back if you need to remind yourself.

* Set grid size to 8
* In the big room*, drag out one long brush the long length of the small room
* Make its section dimensions 16 units high and 8 deep
* Place it flush against the ceiling and against a big grid line somewhere in the middle of the room
* Look through the darkmod textures for some suitable wood and texture the entire brush
* Check the alignment of the texture only on the three visible surfaces; remember wood grain should align along the length

What about the surfaces that can't be seen?...

(* Do we mean "small room" per graphic below?)

=== Hidden Surfaces, Caulk Texture===

You might find a lot of information on the internet about using caulk texture for hidden surfaces because caulk is not rendered so improving performance. In practice in most cases dmap does a good job of not rendering hidden surfaces anyway. Testing seems to show no detectable change in performance so generally don't worry about caulk. There may be special circumstances, for example the edges of glass panels, but otherwise it is probably not worth the effort. For more information read [[Caulk]]

Note: The outside of our mission, the surfaces in the void, will not be rendered. This is taken care of by the game software automatically so no need to worry about caulking any of them.

We have one beam in place; now what?...

=== Cloning the Beams, Single-plane Shifting ===

* Set Texture Lock ON (top button bar)
* Select the beam, clone it, and drag the clone 3 grid squares (24 units) to the side. There should be two grid square between it and the first beam.
* These beams are easy to move but while we're here, try instead Alt + the arrow keys to move. This nudges them along with no chance of sideslip. This is more useful when you want to drag something a long way. Another way to do it is LMB THEN Shift THEN drag (not Shift first) and the beam will stay in the first direction you drag. There is a knack to this. Practice it now for the future. You can drag right across a huge mission without any deviation from a line. Yet another way is a mode switch that locks in one plane or another on the [[Image:DRtranslate.jpg]] button on the top button bar. See 'Move (Drag, Translate) in one plane (Mode)' on the [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse]] wiki.
* Repeat until you cannot get another beam in - don't put one right against the wall. Then repeat from the original beam the other side so the whole ceiling has seven beams evenly spaced. There is one space with three grid squares but it's near enough.
* Look at the texture surfaces. Every beam is identical. Consider selecting surfaces and shift them along the length quickly to get a different look on some of them.

Now, clone a beam and drag it into the big room. Here resize it to 16 x 16 cross section and clone and place them in a cross along the ceiling (don't overlap in the middle but have smaller beams either side at the crossover) and rotate one (Texture Lock ON!) and clone it to form four vertical beams down the walls at the end of the ceiling beams. Check texture.

== Another 'Room' - an Open Yard ==

I'm using the term 'room' because we make it in just the same way as the rooms we made before but with a sky ceiling.

* In TOP view, drag out a brush to the east 256 x 640 and position on the big grid square in line with the north wall of our big room and overlapping the big room by one big grid square as shown in this diagram...

<center>[[Image:AZplan.jpg]]</center>

* In a side view, move it if needed so its floor is level with the floor in the big room.
* Drag its top up so the brush is 384 high
* Give it the texture: textures/darkmod/stone/brick/tiling_1d/old_worn_greybrick - suitable for the yard walls of a small dwelling
* Rescale the texture in Surface Inspector to 0.35 (vert and horiz.)
* Use the 'Room' button (LBB, left button bar) to hollow it out
 
 
* In the TOP view, reduce the length of the west (left) wall from the north down towards the south so it just touches the external surface of the south wall of the big room. Its length should now be 312 as in this diagram....

<center>[[Image:AZplan2.jpg]]</center>

* Raise the height of both the south and east walls of the big room to meet the ceiling of the yard.
* The south wall should also be extended a little to the east to be flush with the east edge of the east wall as in the picture below. (NOTE: This picture still shows a wallpaper texture I tried earlier! Yours should show the stone)...

From this... <center>[[Image:AZyard01.jpg]]

to this... [[Image:AZyard02.jpg]]</center>

* Texture the visible ''surfaces'' of those walls to be the same as the other yard walls
* Texture the floor of the yard with say cobblestones
* Ensure the texture of all the visible surfaces of the house are the same as the stone inside.

Now we need the sky...

== Sky ==

To add the default sky is fairly simple because we shall be using a ready made prefab. A prefab is part of a map saved separately so the whole thing can be imported into another map. Any selection, single or multiple, can be saved as a prefab via the File menu. It can then be imported into another map as a selection and dragged where needed.

Other skies are possible but need more work so we'll stick with what is easy...

* Set Texture Lock ON
* RMB menu in grid view and select Insert Prefab OR use File Menu > Load Prefab*
* Select tdm_sky_starry1.pfb
* Zoom out if you cannot see the selected prefab.
* Drag the selected prefab well away from our brushes both horizontally and vertically. The player does not enter it so in all your future maps make sure it is well away from any area you are likely to build. You can always move it later but it's easier to put it out of the way now.
* DEselect the prefab
* Select the ceiling surface in the yard
* Texture it with textures > smf > portal_sky. Do NOT use any of the textures under 'skies'.
* The yard walls are too high and we want to see more of the sky so...
* We use the same clone and curtain method as before...
* Select a wall at a time, clone it, size it downwards to a height of 128.
* Select the original wall and reduce its size from the bottom upwards to the top of the wall so it sits on top of the cloned wall we just made with no gap.
* Give the top part of the wall the portal_sky texture
* Repeat for the other two yard walls.
* RMB menu move player start into the yard. Check the side view too that it is not above or below.
* L to select the entity list; select the Ambient and ensure its radius covers the whole yard**.
* Ctrl + S to save. I suggest you then save again with a new name.

Now you can dmap and map and see how the yard looks.

(* If you have only the "Thief's Den" alpha installed, you will likely get an error inserting the Prefab sky. Please see discussion tab of this page on how This can be resolved.)

(** Remember, the position of your actual entity changes as you adjust the radius of your ambient light. Make sure the entity, itself, is safely inside your leak-proof map structure. Although it seems obvious to me now, my ambient light got stretched into the abyss as I was resizing it. This caused a leak which took several minutes for me to understand and correct at the time. See page 2 for original author's first warning about this).

Tip: In game, go back to the console and type and enter noclip. This toggles on and off the ability to fly and even fly through solids. Just look in the direction you want to go, upwards, and use the move forward keys the same way. You can soar up and see the moon to the east. Now fly over your other rooms and look down. You get a different sense of how it is all organized from up here! Take care in noclip mode. It can happen that if you get into the lower brushes you can sink down below the mission and fall into the abyss. Don't know why that is but you have to map again to get back in.

Spot the error in the big room? Our new yard protrudes into it at floor and north wall. We'll deal with that...

== The Clipper Tool, Cutting & Splitting Brushes ==

It is not fatal to make mistakes; it's normal. We just check our work after building and adjust. Our new yard protrudes into the big room so...

* In the top view, select the north wall of the yard and reduce its width from left to right so its left edge is level with the west surface of the yard.

The floor of the yard can be done a similar way by dragging it from west to east and inserting a new brush in the gap but instead let's use this opportunity to explain the clipper tool...

* Select the yard floor in the top view.
* Press X or select the Clipper button ([[Image:DRclipper.jpg]] on LBB)
* Zoom in a little to the middle left of the yard and click on the red line where it crosses the wall of the big room. A dot should appear on the line and the zero digit 0.
* Likewise, go straight along that grid line to the east side of the yard and click that red line. A digit 1 should appear and a red line joining the 0 and the 1.
* It should look like in the diagram below. If your line is not on the same grid line on both sides you can place the mouse over either 0 or 1 and a + appears so you can drag it where it should be. If it all goes horribly wrong or a 2 appears as well, just press X twice to clear it and try again.

<center>[[Image:AZclipper.jpg]]</center>

* At this point, pressing Enter would delete the north part of the yard floor but instead...
* Press Shift + Enter to SPLIT the yard floor into two brushes at the middle line we made.
* Press X to DEselect Clipper and go back to drag and resize mode.
* DEselect then select the north part of the floor we just made and reduce its width from the west like we did the north wall.
* REPEAT the whole process with the ceiling of the yard. This is not so critical as it protrudes above the big room and is not visible to the player but it is good practice to keep everything tidy.

For more details of using the Clipper Tool see [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse|Dark Radiant Controls]] and scroll down to Clipper Mode.

Now reduce the height of the north, east, and south walls of the yard to about half***. Ideally, do not make them so low that the player can expect to climb up. You can use clipper but its probably easier in this case to use my 'clone & curtain' method we did earlier. From a side vie you can easily clone and drag down a wall, then drag up the top part which you then retexture on the inside as sky.

(*** I'm thinking we already did this when told (above) to "Select a wall at a time, clone it, size it downwards to a height of 128.")

The yard feels much more open now but maybe retexture the house walls to be different to the yard walls? Or the other way round? Your preference.

You might also add buttresses against the walls if you want; just add solid brushes maybe 16 x 24 3/4 way up the walls. These should have sloping tops so there Clipper is ideal for clipping off angles. Remember, you only have to do one, adjust its texure carefully then clone it and space them out. I would set Texture lock on for this but depends. Try it both ways to see how it works. Remember also Modify menu > Rotate and Scale to turn for the other walls?

==Water==

Let's make a pool of water. It doesn't make much sense here but I need the opportunity to explain water. Alternatively you might make a water trough or open tank (the tank is easier if you feel lazy!)...

* Drag out a new brush (Oh dear! You forgot to DEselect first? Use Ctrl+Z to undo)
* Make the brush fit the big grid about 24 high and 64 x 128 (two big grid square in grid 8 mode)
* For a pool, place this just below the yard aligned to the big grid so its top is aligned with the ''underside'' of the yard floor brush (not the yard floor surface)
* For a tank, place it so it is one small grid unit above the yard surface.
* Give it a metal texture for a tank but for a pool give it the yard floor surface texture.
* Use the Room button to make it hollow then delete the top.
* The tank is now an open metal box but the pool is hidden by the floor. Use Clipper or my Clone and Curtain method on the floor to open out a hole. This is different from before because you need FOUR sides. Clone and drag out the two like parting curtains as before but then clone one side and drag to one of the gaps left and resize it to fit. Then clone that and drag it to the other side. Resize to fit if needed.
* Check for texturing and adjust if needed.

Now we need to fill it with water...

* Drag out a brush and insert it into the pool or tank
* Resize/Move it to fit EXACTLY the inner dimensions of the pool/tank but one small grid unit below the yard floor surface.
* Give it the texture common/nodraw
* With the whole brush still selected, RMB menu in grid view > Create Entity and select darkmod > func_liquid from the list. This gives the brush its liquid properties.
* DEselect the water brush and select just its top surface with Ctrl+Shift+LMB in the camera view
* Give it the texture water_source > water_clear
* In Surface Inspector, rescale the horizontal and vertical scale to 0.1. This will set the wave frequency for small pool. Use larger scale for a larger pool.
* Clone the ambient light or create a new one and put it in the water so its radius fits or overlaps but make it fit ''exactly'' to the surface.
* Set the ambient colour in Light Inspector to Red, Green, Blue of 0, 25, 25 (= 0.00, 0.1, 0.1 in Entity Inspector) for a dull greeny hue.
* Adjust the ''main'' ambient light so its radius just reaches down to touch the ''surface'' of the water (and thereby the top of the pool ambient light) from above.

See also [[Water]]

Create a light (RMB menu in grid view, place it low at about 40 units high and 40 or 50 units away from the corner of the pool to cast a shadow into it and give it the brightness VALUE of 30.

You can now dmap and map to check out your water. If you get a leak its not necessarily the water! More likely you left a gap when slicing up the yard floor. I did! Just use File Menu > Pointfile in Dark Radiant for the red line that leads to where the leak to the void is then dmap again.

== Z-Fighting Errors ==

If a brush overlaps another, that is, all or parts occupy the same space as another brush then you get what are called Z-fighting as in the picture below. The game is trying to render both at the same time. Always watch out for this. Just resize or move the brush(es) so they do not overlap...

<center>[[Image:AZclipping.jpg]]</center>

== Doorway from the Yard==

We need a door from the yard into the house...

* DEselect and create a new door models/darkmod/architecture/doors/door02.lwo from the model selector.
* Use Modify Menu > Rotate and Scale to rotate the door 90 degrees ''clockwise''. The door should open inwards so if you find it opens outwards later you can just rotate it back the other way no problem.
* Reduce the grid size to say, 2 and move the door so it lays flush against the inside surface of the wall and exactly in the second big grid from the south (see diagram below)
* Check the side view and raise/lower the door so it just touches the floor.
* Select TOP view again.
* DEselect then using Shift + LMB, select the three brushes of the doorframe in between the big and little room so you have all three selected.
* SPACE to clone them all and drag to roughly the middle of the east wall of the big room.
* Use the Modify Menu > Rotate and Scale dialog to turn the selection 90 degrees.
* Move the selection into position around the door until the doorframe aligns as closely as possible with the east wall and juts out into the big room.
* This door is a different size so select the frame pieces one by one and move/resize them to fit snugly round the door and align inside two big grid lines ( see diagram below)
* Remember to adjust the height to in the side view.
* Use Ctrl+G to snap it to the grid. If that changes the shape of any of the brushes then Ctrl+Z to undo and instead reduce the grid to.125 and move it manually more closely to the right position. Then snap to grid. Adjust the door's position if needed. Check it all looks to be in the right position.

Now we need to open out the doorway as we did before by cloning the wall and splitting it either side of the doorframe. Then clone again, resize, and move up over the doorway. Check back in [[A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 2#'Cutting' through walls, Joining Rooms|'Cutting' through walls, Joining Rooms]] if you can't remember the details.

There's a gap under the door - fill it with a brush and texture it concrete or something. We should really have made the floor of the yard one course of bricks lower and then we could have a step at the door but no matter.

Keep saving your mission as you go along and every 10 or 15 minutes save with a new name. Dmap and play test whenever you feel like it.

Throw in a few models in the yard to decorate it quickly - there's a wishing well, waterpump, wheelbarrow, and so on. Possibly make a static wooden gate from a brush. It does not need to open as the player will be dropping over the wall to start the mission.

When you've put in a few items we'll talk about the weather...

==Weather==

Weather can add a nice atmosphere to any mission...

===Fog===

The default fog is made with foglights whose volumes are rectangular blocks. These are OK in isolation or covering an entire mission but there is no obvious way to place these blocks together without the join showing. So a rectangular yard would have been fine but our yard is L shaped and so would need two foglights for each rectangle. If one were used to surround the lot it would show inside the house. Another problem is that sky penetrates right through the fog. This should be fixable with a different sky matching the grey colour of the fog or indeed no real sky just concrete hidden above in the fog! I have read a method for a special fog to be attached to the player but not tried it yet. So this is what I know of so far. It's easy to set up so you can see it...

* Create a light in the normal way in the centre of the yard and drag out its box to fill the yard north to south and from the east wall the wall with the door. It should have the height from floor right up to the sky.
* J for light properties
* Give it a brightness VALUE 25
* On the right is the list showing fogs and lights so choose fogs and select delta1_fog. You can try others but there is not a lot of difference and some do not seem to work.
* J to close light properties.
* In Entity Inspector give it the property shaderParm3 and a value of 600. This is the distance in units beyond which the fog is completely opaque. Our yard is about 640 units long so if you look from one end then the farthest wall is whited out. Take a few steps and it starts to appear.

But note the join between the lightfogs boundaries and also the sky above is black. But it is useable with some inqenuity and I have hopes of better methods in the future.

===Rain and Snow, Introducing Patches===

* A patch is a one-sided surface only with no depth.
* It is textured only on one side and the other side is totally transparent and the edges have zero height. It's like a big plastic sheet, and like such a sheet it can be warped and twisted into useful shapes and curves far better than brushes. Textures align around those curves whereas they would align in straight lines on a curved brush.
*Multiple patches can be placed together to surround a volume but it is a shell.
* With the same textures, patches are just as solid to the player as a brush and a steel plate just as impenetrable as if it were six feet thick.
* Patches do NOT seal against the void.
* Some example uses are:
# to shape terrain;
# as semi-transparent decals for example to place stains, etc.
# Later we shall use patches with a rain-emitting texture.
*Patches can be created directly or you can first create a brush and convert it.
*Patches are created with their visible surface facing the user out from the editor grid view so select the TOP view for a horizontal patch.

Now for our rain...

=== Rain and Snow ===
* Dark Mod rain and snow are particles emitted by a material.
* Only one surface is needed so we apply that to a patch and place it above where we want rain - much like a cloud in the sky except this patch is invisible.
* The rain is emitted at right angles from the surface but falls under gravity (currently - but may be changed) so if tilted it will emit at an angle then curve down unnaturally so don't use this to simulate wind slanting in the rain; place the patch horizontally.
* The patch should be right side up with the rain texture on top. It is set up to emit downwards through the patch.
* Rain falls through everything so avoid overhead overhanging roofs etc.
* There are various textures, eg, light and heavy rain
* Patches can be stacked above one another for torrential rain
* There is some perfomance lag with large areas and stacked patches

To make it rain in our yard...

* In the TOP view, create a brush the length and width of the yard but about 24 units from the house wall (else there is some spill over so a little rain would fall just inside.) Height of brush irrelevant.
* Patch menu > Simple patch mesh > 3 x 3 converts the brush to a patch.
* Rotate it upside down.
* In a side view raise it up to about half way up towards the sky. If too low the player cannot see it falling down when looking up. If too high it affects performance.
* Give it the texture textures/darkmod/weather/rain_downpour
* For extra heavy, clone it and raise up the clone a few units. Repeat for torrential rain.
* Clone and move into the south west corner of the yard and resize to fit that area not covered by the main rain patches

You could try the above with a snow texture (from the weather section) instead but would need to texture the ground with snow from the nature section.

Ctrl + S to save and dmap and map to test it out.

===Rainsplash===

* Create a brush in the yard.
* Stretch it out to cover the length of the yard and the width of it at the top. Height irrelevant.
* Patches are created with their visible surface facing the user out from the editor grid view so select the TOP view for a horizontal patch. If you use a side view then it will be created on its side (it can always be turned over of course later)
* With the TOP grid view the CURRENT window, select Patch menu > Simple Patch mesh and click OK to accept the default 3 x 3. These values refer to the vertices which can be dragged about in three dimensions to produce different curves - the more vertices, the more curves - but we only need a flat patch so accept the minimum 3 x 3.
* The brush should now have been converted to a flat patch.
* In a side view it should just be a line with no height.
* Drag it down exactly in line with the surface of the floor of the yard.
* Give it the texture textures/darkmod/weather/rain_splash_moderate. Try a different splash if preferred.
* In top view, clone the patch and drag and resize it into the south west corner to fit the floor area not covered by the other patch.

It's that simple. Dmap and map and take a close look at the ground to see the rain splashes.

=== Performance: Hiding Distant Rain ===

If you change the rain and splash patches to func_static entities you can add some properties that hide distant rain so improving performance. I used it in the extended released version of Thief's Den but it is not critical in this small yard so I will only mention it here briefly...

* hide_distance n = distance in n units beyond which a rain patch is 'switched off'.
* dist_check_period n = how often in milliseconds the distance is checked. Too-frequent testing reduces performance; too-infrequent will cause a visible delay. For rain I used 0.25.
* dist_check_xy n = if 1 then only horizontal distance is tested not vertical. Set to 1 for rain/snow.

== Sound Effects: Rainfall==

To add a background sound we could add a global ambient but this would be heard all over the mission, even indoors, so it's not suitable for our rain. Instead we have to use a local ambient which fades as you leave it so we need two with their sound overlapping...

* In the top grid view, RMB menu > Create Speaker (this is also available in the 'Create Entity' list.)
* Give it the following properties. To do this you can..
# Type them in the input boxes at the bottom of Entity Inspector and click the check button OR...
# RMB the top line Classname Speaker and select Add Property from the menu then the + to open the list. You still need to type the values so option 1 is probably the easiest, in fact, copy and paste them from here...

* s_volume 0 = loudness - depends on how heavy your rain - adjust to taste. Use negative values to deduct from 0(max), eg, -6 is quieter, -8 quieter still, -50 is probably inaudible.
* s_mindistance 0 = distance from speaker at which it starts to fade
* s_maxdistance 8 = distance (in metres) from speaker beyond which it cannot be heard (I estimated these units were 40 normal units.)
* s_shader sound/ambient/environmental/weather_rain04_loop.ogg = sound file
* s_looping 1 = plays over and over (if 0 would play sound file only once)

Place this in the yard midway between the door and the wall and almost at the height of the wall so it spreads upwards too. It is unlikely that the player would be able to climb up very high but just in case you change something later...

Clone it and place this one in the south east corner maybe 24 units from either wall. The speakers are the green squares with arrows as shown in the diagram below...

<center>[[Image:AZspeakers.jpg]]</center>

No need to dmap when creating or adjusting speakers just map and listen. Note that the door will not yet block sound when closed - we'll do that later. But the sound should fade nicely as you enter the house.

The sound files are in ogg format in the Dark Mod sound folder so you can create sounds in your missions for all types of things not just rain of course.

More details about sound speakers are in [[Sounds: Background and Local]]

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}

A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 3

2008-04-10T00:53:58Z

Nebrekker: /* The Clipper Tool, Cutting & Splitting Brushes */

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}

== Beams, Trim, Room Design ==

As said in the intro, I am not going to help with every architectural detail. In future missions that you make, consider using brushes as trim, decoration; try varying the shape of rooms to give interest and avoid the same old rectangles. Walls can be divided in two horizontally with different textures, panels, paints, wallpapers, stone. Recesses can be added just like we did for the door. Search the internet and other fan missions for inspiration. Here I shall just describe how to make a few very easy beams. Note that as we progress I am giving less and less detail of what we have covered before so just skip back if you need to remind yourself.

* Set grid size to 8
* In the big room*, drag out one long brush the long length of the small room
* Make its section dimensions 16 units high and 8 deep
* Place it flush against the ceiling and against a big grid line somewhere in the middle of the room
* Look through the darkmod textures for some suitable wood and texture the entire brush
* Check the alignment of the texture only on the three visible surfaces; remember wood grain should align along the length

What about the surfaces that can't be seen?...

(* Do we mean "small room" per graphic below?)

=== Hidden Surfaces, Caulk Texture===

You might find a lot of information on the internet about using caulk texture for hidden surfaces because caulk is not rendered so improving performance. In practice in most cases dmap does a good job of not rendering hidden surfaces anyway. Testing seems to show no detectable change in performance so generally don't worry about caulk. There may be special circumstances, for example the edges of glass panels, but otherwise it is probably not worth the effort. For more information read [[Caulk]]

Note: The outside of our mission, the surfaces in the void, will not be rendered. This is taken care of by the game software automatically so no need to worry about caulking any of them.

We have one beam in place; now what?...

=== Cloning the Beams, Single-plane Shifting ===

* Set Texture Lock ON (top button bar)
* Select the beam, clone it, and drag the clone 3 grid squares (24 units) to the side. There should be two grid square between it and the first beam.
* These beams are easy to move but while we're here, try instead Alt + the arrow keys to move. This nudges them along with no chance of sideslip. This is more useful when you want to drag something a long way. Another way to do it is LMB THEN Shift THEN drag (not Shift first) and the beam will stay in the first direction you drag. There is a knack to this. Practice it now for the future. You can drag right across a huge mission without any deviation from a line. Yet another way is a mode switch that locks in one plane or another on the [[Image:DRtranslate.jpg]] button on the top button bar. See 'Move (Drag, Translate) in one plane (Mode)' on the [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse]] wiki.
* Repeat until you cannot get another beam in - don't put one right against the wall. Then repeat from the original beam the other side so the whole ceiling has seven beams evenly spaced. There is one space with three grid squares but it's near enough.
* Look at the texture surfaces. Every beam is identical. Consider selecting surfaces and shift them along the length quickly to get a different look on some of them.

Now, clone a beam and drag it into the big room. Here resize it to 16 x 16 cross section and clone and place them in a cross along the ceiling (don't overlap in the middle but have smaller beams either side at the crossover) and rotate one (Texture Lock ON!) and clone it to form four vertical beams down the walls at the end of the ceiling beams. Check texture.

== Another 'Room' - an Open Yard ==

I'm using the term 'room' because we make it in just the same way as the rooms we made before but with a sky ceiling.

* In TOP view, drag out a brush to the east 256 x 640 and position on the big grid square in line with the north wall of our big room and overlapping the big room by one big grid square as shown in this diagram...

<center>[[Image:AZplan.jpg]]</center>

* In a side view, move it if needed so its floor is level with the floor in the big room.
* Drag its top up so the brush is 384 high
* Give it the texture: textures/darkmod/stone/brick/tiling_1d/old_worn_greybrick - suitable for the yard walls of a small dwelling
* Rescale the texture in Surface Inspector to 0.35 (vert and horiz.)
* Use the 'Room' button (LBB, left button bar) to hollow it out
 
 
* In the TOP view, reduce the length of the west (left) wall from the north down towards the south so it just touches the external surface of the south wall of the big room. Its length should now be 312 as in this diagram....

<center>[[Image:AZplan2.jpg]]</center>

* Raise the height of both the south and east walls of the big room to meet the ceiling of the yard.
* The south wall should also be extended a little to the east to be flush with the east edge of the east wall as in the picture below. (NOTE: This picture still shows a wallpaper texture I tried earlier! Yours should show the stone)...

From this... <center>[[Image:AZyard01.jpg]]

to this... [[Image:AZyard02.jpg]]</center>

* Texture the visible ''surfaces'' of those walls to be the same as the other yard walls
* Texture the floor of the yard with say cobblestones
* Ensure the texture of all the visible surfaces of the house are the same as the stone inside.

Now we need the sky...

== Sky ==

To add the default sky is fairly simple because we shall be using a ready made prefab. A prefab is part of a map saved separately so the whole thing can be imported into another map. Any selection, single or multiple, can be saved as a prefab via the File menu. It can then be imported into another map as a selection and dragged where needed.

Other skies are possible but need more work so we'll stick with what is easy...

* Set Texture Lock ON
* RMB menu in grid view and select Insert Prefab OR use File Menu > Load Prefab*
* Select tdm_sky_starry1.pfb
* Zoom out if you cannot see the selected prefab.
* Drag the selected prefab well away from our brushes both horizontally and vertically. The player does not enter it so in all your future maps make sure it is well away from any area you are likely to build. You can always move it later but it's easier to put it out of the way now.
* DEselect the prefab
* Select the ceiling surface in the yard
* Texture it with textures > smf > portal_sky. Do NOT use any of the textures under 'skies'.
* The yard walls are too high and we want to see more of the sky so...
* We use the same clone and curtain method as before...
* Select a wall at a time, clone it, size it downwards to a height of 128.
* Select the original wall and reduce its size from the bottom upwards to the top of the wall so it sits on top of the cloned wall we just made with no gap.
* Give the top part of the wall the portal_sky texture
* Repeat for the other two yard walls.
* RMB menu move player start into the yard. Check the side view too that it is not above or below.
* L to select the entity list; select the Ambient and ensure its radius covers the whole yard**.
* Ctrl + S to save. I suggest you then save again with a new name.

Now you can dmap and map and see how the yard looks.

(* If you have only the "Thief's Den" alpha installed, you will likely get an error inserting the Prefab sky. Please see discussion tab of this page on how This can be resolved.)

(** Remember, the position of your actual entity changes as you adjust the radius of your ambient light. Make sure the entity, itself, is safely inside your leak-proof map structure. Although it seems obvious to me now, my ambient light got stretched into the abyss as I was resizing it. This caused a leak which took several minutes for me to understand and correct at the time).

Tip: In game, go back to the console and type and enter noclip. This toggles on and off the ability to fly and even fly through solids. Just look in the direction you want to go, upwards, and use the move forward keys the same way. You can soar up and see the moon to the east. Now fly over your other rooms and look down. You get a different sense of how it is all organized from up here! Take care in noclip mode. It can happen that if you get into the lower brushes you can sink down below the mission and fall into the abyss. Don't know why that is but you have to map again to get back in.

Spot the error in the big room? Our new yard protrudes into it at floor and north wall. We'll deal with that...

== The Clipper Tool, Cutting & Splitting Brushes ==

It is not fatal to make mistakes; it's normal. We just check our work after building and adjust. Our new yard protrudes into the big room so...

* In the top view, select the north wall of the yard and reduce its width from left to right so its left edge is level with the west surface of the yard.

The floor of the yard can be done a similar way by dragging it from west to east and inserting a new brush in the gap but instead let's use this opportunity to explain the clipper tool...

* Select the yard floor in the top view.
* Press X or select the Clipper button ([[Image:DRclipper.jpg]] on LBB)
* Zoom in a little to the middle left of the yard and click on the red line where it crosses the wall of the big room. A dot should appear on the line and the zero digit 0.
* Likewise, go straight along that grid line to the east side of the yard and click that red line. A digit 1 should appear and a red line joining the 0 and the 1.
* It should look like in the diagram below. If your line is not on the same grid line on both sides you can place the mouse over either 0 or 1 and a + appears so you can drag it where it should be. If it all goes horribly wrong or a 2 appears as well, just press X twice to clear it and try again.

<center>[[Image:AZclipper.jpg]]</center>

* At this point, pressing Enter would delete the north part of the yard floor but instead...
* Press Shift + Enter to SPLIT the yard floor into two brushes at the middle line we made.
* Press X to DEselect Clipper and go back to drag and resize mode.
* DEselect then select the north part of the floor we just made and reduce its width from the west like we did the north wall.
* REPEAT the whole process with the ceiling of the yard. This is not so critical as it protrudes above the big room and is not visible to the player but it is good practice to keep everything tidy.

For more details of using the Clipper Tool see [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse|Dark Radiant Controls]] and scroll down to Clipper Mode.

Now reduce the height of the north, east, and south walls of the yard to about half***. Ideally, do not make them so low that the player can expect to climb up. You can use clipper but its probably easier in this case to use my 'clone & curtain' method we did earlier. From a side vie you can easily clone and drag down a wall, then drag up the top part which you then retexture on the inside as sky.

(*** I'm thinking we already did this when told (above) to "Select a wall at a time, clone it, size it downwards to a height of 128.")

The yard feels much more open now but maybe retexture the house walls to be different to the yard walls? Or the other way round? Your preference.

You might also add buttresses against the walls if you want; just add solid brushes maybe 16 x 24 3/4 way up the walls. These should have sloping tops so there Clipper is ideal for clipping off angles. Remember, you only have to do one, adjust its texure carefully then clone it and space them out. I would set Texture lock on for this but depends. Try it both ways to see how it works. Remember also Modify menu > Rotate and Scale to turn for the other walls?

==Water==

Let's make a pool of water. It doesn't make much sense here but I need the opportunity to explain water. Alternatively you might make a water trough or open tank (the tank is easier if you feel lazy!)...

* Drag out a new brush (Oh dear! You forgot to DEselect first? Use Ctrl+Z to undo)
* Make the brush fit the big grid about 24 high and 64 x 128 (two big grid square in grid 8 mode)
* For a pool, place this just below the yard aligned to the big grid so its top is aligned with the ''underside'' of the yard floor brush (not the yard floor surface)
* For a tank, place it so it is one small grid unit above the yard surface.
* Give it a metal texture for a tank but for a pool give it the yard floor surface texture.
* Use the Room button to make it hollow then delete the top.
* The tank is now an open metal box but the pool is hidden by the floor. Use Clipper or my Clone and Curtain method on the floor to open out a hole. This is different from before because you need FOUR sides. Clone and drag out the two like parting curtains as before but then clone one side and drag to one of the gaps left and resize it to fit. Then clone that and drag it to the other side. Resize to fit if needed.
* Check for texturing and adjust if needed.

Now we need to fill it with water...

* Drag out a brush and insert it into the pool or tank
* Resize/Move it to fit EXACTLY the inner dimensions of the pool/tank but one small grid unit below the yard floor surface.
* Give it the texture common/nodraw
* With the whole brush still selected, RMB menu in grid view > Create Entity and select darkmod > func_liquid from the list. This gives the brush its liquid properties.
* DEselect the water brush and select just its top surface with Ctrl+Shift+LMB in the camera view
* Give it the texture water_source > water_clear
* In Surface Inspector, rescale the horizontal and vertical scale to 0.1. This will set the wave frequency for small pool. Use larger scale for a larger pool.
* Clone the ambient light or create a new one and put it in the water so its radius fits or overlaps but make it fit ''exactly'' to the surface.
* Set the ambient colour in Light Inspector to Red, Green, Blue of 0, 25, 25 (= 0.00, 0.1, 0.1 in Entity Inspector) for a dull greeny hue.
* Adjust the ''main'' ambient light so its radius just reaches down to touch the ''surface'' of the water (and thereby the top of the pool ambient light) from above.

See also [[Water]]

Create a light (RMB menu in grid view, place it low at about 40 units high and 40 or 50 units away from the corner of the pool to cast a shadow into it and give it the brightness VALUE of 30.

You can now dmap and map to check out your water. If you get a leak its not necessarily the water! More likely you left a gap when slicing up the yard floor. I did! Just use File Menu > Pointfile in Dark Radiant for the red line that leads to where the leak to the void is then dmap again.

== Z-Fighting Errors ==

If a brush overlaps another, that is, all or parts occupy the same space as another brush then you get what are called Z-fighting as in the picture below. The game is trying to render both at the same time. Always watch out for this. Just resize or move the brush(es) so they do not overlap...

<center>[[Image:AZclipping.jpg]]</center>

== Doorway from the Yard==

We need a door from the yard into the house...

* DEselect and create a new door models/darkmod/architecture/doors/door02.lwo from the model selector.
* Use Modify Menu > Rotate and Scale to rotate the door 90 degrees ''clockwise''. The door should open inwards so if you find it opens outwards later you can just rotate it back the other way no problem.
* Reduce the grid size to say, 2 and move the door so it lays flush against the inside surface of the wall and exactly in the second big grid from the south (see diagram below)
* Check the side view and raise/lower the door so it just touches the floor.
* Select TOP view again.
* DEselect then using Shift + LMB, select the three brushes of the doorframe in between the big and little room so you have all three selected.
* SPACE to clone them all and drag to roughly the middle of the east wall of the big room.
* Use the Modify Menu > Rotate and Scale dialog to turn the selection 90 degrees.
* Move the selection into position around the door until the doorframe aligns as closely as possible with the east wall and juts out into the big room.
* This door is a different size so select the frame pieces one by one and move/resize them to fit snugly round the door and align inside two big grid lines ( see diagram below)
* Remember to adjust the height to in the side view.
* Use Ctrl+G to snap it to the grid. If that changes the shape of any of the brushes then Ctrl+Z to undo and instead reduce the grid to.125 and move it manually more closely to the right position. Then snap to grid. Adjust the door's position if needed. Check it all looks to be in the right position.

Now we need to open out the doorway as we did before by cloning the wall and splitting it either side of the doorframe. Then clone again, resize, and move up over the doorway. Check back in [[A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 2#'Cutting' through walls, Joining Rooms|'Cutting' through walls, Joining Rooms]] if you can't remember the details.

There's a gap under the door - fill it with a brush and texture it concrete or something. We should really have made the floor of the yard one course of bricks lower and then we could have a step at the door but no matter.

Keep saving your mission as you go along and every 10 or 15 minutes save with a new name. Dmap and play test whenever you feel like it.

Throw in a few models in the yard to decorate it quickly - there's a wishing well, waterpump, wheelbarrow, and so on. Possibly make a static wooden gate from a brush. It does not need to open as the player will be dropping over the wall to start the mission.

When you've put in a few items we'll talk about the weather...

==Weather==

Weather can add a nice atmosphere to any mission...

===Fog===

The default fog is made with foglights whose volumes are rectangular blocks. These are OK in isolation or covering an entire mission but there is no obvious way to place these blocks together without the join showing. So a rectangular yard would have been fine but our yard is L shaped and so would need two foglights for each rectangle. If one were used to surround the lot it would show inside the house. Another problem is that sky penetrates right through the fog. This should be fixable with a different sky matching the grey colour of the fog or indeed no real sky just concrete hidden above in the fog! I have read a method for a special fog to be attached to the player but not tried it yet. So this is what I know of so far. It's easy to set up so you can see it...

* Create a light in the normal way in the centre of the yard and drag out its box to fill the yard north to south and from the east wall the wall with the door. It should have the height from floor right up to the sky.
* J for light properties
* Give it a brightness VALUE 25
* On the right is the list showing fogs and lights so choose fogs and select delta1_fog. You can try others but there is not a lot of difference and some do not seem to work.
* J to close light properties.
* In Entity Inspector give it the property shaderParm3 and a value of 600. This is the distance in units beyond which the fog is completely opaque. Our yard is about 640 units long so if you look from one end then the farthest wall is whited out. Take a few steps and it starts to appear.

But note the join between the lightfogs boundaries and also the sky above is black. But it is useable with some inqenuity and I have hopes of better methods in the future.

===Rain and Snow, Introducing Patches===

* A patch is a one-sided surface only with no depth.
* It is textured only on one side and the other side is totally transparent and the edges have zero height. It's like a big plastic sheet, and like such a sheet it can be warped and twisted into useful shapes and curves far better than brushes. Textures align around those curves whereas they would align in straight lines on a curved brush.
*Multiple patches can be placed together to surround a volume but it is a shell.
* With the same textures, patches are just as solid to the player as a brush and a steel plate just as impenetrable as if it were six feet thick.
* Patches do NOT seal against the void.
* Some example uses are:
# to shape terrain;
# as semi-transparent decals for example to place stains, etc.
# Later we shall use patches with a rain-emitting texture.
*Patches can be created directly or you can first create a brush and convert it.
*Patches are created with their visible surface facing the user out from the editor grid view so select the TOP view for a horizontal patch.

Now for our rain...

=== Rain and Snow ===
* Dark Mod rain and snow are particles emitted by a material.
* Only one surface is needed so we apply that to a patch and place it above where we want rain - much like a cloud in the sky except this patch is invisible.
* The rain is emitted at right angles from the surface but falls under gravity (currently - but may be changed) so if tilted it will emit at an angle then curve down unnaturally so don't use this to simulate wind slanting in the rain; place the patch horizontally.
* The patch should be right side up with the rain texture on top. It is set up to emit downwards through the patch.
* Rain falls through everything so avoid overhead overhanging roofs etc.
* There are various textures, eg, light and heavy rain
* Patches can be stacked above one another for torrential rain
* There is some perfomance lag with large areas and stacked patches

To make it rain in our yard...

* In the TOP view, create a brush the length and width of the yard but about 24 units from the house wall (else there is some spill over so a little rain would fall just inside.) Height of brush irrelevant.
* Patch menu > Simple patch mesh > 3 x 3 converts the brush to a patch.
* Rotate it upside down.
* In a side view raise it up to about half way up towards the sky. If too low the player cannot see it falling down when looking up. If too high it affects performance.
* Give it the texture textures/darkmod/weather/rain_downpour
* For extra heavy, clone it and raise up the clone a few units. Repeat for torrential rain.
* Clone and move into the south west corner of the yard and resize to fit that area not covered by the main rain patches

You could try the above with a snow texture (from the weather section) instead but would need to texture the ground with snow from the nature section.

Ctrl + S to save and dmap and map to test it out.

===Rainsplash===

* Create a brush in the yard.
* Stretch it out to cover the length of the yard and the width of it at the top. Height irrelevant.
* Patches are created with their visible surface facing the user out from the editor grid view so select the TOP view for a horizontal patch. If you use a side view then it will be created on its side (it can always be turned over of course later)
* With the TOP grid view the CURRENT window, select Patch menu > Simple Patch mesh and click OK to accept the default 3 x 3. These values refer to the vertices which can be dragged about in three dimensions to produce different curves - the more vertices, the more curves - but we only need a flat patch so accept the minimum 3 x 3.
* The brush should now have been converted to a flat patch.
* In a side view it should just be a line with no height.
* Drag it down exactly in line with the surface of the floor of the yard.
* Give it the texture textures/darkmod/weather/rain_splash_moderate. Try a different splash if preferred.
* In top view, clone the patch and drag and resize it into the south west corner to fit the floor area not covered by the other patch.

It's that simple. Dmap and map and take a close look at the ground to see the rain splashes.

=== Performance: Hiding Distant Rain ===

If you change the rain and splash patches to func_static entities you can add some properties that hide distant rain so improving performance. I used it in the extended released version of Thief's Den but it is not critical in this small yard so I will only mention it here briefly...

* hide_distance n = distance in n units beyond which a rain patch is 'switched off'.
* dist_check_period n = how often in milliseconds the distance is checked. Too-frequent testing reduces performance; too-infrequent will cause a visible delay. For rain I used 0.25.
* dist_check_xy n = if 1 then only horizontal distance is tested not vertical. Set to 1 for rain/snow.

== Sound Effects: Rainfall==

To add a background sound we could add a global ambient but this would be heard all over the mission, even indoors, so it's not suitable for our rain. Instead we have to use a local ambient which fades as you leave it so we need two with their sound overlapping...

* In the top grid view, RMB menu > Create Speaker (this is also available in the 'Create Entity' list.)
* Give it the following properties. To do this you can..
# Type them in the input boxes at the bottom of Entity Inspector and click the check button OR...
# RMB the top line Classname Speaker and select Add Property from the menu then the + to open the list. You still need to type the values so option 1 is probably the easiest, in fact, copy and paste them from here...

* s_volume 0 = loudness - depends on how heavy your rain - adjust to taste. Use negative values to deduct from 0(max), eg, -6 is quieter, -8 quieter still, -50 is probably inaudible.
* s_mindistance 0 = distance from speaker at which it starts to fade
* s_maxdistance 8 = distance from speaker beyond which it cannot be heard (I estimated these units were 40 normal units.)
* s_shader sound/ambient/environmental/weather_rain04_loop.ogg = sound file
* s_looping 1 = plays over and over (if 0 would play sound file only once)

Place this in the yard midway between the door and the wall and almost at the height of the wall so it spreads upwards too. It is unlikely that the player would be able to climb up very high but just in case you change something later...

Clone it and place this one in the south east corner maybe 24 units from either wall. The speakers are the green squares with arrows as shown in the diagram below...

<center>[[Image:AZspeakers.jpg]]</center>

No need to dmap when creating or adjusting speakers just map and listen. Note that the door will not yet block sound when closed - we'll do that later. But the sound should fade nicely as you enter the house.

The sound files are in ogg format in the Dark Mod sound folder so you can create sounds in your missions for all types of things not just rain of course.

More details about sound speakers are in [[Sounds: Background and Local]]

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}

Talk:A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 3

2008-04-10T00:40:31Z

Nebrekker:

Prefab issue:

If you have only the "Thief's Den" alpha installed, you will likely get an error inserting the Prefab sky, as this asset is embedded in your Thief's Den installation.

Thanks to a handy suggestion from user, greebo:

"The map file is contained in the file thiefs_den.pk4 file, which is basically a ZIP file. Open it with WinRAR or 7-zip or something else and extract the file maps/thiefs_den.map into your doom3/thiefs_den/maps/ folder."

WinRAR did the trick (after standard WinZip fell a little short). You must:

1. Unpack the map file as described above.
2. Create the "Prefabs" folder in your "Thiefs_Den" directory to store the prefab from the map.
3. Load the "Theifs_Den.map" you just extracted in your editor (i.e. "DarkRadiant")
4. Locate the prefab in one of your views (far Northeast in your XY Top view)
5. Select the prefab in map.
6. Choose from the menu: File/Save Selected Prefab and save into your Prefabs folder

Please let me know if there are any mistakes in these additional instructions.

See original conversation thread below:--[[User:Nebrekker|Nebrekker]] 00:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh no! There is no "E:\steam\steamapps\common\doom 3\thiefs_den\prefabs" in my "Thief's Den" mod installation (where Doom3 is installed through Steam). Has anyone else encountered this, or recommend where I can obtain this file?

My apologies if this is not the appropriate forum for this question...

Thanks,

--[[User:Nebrekker|Nebrekker]] 20:51, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

It's usually best to ask such a question on the forum, you're lucky I'm even noticing this. :)

Prefabs weren't distributed along with thiefs_den, but you can always just create this folder in the thiefs_den/ root.

--[[User:Greebo|greebo]] 02:41, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 3

2008-04-10T00:29:28Z

Nebrekker: /* Sky */

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}

== Beams, Trim, Room Design ==

As said in the intro, I am not going to help with every architectural detail. In future missions that you make, consider using brushes as trim, decoration; try varying the shape of rooms to give interest and avoid the same old rectangles. Walls can be divided in two horizontally with different textures, panels, paints, wallpapers, stone. Recesses can be added just like we did for the door. Search the internet and other fan missions for inspiration. Here I shall just describe how to make a few very easy beams. Note that as we progress I am giving less and less detail of what we have covered before so just skip back if you need to remind yourself.

* Set grid size to 8
* In the big room*, drag out one long brush the long length of the small room
* Make its section dimensions 16 units high and 8 deep
* Place it flush against the ceiling and against a big grid line somewhere in the middle of the room
* Look through the darkmod textures for some suitable wood and texture the entire brush
* Check the alignment of the texture only on the three visible surfaces; remember wood grain should align along the length

What about the surfaces that can't be seen?...

(* Do we mean "small room" per graphic below?)

=== Hidden Surfaces, Caulk Texture===

You might find a lot of information on the internet about using caulk texture for hidden surfaces because caulk is not rendered so improving performance. In practice in most cases dmap does a good job of not rendering hidden surfaces anyway. Testing seems to show no detectable change in performance so generally don't worry about caulk. There may be special circumstances, for example the edges of glass panels, but otherwise it is probably not worth the effort. For more information read [[Caulk]]

Note: The outside of our mission, the surfaces in the void, will not be rendered. This is taken care of by the game software automatically so no need to worry about caulking any of them.

We have one beam in place; now what?...

=== Cloning the Beams, Single-plane Shifting ===

* Set Texture Lock ON (top button bar)
* Select the beam, clone it, and drag the clone 3 grid squares (24 units) to the side. There should be two grid square between it and the first beam.
* These beams are easy to move but while we're here, try instead Alt + the arrow keys to move. This nudges them along with no chance of sideslip. This is more useful when you want to drag something a long way. Another way to do it is LMB THEN Shift THEN drag (not Shift first) and the beam will stay in the first direction you drag. There is a knack to this. Practice it now for the future. You can drag right across a huge mission without any deviation from a line. Yet another way is a mode switch that locks in one plane or another on the [[Image:DRtranslate.jpg]] button on the top button bar. See 'Move (Drag, Translate) in one plane (Mode)' on the [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse]] wiki.
* Repeat until you cannot get another beam in - don't put one right against the wall. Then repeat from the original beam the other side so the whole ceiling has seven beams evenly spaced. There is one space with three grid squares but it's near enough.
* Look at the texture surfaces. Every beam is identical. Consider selecting surfaces and shift them along the length quickly to get a different look on some of them.

Now, clone a beam and drag it into the big room. Here resize it to 16 x 16 cross section and clone and place them in a cross along the ceiling (don't overlap in the middle but have smaller beams either side at the crossover) and rotate one (Texture Lock ON!) and clone it to form four vertical beams down the walls at the end of the ceiling beams. Check texture.

== Another 'Room' - an Open Yard ==

I'm using the term 'room' because we make it in just the same way as the rooms we made before but with a sky ceiling.

* In TOP view, drag out a brush to the east 256 x 640 and position on the big grid square in line with the north wall of our big room and overlapping the big room by one big grid square as shown in this diagram...

<center>[[Image:AZplan.jpg]]</center>

* In a side view, move it if needed so its floor is level with the floor in the big room.
* Drag its top up so the brush is 384 high
* Give it the texture: textures/darkmod/stone/brick/tiling_1d/old_worn_greybrick - suitable for the yard walls of a small dwelling
* Rescale the texture in Surface Inspector to 0.35 (vert and horiz.)
* Use the 'Room' button (LBB, left button bar) to hollow it out
 
 
* In the TOP view, reduce the length of the west (left) wall from the north down towards the south so it just touches the external surface of the south wall of the big room. Its length should now be 312 as in this diagram....

<center>[[Image:AZplan2.jpg]]</center>

* Raise the height of both the south and east walls of the big room to meet the ceiling of the yard.
* The south wall should also be extended a little to the east to be flush with the east edge of the east wall as in the picture below. (NOTE: This picture still shows a wallpaper texture I tried earlier! Yours should show the stone)...

From this... <center>[[Image:AZyard01.jpg]]

to this... [[Image:AZyard02.jpg]]</center>

* Texture the visible ''surfaces'' of those walls to be the same as the other yard walls
* Texture the floor of the yard with say cobblestones
* Ensure the texture of all the visible surfaces of the house are the same as the stone inside.

Now we need the sky...

== Sky ==

To add the default sky is fairly simple because we shall be using a ready made prefab. A prefab is part of a map saved separately so the whole thing can be imported into another map. Any selection, single or multiple, can be saved as a prefab via the File menu. It can then be imported into another map as a selection and dragged where needed.

Other skies are possible but need more work so we'll stick with what is easy...

* Set Texture Lock ON
* RMB menu in grid view and select Insert Prefab OR use File Menu > Load Prefab*
* Select tdm_sky_starry1.pfb
* Zoom out if you cannot see the selected prefab.
* Drag the selected prefab well away from our brushes both horizontally and vertically. The player does not enter it so in all your future maps make sure it is well away from any area you are likely to build. You can always move it later but it's easier to put it out of the way now.
* DEselect the prefab
* Select the ceiling surface in the yard
* Texture it with textures > smf > portal_sky. Do NOT use any of the textures under 'skies'.
* The yard walls are too high and we want to see more of the sky so...
* We use the same clone and curtain method as before...
* Select a wall at a time, clone it, size it downwards to a height of 128.
* Select the original wall and reduce its size from the bottom upwards to the top of the wall so it sits on top of the cloned wall we just made with no gap.
* Give the top part of the wall the portal_sky texture
* Repeat for the other two yard walls.
* RMB menu move player start into the yard. Check the side view too that it is not above or below.
* L to select the entity list; select the Ambient and ensure its radius covers the whole yard**.
* Ctrl + S to save. I suggest you then save again with a new name.

Now you can dmap and map and see how the yard looks.

(* If you have only the "Thief's Den" alpha installed, you will likely get an error inserting the Prefab sky. Please see discussion tab of this page on how This can be resolved.)

(** Remember, the position of your actual entity changes as you adjust the radius of your ambient light. Make sure the entity, itself, is safely inside your leak-proof map structure. Although it seems obvious to me now, my ambient light got stretched into the abyss as I was resizing it. This caused a leak which took several minutes for me to understand and correct at the time).

Tip: In game, go back to the console and type and enter noclip. This toggles on and off the ability to fly and even fly through solids. Just look in the direction you want to go, upwards, and use the move forward keys the same way. You can soar up and see the moon to the east. Now fly over your other rooms and look down. You get a different sense of how it is all organized from up here! Take care in noclip mode. It can happen that if you get into the lower brushes you can sink down below the mission and fall into the abyss. Don't know why that is but you have to map again to get back in.

Spot the error in the big room? Our new yard protrudes into it at floor and north wall. We'll deal with that...

== The Clipper Tool, Cutting & Splitting Brushes ==

It is not fatal to make mistakes; it's normal. We just check our work after building and adjust. Our new yard protrudes into the big room so...

* In the top view, select the north wall of the yard and reduce its width from left to right so its left edge is level with the west surface of the yard.

The floor of the yard can be done a similar way by dragging it from west to east and inserting a new brush in the gap but instead let's use this opportunity to explain the clipper tool...

* Select the yard floor in the top view.
* Press X or select the Clipper button ([[Image:DRclipper.jpg]] on LBB)
* Zoom in a little to the middle left of the yard and click on the red line where it crosses the wall of the big room. A dot should appear on the line and the zero digit 0.
* Likewise, go straight along that grid line to the east side of the yard and click that red line. A digit 1 should appear and a red line joining the 0 and the 1.
* It should look like in the diagram below. If your line is not on the same grid line on both sides you can place the mouse over either 0 or 1 and a + appears so you can drag it where it should be. If it all goes horribly wrong or a 2 appears as well, just press X twice to clear it and try again.

<center>[[Image:AZclipper.jpg]]</center>

* At this point, pressing Enter would delete the north part of the yard floor but instead...
* Press Shift + Enter to SPLIT the yard floor into two brushes at the middle line we made.
* Press X to DEselect Clipper and go back to drag and resize mode.
* DEselect then select the north part of the floor we just made and reduce its width from the west like we did the north wall.
* REPEAT the whole process with the ceiling of the yard. This is not so critical as it protrudes above the big room and is not visible to the player but it is good practice to keep everything tidy.

For more details of using the Clipper Tool see [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse|Dark Radiant Controls]] and scroll down to Clipper Mode.

Now reduce the height of the north, east, and south walls of the yard to about half. Ideally, do not make them so low that the player can expect to climb up. You can use clipper but its probably easier in this case to use my 'clone & curtain' method we did earlier. From a side vie you can easily clone and drag down a wall, then drag up the top part which you then retexture on the inside as sky.

The yard feels much more open now but maybe retexture the house walls to be different to the yard walls? Or the other way round? Your preference.

You might also add buttresses against the walls if you want; just add solid brushes maybe 16 x 24 3/4 way up the walls. These should have sloping tops so there Clipper is ideal for clipping off angles. Remember, you only have to do one, adjust its texure carefully then clone it and space them out. I would set Texture lock on for this but depends. Try it both ways to see how it works. Remember also Modify menu > Rotate and Scale to turn for the other walls?

==Water==

Let's make a pool of water. It doesn't make much sense here but I need the opportunity to explain water. Alternatively you might make a water trough or open tank (the tank is easier if you feel lazy!)...

* Drag out a new brush (Oh dear! You forgot to DEselect first? Use Ctrl+Z to undo)
* Make the brush fit the big grid about 24 high and 64 x 128 (two big grid square in grid 8 mode)
* For a pool, place this just below the yard aligned to the big grid so its top is aligned with the ''underside'' of the yard floor brush (not the yard floor surface)
* For a tank, place it so it is one small grid unit above the yard surface.
* Give it a metal texture for a tank but for a pool give it the yard floor surface texture.
* Use the Room button to make it hollow then delete the top.
* The tank is now an open metal box but the pool is hidden by the floor. Use Clipper or my Clone and Curtain method on the floor to open out a hole. This is different from before because you need FOUR sides. Clone and drag out the two like parting curtains as before but then clone one side and drag to one of the gaps left and resize it to fit. Then clone that and drag it to the other side. Resize to fit if needed.
* Check for texturing and adjust if needed.

Now we need to fill it with water...

* Drag out a brush and insert it into the pool or tank
* Resize/Move it to fit EXACTLY the inner dimensions of the pool/tank but one small grid unit below the yard floor surface.
* Give it the texture common/nodraw
* With the whole brush still selected, RMB menu in grid view > Create Entity and select darkmod > func_liquid from the list. This gives the brush its liquid properties.
* DEselect the water brush and select just its top surface with Ctrl+Shift+LMB in the camera view
* Give it the texture water_source > water_clear
* In Surface Inspector, rescale the horizontal and vertical scale to 0.1. This will set the wave frequency for small pool. Use larger scale for a larger pool.
* Clone the ambient light or create a new one and put it in the water so its radius fits or overlaps but make it fit ''exactly'' to the surface.
* Set the ambient colour in Light Inspector to Red, Green, Blue of 0, 25, 25 (= 0.00, 0.1, 0.1 in Entity Inspector) for a dull greeny hue.
* Adjust the ''main'' ambient light so its radius just reaches down to touch the ''surface'' of the water (and thereby the top of the pool ambient light) from above.

See also [[Water]]

Create a light (RMB menu in grid view, place it low at about 40 units high and 40 or 50 units away from the corner of the pool to cast a shadow into it and give it the brightness VALUE of 30.

You can now dmap and map to check out your water. If you get a leak its not necessarily the water! More likely you left a gap when slicing up the yard floor. I did! Just use File Menu > Pointfile in Dark Radiant for the red line that leads to where the leak to the void is then dmap again.

== Z-Fighting Errors ==

If a brush overlaps another, that is, all or parts occupy the same space as another brush then you get what are called Z-fighting as in the picture below. The game is trying to render both at the same time. Always watch out for this. Just resize or move the brush(es) so they do not overlap...

<center>[[Image:AZclipping.jpg]]</center>

== Doorway from the Yard==

We need a door from the yard into the house...

* DEselect and create a new door models/darkmod/architecture/doors/door02.lwo from the model selector.
* Use Modify Menu > Rotate and Scale to rotate the door 90 degrees ''clockwise''. The door should open inwards so if you find it opens outwards later you can just rotate it back the other way no problem.
* Reduce the grid size to say, 2 and move the door so it lays flush against the inside surface of the wall and exactly in the second big grid from the south (see diagram below)
* Check the side view and raise/lower the door so it just touches the floor.
* Select TOP view again.
* DEselect then using Shift + LMB, select the three brushes of the doorframe in between the big and little room so you have all three selected.
* SPACE to clone them all and drag to roughly the middle of the east wall of the big room.
* Use the Modify Menu > Rotate and Scale dialog to turn the selection 90 degrees.
* Move the selection into position around the door until the doorframe aligns as closely as possible with the east wall and juts out into the big room.
* This door is a different size so select the frame pieces one by one and move/resize them to fit snugly round the door and align inside two big grid lines ( see diagram below)
* Remember to adjust the height to in the side view.
* Use Ctrl+G to snap it to the grid. If that changes the shape of any of the brushes then Ctrl+Z to undo and instead reduce the grid to.125 and move it manually more closely to the right position. Then snap to grid. Adjust the door's position if needed. Check it all looks to be in the right position.

Now we need to open out the doorway as we did before by cloning the wall and splitting it either side of the doorframe. Then clone again, resize, and move up over the doorway. Check back in [[A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 2#'Cutting' through walls, Joining Rooms|'Cutting' through walls, Joining Rooms]] if you can't remember the details.

There's a gap under the door - fill it with a brush and texture it concrete or something. We should really have made the floor of the yard one course of bricks lower and then we could have a step at the door but no matter.

Keep saving your mission as you go along and every 10 or 15 minutes save with a new name. Dmap and play test whenever you feel like it.

Throw in a few models in the yard to decorate it quickly - there's a wishing well, waterpump, wheelbarrow, and so on. Possibly make a static wooden gate from a brush. It does not need to open as the player will be dropping over the wall to start the mission.

When you've put in a few items we'll talk about the weather...

==Weather==

Weather can add a nice atmosphere to any mission...

===Fog===

The default fog is made with foglights whose volumes are rectangular blocks. These are OK in isolation or covering an entire mission but there is no obvious way to place these blocks together without the join showing. So a rectangular yard would have been fine but our yard is L shaped and so would need two foglights for each rectangle. If one were used to surround the lot it would show inside the house. Another problem is that sky penetrates right through the fog. This should be fixable with a different sky matching the grey colour of the fog or indeed no real sky just concrete hidden above in the fog! I have read a method for a special fog to be attached to the player but not tried it yet. So this is what I know of so far. It's easy to set up so you can see it...

* Create a light in the normal way in the centre of the yard and drag out its box to fill the yard north to south and from the east wall the wall with the door. It should have the height from floor right up to the sky.
* J for light properties
* Give it a brightness VALUE 25
* On the right is the list showing fogs and lights so choose fogs and select delta1_fog. You can try others but there is not a lot of difference and some do not seem to work.
* J to close light properties.
* In Entity Inspector give it the property shaderParm3 and a value of 600. This is the distance in units beyond which the fog is completely opaque. Our yard is about 640 units long so if you look from one end then the farthest wall is whited out. Take a few steps and it starts to appear.

But note the join between the lightfogs boundaries and also the sky above is black. But it is useable with some inqenuity and I have hopes of better methods in the future.

===Rain and Snow, Introducing Patches===

* A patch is a one-sided surface only with no depth.
* It is textured only on one side and the other side is totally transparent and the edges have zero height. It's like a big plastic sheet, and like such a sheet it can be warped and twisted into useful shapes and curves far better than brushes. Textures align around those curves whereas they would align in straight lines on a curved brush.
*Multiple patches can be placed together to surround a volume but it is a shell.
* With the same textures, patches are just as solid to the player as a brush and a steel plate just as impenetrable as if it were six feet thick.
* Patches do NOT seal against the void.
* Some example uses are:
# to shape terrain;
# as semi-transparent decals for example to place stains, etc.
# Later we shall use patches with a rain-emitting texture.
*Patches can be created directly or you can first create a brush and convert it.
*Patches are created with their visible surface facing the user out from the editor grid view so select the TOP view for a horizontal patch.

Now for our rain...

=== Rain and Snow ===
* Dark Mod rain and snow are particles emitted by a material.
* Only one surface is needed so we apply that to a patch and place it above where we want rain - much like a cloud in the sky except this patch is invisible.
* The rain is emitted at right angles from the surface but falls under gravity (currently - but may be changed) so if tilted it will emit at an angle then curve down unnaturally so don't use this to simulate wind slanting in the rain; place the patch horizontally.
* The patch should be right side up with the rain texture on top. It is set up to emit downwards through the patch.
* Rain falls through everything so avoid overhead overhanging roofs etc.
* There are various textures, eg, light and heavy rain
* Patches can be stacked above one another for torrential rain
* There is some perfomance lag with large areas and stacked patches

To make it rain in our yard...

* In the TOP view, create a brush the length and width of the yard but about 24 units from the house wall (else there is some spill over so a little rain would fall just inside.) Height of brush irrelevant.
* Patch menu > Simple patch mesh > 3 x 3 converts the brush to a patch.
* Rotate it upside down.
* In a side view raise it up to about half way up towards the sky. If too low the player cannot see it falling down when looking up. If too high it affects performance.
* Give it the texture textures/darkmod/weather/rain_downpour
* For extra heavy, clone it and raise up the clone a few units. Repeat for torrential rain.
* Clone and move into the south west corner of the yard and resize to fit that area not covered by the main rain patches

You could try the above with a snow texture (from the weather section) instead but would need to texture the ground with snow from the nature section.

Ctrl + S to save and dmap and map to test it out.

===Rainsplash===

* Create a brush in the yard.
* Stretch it out to cover the length of the yard and the width of it at the top. Height irrelevant.
* Patches are created with their visible surface facing the user out from the editor grid view so select the TOP view for a horizontal patch. If you use a side view then it will be created on its side (it can always be turned over of course later)
* With the TOP grid view the CURRENT window, select Patch menu > Simple Patch mesh and click OK to accept the default 3 x 3. These values refer to the vertices which can be dragged about in three dimensions to produce different curves - the more vertices, the more curves - but we only need a flat patch so accept the minimum 3 x 3.
* The brush should now have been converted to a flat patch.
* In a side view it should just be a line with no height.
* Drag it down exactly in line with the surface of the floor of the yard.
* Give it the texture textures/darkmod/weather/rain_splash_moderate. Try a different splash if preferred.
* In top view, clone the patch and drag and resize it into the south west corner to fit the floor area not covered by the other patch.

It's that simple. Dmap and map and take a close look at the ground to see the rain splashes.

=== Performance: Hiding Distant Rain ===

If you change the rain and splash patches to func_static entities you can add some properties that hide distant rain so improving performance. I used it in the extended released version of Thief's Den but it is not critical in this small yard so I will only mention it here briefly...

* hide_distance n = distance in n units beyond which a rain patch is 'switched off'.
* dist_check_period n = how often in milliseconds the distance is checked. Too-frequent testing reduces performance; too-infrequent will cause a visible delay. For rain I used 0.25.
* dist_check_xy n = if 1 then only horizontal distance is tested not vertical. Set to 1 for rain/snow.

== Sound Effects: Rainfall==

To add a background sound we could add a global ambient but this would be heard all over the mission, even indoors, so it's not suitable for our rain. Instead we have to use a local ambient which fades as you leave it so we need two with their sound overlapping...

* In the top grid view, RMB menu > Create Speaker (this is also available in the 'Create Entity' list.)
* Give it the following properties. To do this you can..
# Type them in the input boxes at the bottom of Entity Inspector and click the check button OR...
# RMB the top line Classname Speaker and select Add Property from the menu then the + to open the list. You still need to type the values so option 1 is probably the easiest, in fact, copy and paste them from here...

* s_volume 0 = loudness - depends on how heavy your rain - adjust to taste. Use negative values to deduct from 0(max), eg, -6 is quieter, -8 quieter still, -50 is probably inaudible.
* s_mindistance 0 = distance from speaker at which it starts to fade
* s_maxdistance 8 = distance from speaker beyond which it cannot be heard (I estimated these units were 40 normal units.)
* s_shader sound/ambient/environmental/weather_rain04_loop.ogg = sound file
* s_looping 1 = plays over and over (if 0 would play sound file only once)

Place this in the yard midway between the door and the wall and almost at the height of the wall so it spreads upwards too. It is unlikely that the player would be able to climb up very high but just in case you change something later...

Clone it and place this one in the south east corner maybe 24 units from either wall. The speakers are the green squares with arrows as shown in the diagram below...

<center>[[Image:AZspeakers.jpg]]</center>

No need to dmap when creating or adjusting speakers just map and listen. Note that the door will not yet block sound when closed - we'll do that later. But the sound should fade nicely as you enter the house.

The sound files are in ogg format in the Dark Mod sound folder so you can create sounds in your missions for all types of things not just rain of course.

More details about sound speakers are in [[Sounds: Background and Local]]

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}

Talk:A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 3

2008-03-27T00:51:31Z

Nebrekker: New page: Oh no! There is no "E:\steam\steamapps\common\doom 3\thiefs_den\prefabs" in my "Thief's Den" mod installation (where Doom3 is installed through Steam). Has anyone else encountered this, o...

Oh no! There is no "E:\steam\steamapps\common\doom 3\thiefs_den\prefabs" in my "Thief's Den" mod installation (where Doom3 is installed through Steam). Has anyone else encountered this, or recommend where I can obtain this file?

My apologies if this is not the appropriate forum for this question...

Thanks,

--[[User:Nebrekker|Nebrekker]] 20:51, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

A - Z Beginner Full Guide Start Here!

2008-03-26T23:56:54Z

Nebrekker: /* Changing a Light's Brightness */

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}
'''''PLEASE NOTE: THIS GUIDE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE "THIEF'S DEN" DEMO MISSION RELEASED JAN 18TH, 2008.'''''

== Introduction ==
AT 30 SEP 07 THIS IS ROUGH FIRST DRAFT 95% DONE SO SHOULD ANYONE START FOLLOWING THIS KEEP IN MIND I'VE YET TO CHECK IT THROUGH :) ]

This is an easy guide for complete beginners to Dark Mod. It will lead you from start to finish, 'push that button, click that menu' and at the end you will have a fully working (but tiny) Dark Mod mission with all the main essential features including objectives all zipped up. You will be able to include variations of your own as you progress if you wish. Links to more detailed info is included but ignore those first time if you wish. Creating this mission is a learning process: although others will be able to play it, it will be too simple for that purpose - though it might be fun to see how varied the results might be from different players following the same instructions! When finished you can modify it and customise it to learn more or just shelve it for reference while you start your ''real'' mission!

This tutorial does not describe how to make your mission architecturally beautiful - just the opposite; the build may be as crude, quick, and ugly as you like. This is a ''method'' tutorial, not a ''design'' tutorial. Nor can it answer every question. It will merely present the most basic information for making a complete mission.

Feel free to experiment, add to, or even skip parts you already know or seem obvious, especially if you have a background producing Doom or Quake maps.

This guide was inspired by Komag's famous tutorial which helped a great many Dromeders (including myself) to get started producing Thief 2 FMs. If you are or were a Dromeder then you might first like to browse quickly through [[Dromed - Dark Mod Differences]] before proceeding - though it is not essential for this tutorial as I am trying to make few assumptions of prior knowledge. It will refer to default keys/mouse settings in Dard Radiant (editor - see later) so if you have changed any hot keys in Dark Radiant's help menu then keep that in mind. Also note that any screenshots might be in a different colour to your settings of course.

== Installation ==

This tutorial assumes that you have Dark Mod already installed. If not, please refer to http://www.thedarkmod.com/ for information.

Alternatively you can use the limited Dark Mod resources provided by the pre-release demo mission [[Thief's Den]]

== The Dark Mod Editor ==

To edit Dark Mod missions you will need a game editor. '''This tutorial is based on the [[Dark Radiant]] editor''' (hereinafter may be called DR) but you can possibly follow most of it in other editors like DoomEd. Variations might be shown where possible but it will mainly assume Dark Radiant. If you haven't got Dark Radiant yet, consult the [[Dark Radiant]] sections, install it and set it up how you like it. If you want to use DoomEd then you need to look elsewhere first. DoomEd of course is supplied with Doom.

You might wish to open the [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse|DR Controls]] page in a new window in your web browser for quick reference while following this tutorial. I'll try to make it so you don't need to!

Make sure you can run Dark Mod and your editor before proceeding. In particular remember you can undo your last step(s) (edit menu or Ctrl+Z)

== Your First Mission ==

Let's get started.

* Open Dark Radiant (hereinafter DR) and also open Dark Mod for quick testing.
* If you have a mission already open in DR then select File menu > New Map to clear it.
* Save it now as any suitable name. You might prefer to save later but I always do it immediately. All missions must go (with exceptions I will describe later in [[A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 5#Managing your Mission Files|Managing your Mission Files]]) in the darkmod\maps folder or a folder within that. I urge you to create a new folder for each project within that maps folder. In this case:
# Open File Menu > Save As
# Make sure you are in the 'maps' folder.
# Select 'Create Folder' and type in say 'tutorial'. You might prefer 'Tut' or even 'T' because you have to keep typing it over and over in the Dark Mod console when testing!
# Select that folder
# Enter the name of your mission at the top. If you have a dedicated folder why not just use a number for the name and name it fully when published? You will be frequently re-saving with new names (see also autosave in DR's Edit menu > Preferences) and then typing in the path in the Dark Mod console and if you're lazy like me why keep typing deathsheadmanor/deathsheadmanor99 over and over when you can type T/99 or say T/T99 ? Your call.
* The game will be saved as a 'map' file with a .map suffix and is commonly called a 'map' in Doom circles. But I will use the term 'mission' or 'FM' (Fan Mission) or maybe 'game' for the map file to try to avoid confusion with actual 'city' or 'treasure' maps within the mission.

First, let's consider our rough storyline so we have some idea what to build...

== Story, Briefing ==

Formal mission objectives will be described much later in this tutorial. But before you begin your mission you will obviously need to have at least some idea of storyline and plot else you will have no idea what to build. You might have a detailed story or just some simple ideas which you can develop later.

Ultimately, you will need to brief the player with information about the story, characters, and the main purpose of the mission. It probably makes sense to write that fully when you are nearly finished the mission because new ideas or even technical difficulties might make you change your story. However, in this tutorial I'll describe it early so as you build the mission the layout and objects make sense.

At the time of writing your briefing text should be entered in the file G:\doom3\darkmod\guis\mainmenu_briefing.gui using a plain text editor. If you scroll down to the section headed windowDef BriefingText you will see the existing text there which you can change. All the text lines must end in \ except the final one and \n means the next text starts on new line. It is very likely that this text will eventually be in a separate .xd file and imported into that gui file so check and use your judgement.

The background image to the briefing is also defined in that same file in the section headed windowDef BriefingParchment.

This mini tutorial mission is called 'Thief's Den' so here is an example briefing ('''not''' in correct format for the gui or .xd file) :

"I had a nice haul the other night including a grand scepter from Lord Frothley. But a low-life named Creep who had given me the info, then stole it from ME! Never trust a thief I say. But I know where he lives...

I also still have his message in his own hand, giving the low-down. If I can dispose of Creep and drop the message nearby then he should take the heat for the heist diverting all suspicion from me.

Creep is a nasty piece of work who is handy with a blade. He can be dangerous and may be expecting me - may even have recruited a thug or two as back up - but he has badly underestimated my stealth skills..."

== Preparing to Build ==

When you open Dark Radiant it will default to a grid size (in the XYZ orthoview) of 8 units by 8 (changeable from version 0.9.5 onwards.) These [[Conversion of Game Units|units]] are 1.1 inches. Check your preference (default key P) in DR as it will be easier during this tutorial if you have the following checked (ticked) in Preferences > Orthoview...

* Show Grid
* Show Size Info
* Show Coordinates

We'll mostly be working in the XYZ grid orthoview but if you have room for the camera view at the side so much the better. The camera view does a rough render in 3D (F3 toggles a better rendering with lighting etc but keep that off if it slows things down which it is likely to and just use it now and again.)

* Note the origin icon of the 'world' at 0,0,0 in the grid view
* Zoom in and out with the mouse wheel
* Right mouse drag the grid view to scroll around (zoom out further to scroll around faster)
* UseCtrl+Tab to rotate from top, front, and side views (or you might have three windows open from the view menu)

The blank windows in the grid and camera views can be regarded as empty void - the space in which we shall build. We have to build in bubbles sealed off from that void like an airtight spaceship or a submarine. Any gaps will cause leaks and crash your game so it's obviously the first major rule to learn: always build inner spaces sealed off from the outer void

Apart from special materials like water and weather, all the raw material you will use is 'solid' to form different shapes. So we can make panels and place them together to form lots of floating airtight boxes and these can be linked together. The entire game then takes place inside those boxes. One box can hold a tiny cupboard or an entire cathedral and a lot of boxes can hold a city. Inside those boxes you cannot see the void.

A shortcut to putting panels together is to make one solid block and hollow it out to form a box and this is what we are going to do now to form our first room.

== Making Your First Room ==

First we make a rough solid block...

* Select the top view in the grid view.
* Left mouse drag out a rectangle any few grid units across in the middle somewhere.
* This rectangle is called a 'brush' and used to define raw shapes for walls, floors etc.
* Left drag ''within'' that brush to drag the brush around
* left drag ''outside'' that brush to resize it.

Now we adjust its top view area...

* left drag outside that brush to resize it to 256 across left to right (X direction) by 192 up and down (Y direction in top view.) You should see those dimensions at the sides of the rectangle if you have 'Show Size Info' set in Edit > Preferences > Orthoview. The position of the top left corner is in brackets at top left.
* Left drag within the brush to move it so its sides fit on the bigger grid. If all sides don't fit then check your dimensions and that you are still in grid size 8 (see grid menu.)
* I prefer to build up in the top right corner from the world 0,0,0 so none of the values are negatives but you decide for yourself. Move it where you want but ideally so the sides are on the big grid.

Now we adjust its height to get our finished block (brush)...

* Ctrl + Tab to side or front view and left drag outside the brush to change its height to 128
* Left drag inside the brush to move it up and down so its sides are on a big grid same as you did in the top view.
* You should now have brush 256 x 192 x 128 (see [[Conversion of Game Units#Tips|Unit Tips]])

<center>[[Image:AZblock.jpg]]</center>

== Selecting and DEselecting ==

We only have one item in our view but eventually many. Operations only work on what is currently selected. When you have just created something as we just have it is automatically the current selection and should be highlighted in your views (see DR Preferences for colour.)

* To DEselect it, point your mouse at it in either the grid or camera view and use Shift + Alt + Left mouse (or just press the Esc key.)
*To select it again, point your mouse at it and use Shift + Alt + Left mouse again.

Selecting is something you'll do a lot of so get familiar with that Shift + Alt + Left mouse. It's an exclusive select to get just one item. There are other selects I'll describe later. The Esc key always deselects and it is vitally important to get into the habit of DEselecting before you select or create something new or in some cases you will have multiple selections without knowing it and can delete or change something you didn't want to. This is why the Shift + Alt + Left mouse is the safest select as it is exclusive and will automatically DEselect anything else that was left selected. But it won't protect an item when creating. Yes, it is possible to have say a brush selected, forget it is selected, then create say, a new light. Oh! what happened to the brush? It's gone - replaced by the light. Develop a nervous habit of keep hitting Esc to deselect when you go to create!

From now on I'll use LMB, MMB, and RMB to refer to the mouse buttons.

== Camera View ==

You should be able to see this block in the camera view. If the camera view is just black remember F3 toggles true light rendering and we don't yet have a light so hit F3 to get a constant bright test light throughout. I won't go into details of all the camera controls suffice to say use the arrow keys and D and C to move vertically. But scroll down to 'camera' in [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse]] and you will see a fantastic amount of control you have in DR's camera view - especially with the mouse. It will take time to get used to them all so for now perhaps just learn enough to move around to see what you've done so far.

If you can see your block(brush) in the camera view then it is likely not to have any particular texture unless you were doing something before this tutorial. Close up you may see it is covered in a checkered blue 'shader not found' message. Don't worry if it's covered in something else like stone or wood though. Since it will eventually be hollowed out to form a room, let's paint it now with some material more suitable to the Dark Mod universe...

== Materials, Textures, Painting the Block ==

This is the tiny home of a cheap thief so we'll use some old stonework.

I've mentioned 'textures', 'shaders', and 'materials'; what do these terms mean? A 'material' or 'shader' is the properties of a surface, including (but not necessarily) texture, sound, and others. To 'paint' our block we...

* Select the Media Browser. This is one of the tabs on a panel. Pressing N or T hides/shows the whole panel but I guess most people leave the panel showing all the time and just select the tab they want.
* Allow a few seconds for DR to read in the media first time and then you should see 'textures' listed
* Click 'textures' and it opens up to show all available textures. Many of the ones you see are Doom textures. Scroll down and select 'darkmod' which reveals the ones most suitable for our use. Scroll down to stone, open it, then cobblestones and select blocks_mixed_multicolour. Right click it and select 'Apply to selection'. This covers all surfaces of the block because we have still got selected the whole block not just one surface. You should see this in the camera view. Use this throughout the house (and eventually on its outside surface for consistency.)
* Select the Texture Browser. This is one of the tabs on the same panel as Media Browser. The Texture Browser only shows recently used textures. You should see only the one texture you selected so it's handy for future use. Odds are you will want to re-use the same textures. It will also show other textures if you clicked on them in the media browser plus any others if you were using DR before this tutorial. You can also copy and paste textures onto single or multiple surfaces (see later.)
* Hover the mouse over the four little buttons at the top of the Texture Browser and read the text so you have some idea of what features are there for the future. For now, click on the one that says 'Flush and Reload Shaders' and it should clear all of them except the one we put on our brush. As we add others they will appear in the texture browser so you can get to them more quickly.
* Now, press S for Surface Inspector (or View menu)
* In both Horiz and Vert scale enter 0.3. This makes it harder for the player to see any pattern repetition (this situation and my opinion - use your own judgement with other textures and wall sizes.) Whatever scale you use, generally you should be consistent with it for the same texture wherever used in a mission. If you use copy and paste then it will transfer the scale as well which is far easier.
* There will be more on texture adjustment later in this tutorial.

== Hollowing out a Room from the Block ==

Building to a large grid size helps performance. The outside of our block will never be seen in the game. Once we hollow it out then the player will only see the inside so that is the surface that is rendered and that we need to align to the large grid. There are two tools to hollow out a block, both activated by a button on the left button bar: one called 'hollow' and the other 'room'. Don't use 'hollow' as it reduces the internal sides so they don't fit the big grid AND it overlaps the corners which can cause rendering errors like so....

<center>BAD!</center> 
<center>[[Image:AZhollow.jpg]]</center> 

Instead use the 'room' button which does the job right (note the increased size so the ''internal'' dimensions will be the same as our original block and align to the big grid... 

<center>GOOD!</center> 
<center>[[Image:AZroom.jpg]]</center> 

All brushes in Doom must be convex. They cannot have any inward angles (like an L shape which would have to be two brushes together) and cannot actually be hollow. The above tools really create new side panel brushes to replace the original brush. In the case of our six-sided block that is six new brushes positioned as walls, floor, and ceiling. ''The walls they create are one small grid line wide so their width will vary depending on your grid size setting.''

Examine the block in the camera view and zoom right inside so you can see it internally which is where it will be seen in game. Note the texture aligns nicely because we stuck to a big grid size. The stone is appropriate for all four walls (which is why I textured the whole block in one go rather than one surface at a time) but now we need different textures for floor and ceiling...

== Selecting and Texturing Individual Surfaces ==

'''You cannot select a surface in the grid view''' so move inside the room in the camera view.

'''To texture the floor...'''

* Press Esc to make sure everything is DEselected
* Point at the floor and use Shift + LMB. Repeat a few times and you will see it selects/DEselects the surface. Keep it selected.
* Select the Media Browser again (on the tabbed panel)
* In the darkmod section select say stone/cobblestones or maybe you would like some wood/boards/worn_01 ? You choose but something like carpet might need special alignment so stick with stones or boards maybe for now? Remember - RIGHT click the texture name and select 'Apply to Selection'
* Alternatively you can click on several possibles then select them with one LMB in the Texture Browser on the other tab. In the Texture Browser you can enlarge the textures if preferred to see them better.
* Esc to DEselect so you can see it better in camera view.

'''To texture the ceiling...'''

* Press Esc to make sure everything is DEselected
* Point at the ceiling and use Shift + LMB again to select its surface.
* Select the Media Browser again (on the tabbed panel)
* In the darkmod section select say plaster/plaster01 and apply it.

'''If you change your mind about the walls you can change them to something else...'''

* Press Esc to make sure everything is DEselected
* Point at one wall and use Shift + LMB again to select its surface.
* Point at another wall use Shift + LMB again so now both surfaces are selected
* 'Accidentally' select the ceiling. No problem. Just use Shift + LMB again to DEselect it but the walls are still selected. In this way you can select which surfaces you want to select.
* Select the Media Browser again and just apply another type of stone, perhaps brick, to the walls if you want or just leave it as it is.

Now press Ctrl+S to resave the mission or use the File menu. Get into the habit of doing this often unless you have autosave set. Now and again you can also save with a new name so you can go back to an earlier one if you totally mess up. Note: There is also a backup file made automatically by DR.

== Adding the Player's Start Point ==

One more thing is ''essential'' to play this in Dark Mod and that is the Player's starting position.

* Press Esc to DEselect everything.
* In the TOP grid view, point the mouse in the middle of the room and RMB to get a pop up menu. This menu is important so glance at some of the other items on it while you're here. 'Entities' are special function items and the player start is amongst them but there is a shortcut on the menu so instead...
* Select "Create Player Start here" on the menu. This will create the playerstart entity (red box) and put it where you clicked. Drag the entity around to the point where you want the player to start.
* You should see an arrow on the red box indicating the way the player will face at the start. If you cannot see the arrow then menu View > Show > Show Angles will reveal it.
* Ctrl+TAB to get a side view and LMB drag down ''inside'' the player start box so its base is on the floor of the room. Make sure you do not go below or the floor or the player might be stuck with his feet in concrete! Tip: In Thief games it was common to start just dropping over a wall with this player start a few feet above the ground. You might note that entities do not directly resize like brushes so LMB drag ''outside'' the box does nothing.
* RMB in the grid view again and you will there is now a 'move player start here' so you can quickly move its position while testing different areas of your mission. But always keep in mind the vertical as well as top view when moving things around (and note that this does not ''select'' the player start - you will need to select it if you need to adjust its position by dragging.)
* With the player start still selected you can select the Entity Inspector (on the panel, else N to hide/show it) and see the properties of your first entity.

The game could now be played but it will be totally dark so we need to create at least one light.....

== Creating a Light ==

* Press Esc to DEselect everything.
* In the TOP grid view, point the mouse in the ''middle'' of the room and RMB to get the pop up menu.
* Select "Create Light" on the menu.
* A large red box appears with diagonals representing the light's centre and its rough 'radius'. The default light is more like six pyramids pointing out to their peaks in the centre of each side of the box. This gives a rough impression of a sphere of light and helps performance.
* Ctrl+TAB to get a side view and LMB drag ''right in the centre of the light'' to move it up/down to centre it in the room if it is not already. Just dragging inside the radius box won't move it - you have to point at the centre.

== Resizing a Light ==

Resizing a light is awkward because dragging any side moves the centre. Two ways of dealing with this. Just roughly drag it about and keep moving the light back to where you want it. But if you have very precisely positioned a light then you don't want to have to keep doing that so this is what I do...

* Select the Entity Inspector on the panel
* You should see it has a light radius property with three values for XYZ for the three dimensions. They are north and south for Y, east and west for X, and up and down for Z. (those are the compass directions in game by the way.)
* Click on the light radius property to highlight it.
* Note that its values appear in a choice of inputs at the bottom - You can type new values in a line with a space in between then click the check(tick) button or enter them as separate values or even use the little scrolly buttons at the side and then click the Apply button.
* The room interior is 192 x 256 x 128 (in XYZ order) so give the light radius the values 200 260 133 so it just protrudes outside the walls. We may well change this again later if we want the light to spill out through a doorway or something.

The light radius is not just a cut-off point. It can be regarded as a 'fade to zero point'. What this means is that the light is at maximum brightness at its centre and fades to zero at the limit of the radius. So in a big open area, if you extend the radius you will 'stretch the brightness' further. Imagine the scale from max to min compacted in a small radius or expanded in a large one. More on this later when we place wall torches.

== Changing a Light's Brightness ==

The light may be a little bright. To change it...

* Press J (or View menu)* to call up the Light Inspector
* Click on the white rectangle button just below where it says 'Colour'
* The brightness value is called erm... 'Value' and should default to 100. Reduce it to 90. It might not matter. I'm just showing you where the control is for now.
* Fool around with the colours if you want - there are extensive features I won't cover here.

Hey! We should have your first working mission! Do a Ctrl + S to save it and then follow the next sections in Dark Mod itself not in Dark Radiant.....

(* On my installation of DarkRadiant, L brings the Light Inspetor and J views the Entity List--the shortcuts listed on my View menu confirm this. If you find this to be your case, you might want to make a note of it now.)

== Sound ==

There is no need to do anything special about ''hearing'' sounds such as footsteps, collision sounds, etc. at this stage as it will work automatically. Adding custom sounds will be dealt with later.

== Pathfinding ==

Pathfinding data to tell the AI characters where they can move is created by dmap by default when compiling in the next section...

== Dmap: Compiling the Mission ==

* Your mission file cannot be played itself; it is simply the directions to create a game file. To do this...
* From any Dark Mod menu select the Doom console. Ignore the following if you have this working. By default, the console is CTRL+ ALT+ ~ (US Keyboards) or CTRL+ALT+ ' (UK Keyboards) but most people set up a shortcut to just use the ~ (` in UK) on its own. This key is the top left below Esc and to the left of "1" on all keyboards I believe. By shortcut I mean a Windows desktop shortcut. If you don't have one you can right cick the desktop and select New. Right click the shortcut and select Properties and in the target section at the end of the line with doom3.exe in it add a space then +seta com_allowConsole 1. Another useful thing to add is +set r_fullscreen 0 so it plays in a window while testing.

* In the console type and Enter dmap Tut/T001 where you should substitute your subfolder name for Tut and your mission filename for T001. So, if you created your mission file directly in the maps folder then you do not need a folder name and can put dmap T001. If you made a subfolder in maps called MyMaps and named your mission MissionImpossible999.map then enter dmap MyMaps/MissionImpossible999. I recommend you do not use upper case in filenames in Doom as I think it can cause problems on other platforms.
* Wait while dmap compiles the mission. This should only be a few seconds with this tiny mission but will be much longer for big missions.
* If you get a 'leaked' error or some other serious red warning then recheck your work; look for gaps in the wall or a wrong texture like nodraw or have you got an entity outside in the void? See [[Performance: Essential Must-Knows#How to detect and fix leaks|HERE]] for more about fixing leaks but at this stage of this tutorial it might be easier just to redo. What I have laboured over is basically make a block, texture it, hollow it, stick in a player start and a light. As you get more proficient you can do it in less than a minute.
* Assuming no dmap red warnings then you should be returned to the Dark Mod menus and can now play the mission...
* Return to the console.
* Type and Enter map Tut/T001. Tip: Press the up arrow key toggles back through the history of what you have typed before so your dmap should re-appear. Just press the Home key and delete the 'd'. An alternative is to use 'testmap' instead of dmap which does both dmap and map but I prefer to see dmap's results.
* You should now be able to walk around in the room. If you have a player shadow set then you might notice that walking through that light looks odd so keep that in mind for light placement. But most lights you will place close to a visible source like a gaslight or wall torch.

That's the first part done!

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}

{{tutorial-editing}}

A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 3

2008-03-23T22:55:27Z

Nebrekker: /* Beams, Trim, Room Design */

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}

== Beams, Trim, Room Design ==

As said in the intro, I am not going to help with every architectural detail. In future missions that you make, consider using brushes as trim, decoration; try varying the shape of rooms to give interest and avoid the same old rectangles. Walls can be divided in two horizontally with different textures, panels, paints, wallpapers, stone. Recesses can be added just like we did for the door. Search the internet and other fan missions for inspiration. Here I shall just describe how to make a few very easy beams. Note that as we progress I am giving less and less detail of what we have covered before so just skip back if you need to remind yourself.

* Set grid size to 8
* In the big room*, drag out one long brush the long length of the small room
* Make its section dimensions 16 units high and 8 deep
* Place it flush against the ceiling and against a big grid line somewhere in the middle of the room
* Look through the darkmod textures for some suitable wood and texture the entire brush
* Check the alignment of the texture only on the three visible surfaces; remember wood grain should align along the length

What about the surfaces that can't be seen?...

(* Do we mean "small room" per graphic below?)

=== Hidden Surfaces, Caulk Texture===

You might find a lot of information on the internet about using caulk texture for hidden surfaces because caulk is not rendered so improving performance. In practice in most cases dmap does a good job of not rendering hidden surfaces anyway. Testing seems to show no detectable change in performance so generally don't worry about caulk. There may be special circumstances, for example the edges of glass panels, but otherwise it is probably not worth the effort. For more information read [[Caulk]]

Note: The outside of our mission, the surfaces in the void, will not be rendered. This is taken care of by the game software automatically so no need to worry about caulking any of them.

We have one beam in place; now what?...

=== Cloning the Beams, Single-plane Shifting ===

* Set Texture Lock ON (top button bar)
* Select the beam, clone it, and drag the clone 3 grid squares (24 units) to the side. There should be two grid square between it and the first beam.
* These beams are easy to move but while we're here, try instead Alt + the arrow keys to move. This nudges them along with no chance of sideslip. This is more useful when you want to drag something a long way. Another way to do it is LMB THEN Shift THEN drag (not Shift first) and the beam will stay in the first direction you drag. There is a knack to this. Practice it now for the future. You can drag right across a huge mission without any deviation from a line. Yet another way is a mode switch that locks in one plane or another on the [[Image:DRtranslate.jpg]] button on the top button bar. See 'Move (Drag, Translate) in one plane (Mode)' on the [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse]] wiki.
* Repeat until you cannot get another beam in - don't put one right against the wall. Then repeat from the original beam the other side so the whole ceiling has seven beams evenly spaced. There is one space with three grid squares but it's near enough.
* Look at the texture surfaces. Every beam is identical. Consider selecting surfaces and shift them along the length quickly to get a different look on some of them.

Now, clone a beam and drag it into the big room. Here resize it to 16 x 16 cross section and clone and place them in a cross along the ceiling (don't overlap in the middle but have smaller beams either side at the crossover) and rotate one (Texture Lock ON!) and clone it to form four vertical beams down the walls at the end of the ceiling beams. Check texture.

== Another 'Room' - an Open Yard ==

I'm using the term 'room' because we make it in just the same way as the rooms we made before but with a sky ceiling.

* In TOP view, drag out a brush to the east 256 x 640 and position on the big grid square in line with the north wall of our big room and overlapping the big room by one big grid square as shown in this diagram...

<center>[[Image:AZplan.jpg]]</center>

* In a side view, move it if needed so its floor is level with the floor in the big room.
* Drag its top up so the brush is 384 high
* Give it the texture: textures/darkmod/stone/brick/tiling_1d/old_worn_greybrick - suitable for the yard walls of a small dwelling
* Rescale the texture in Surface Inspector to 0.35 (vert and horiz.)
* Use the 'Room' button (LBB, left button bar) to hollow it out
 
 
* In the TOP view, reduce the length of the west (left) wall from the north down towards the south so it just touches the external surface of the south wall of the big room. Its length should now be 312 as in this diagram....

<center>[[Image:AZplan2.jpg]]</center>

* Raise the height of both the south and east walls of the big room to meet the ceiling of the yard.
* The south wall should also be extended a little to the east to be flush with the east edge of the east wall as in the picture below. (NOTE: This picture still shows a wallpaper texture I tried earlier! Yours should show the stone)...

From this... <center>[[Image:AZyard01.jpg]]

to this... [[Image:AZyard02.jpg]]</center>

* Texture the visible ''surfaces'' of those walls to be the same as the other yard walls
* Texture the floor of the yard with say cobblestones
* Ensure the texture of all the visible surfaces of the house are the same as the stone inside.

Now we need the sky...

== Sky ==

To add the default sky is fairly simple because we shall be using a ready made prefab. A prefab is part of a map saved separately so the whole thing can be imported into another map. Any selection, single or multiple, can be saved as a prefab via the File menu. It can then be imported into another map as a selection and dragged where needed.

Other skies are possible but need more work so we'll stick with what is easy...

* Set Texture Lock ON
* RMB menu in grid view and select Insert Prefab OR use File Menu > Load Prefab
* Select tdm_sky_starry1.pfb
* Zoom out if you cannot see the selected prefab.
* Drag the selected prefab well away from our brushes both horizontally and vertically. The player does not enter it so in all your future maps make sure it is well away from any area you are likely to build. You can always move it later but it's easier to put it out of the way now.
* DEselect the prefab
* Select the ceiling surface in the yard
* Texture it with textures > smf > portal_sky. Do NOT use any of the textures under 'skies'.
* The yard walls are too high and we want to see more of the sky so...
* We use the same clone and curtain method as before...
* Select a wall at a time, clone it, size it downwards to a height of 128.
* Select the original wall and reduce its size from the bottom upwards to the top of the wall so it sits on top of the cloned wall we just made with no gap.
* Give the top part of the wall the portal_sky texture
* Repeat for the other two yard walls.
* RMB menu move player start into the yard. Check the side view too that it is not above or below.
* L to select the entity list; select the Ambient and ensure its radius covers the whole yard.
* Ctrl + S to save. I suggest you then save again with a new name.

Now you can dmap and map and see how the yard looks.

Tip: In game, go back to the console and type and enter noclip. This toggles on and off the ability to fly and even fly through solids. Just look in the direction you want to go, upwards, and use the move forward keys the same way. You can soar up and see the moon to the east. Now fly over your other rooms and look down. You get a different sense of how it is all organized from up here! Take care in noclip mode. It can happen that if you get into the lower brushes you can sink down below the mission and fall into the abyss. Don't know why that is but you have to map again to get back in.

Spot the error in the big room? Our new yard protrudes into it at floor and north wall. We'll deal with that...

== The Clipper Tool, Cutting & Splitting Brushes ==

It is not fatal to make mistakes; it's normal. We just check our work after building and adjust. Our new yard protrudes into the big room so...

* In the top view, select the north wall of the yard and reduce its width from left to right so its left edge is level with the west surface of the yard.

The floor of the yard can be done a similar way by dragging it from west to east and inserting a new brush in the gap but instead let's use this opportunity to explain the clipper tool...

* Select the yard floor in the top view.
* Press X or select the Clipper button ([[Image:DRclipper.jpg]] on LBB)
* Zoom in a little to the middle left of the yard and click on the red line where it crosses the wall of the big room. A dot should appear on the line and the zero digit 0.
* Likewise, go straight along that grid line to the east side of the yard and click that red line. A digit 1 should appear and a red line joining the 0 and the 1.
* It should look like in the diagram below. If your line is not on the same grid line on both sides you can place the mouse over either 0 or 1 and a + appears so you can drag it where it should be. If it all goes horribly wrong or a 2 appears as well, just press X twice to clear it and try again.

<center>[[Image:AZclipper.jpg]]</center>

* At this point, pressing Enter would delete the north part of the yard floor but instead...
* Press Shift + Enter to SPLIT the yard floor into two brushes at the middle line we made.
* Press X to DEselect Clipper and go back to drag and resize mode.
* DEselect then select the north part of the floor we just made and reduce its width from the west like we did the north wall.
* REPEAT the whole process with the ceiling of the yard. This is not so critical as it protrudes above the big room and is not visible to the player but it is good practice to keep everything tidy.

For more details of using the Clipper Tool see [[Dark Radiant Controls, Keys & Mouse|Dark Radiant Controls]] and scroll down to Clipper Mode.

Now reduce the height of the north, east, and south walls of the yard to about half. Ideally, do not make them so low that the player can expect to climb up. You can use clipper but its probably easier in this case to use my 'clone & curtain' method we did earlier. From a side vie you can easily clone and drag down a wall, then drag up the top part which you then retexture on the inside as sky.

The yard feels much more open now but maybe retexture the house walls to be different to the yard walls? Or the other way round? Your preference.

You might also add buttresses against the walls if you want; just add solid brushes maybe 16 x 24 3/4 way up the walls. These should have sloping tops so there Clipper is ideal for clipping off angles. Remember, you only have to do one, adjust its texure carefully then clone it and space them out. I would set Texture lock on for this but depends. Try it both ways to see how it works. Remember also Modify menu > Rotate and Scale to turn for the other walls?

==Water==

Let's make a pool of water. It doesn't make much sense here but I need the opportunity to explain water. Alternatively you might make a water trough or open tank (the tank is easier if you feel lazy!)...

* Drag out a new brush (Oh dear! You forgot to DEselect first? Use Ctrl+Z to undo)
* Make the brush fit the big grid about 24 high and 64 x 128 (two big grid square in grid 8 mode)
* For a pool, place this just below the yard aligned to the big grid so its top is aligned with the ''underside'' of the yard floor brush (not the yard floor surface)
* For a tank, place it so it is one small grid unit above the yard surface.
* Give it a metal texture for a tank but for a pool give it the yard floor surface texture.
* Use the Room button to make it hollow then delete the top.
* The tank is now an open metal box but the pool is hidden by the floor. Use Clipper or my Clone and Curtain method on the floor to open out a hole. This is different from before because you need FOUR sides. Clone and drag out the two like parting curtains as before but then clone one side and drag to one of the gaps left and resize it to fit. Then clone that and drag it to the other side. Resize to fit if needed.
* Check for texturing and adjust if needed.

Now we need to fill it with water...

* Drag out a brush and insert it into the pool or tank
* Resize/Move it to fit EXACTLY the inner dimensions of the pool/tank but one small grid unit below the yard floor surface.
* Give it the texture common/nodraw
* With the whole brush still selected, RMB menu in grid view > Create Entity and select darkmod > func_liquid from the list. This gives the brush its liquid properties.
* DEselect the water brush and select just its top surface with Ctrl+Shift+LMB in the camera view
* Give it the texture water_source > water_clear
* In Surface Inspector, rescale the horizontal and vertical scale to 0.1. This will set the wave frequency for small pool. Use larger scale for a larger pool.
* Clone the ambient light or create a new one and put it in the water so its radius fits or overlaps but make it fit ''exactly'' to the surface.
* Set the ambient colour in Light Inspector to Red, Green, Blue of 0, 25, 25 (= 0.00, 0.1, 0.1 in Entity Inspector) for a dull greeny hue.
* Adjust the ''main'' ambient light so its radius just reaches down to touch the ''surface'' of the water (and thereby the top of the pool ambient light) from above.

See also [[Water]]

Create a light (RMB menu in grid view, place it low at about 40 units high and 40 or 50 units away from the corner of the pool to cast a shadow into it and give it the brightness VALUE of 30.

You can now dmap and map to check out your water. If you get a leak its not necessarily the water! More likely you left a gap when slicing up the yard floor. I did! Just use File Menu > Pointfile in Dark Radiant for the red line that leads to where the leak to the void is then dmap again.

== Z-Fighting Errors ==

If a brush overlaps another, that is, all or parts occupy the same space as another brush then you get what are called Z-fighting as in the picture below. The game is trying to render both at the same time. Always watch out for this. Just resize or move the brush(es) so they do not overlap...

<center>[[Image:AZclipping.jpg]]</center>

== Doorway from the Yard==

We need a door from the yard into the house...

* DEselect and create a new door models/darkmod/architecture/doors/door02.lwo from the model selector.
* Use Modify Menu > Rotate and Scale to rotate the door 90 degrees ''clockwise''. The door should open inwards so if you find it opens outwards later you can just rotate it back the other way no problem.
* Reduce the grid size to say, 2 and move the door so it lays flush against the inside surface of the wall and exactly in the second big grid from the south (see diagram below)
* Check the side view and raise/lower the door so it just touches the floor.
* Select TOP view again.
* DEselect then using Shift + LMB, select the three brushes of the doorframe in between the big and little room so you have all three selected.
* SPACE to clone them all and drag to roughly the middle of the east wall of the big room.
* Use the Modify Menu > Rotate and Scale dialog to turn the selection 90 degrees.
* Move the selection into position around the door until the doorframe aligns as closely as possible with the east wall and juts out into the big room.
* This door is a different size so select the frame pieces one by one and move/resize them to fit snugly round the door and align inside two big grid lines ( see diagram below)
* Remember to adjust the height to in the side view.
* Use Ctrl+G to snap it to the grid. If that changes the shape of any of the brushes then Ctrl+Z to undo and instead reduce the grid to.125 and move it manually more closely to the right position. Then snap to grid. Adjust the door's position if needed. Check it all looks to be in the right position.

Now we need to open out the doorway as we did before by cloning the wall and splitting it either side of the doorframe. Then clone again, resize, and move up over the doorway. Check back in [[A - Z Beginner Full Guide Page 2#'Cutting' through walls, Joining Rooms|'Cutting' through walls, Joining Rooms]] if you can't remember the details.

There's a gap under the door - fill it with a brush and texture it concrete or something. We should really have made the floor of the yard one course of bricks lower and then we could have a step at the door but no matter.

Keep saving your mission as you go along and every 10 or 15 minutes save with a new name. Dmap and play test whenever you feel like it.

Throw in a few models in the yard to decorate it quickly - there's a wishing well, waterpump, wheelbarrow, and so on. Possibly make a static wooden gate from a brush. It does not need to open as the player will be dropping over the wall to start the mission.

When you've put in a few items we'll talk about the weather...

==Weather==

Weather can add a nice atmosphere to any mission...

===Fog===

The default fog is made with foglights whose volumes are rectangular blocks. These are OK in isolation or covering an entire mission but there is no obvious way to place these blocks together without the join showing. So a rectangular yard would have been fine but our yard is L shaped and so would need two foglights for each rectangle. If one were used to surround the lot it would show inside the house. Another problem is that sky penetrates right through the fog. This should be fixable with a different sky matching the grey colour of the fog or indeed no real sky just concrete hidden above in the fog! I have read a method for a special fog to be attached to the player but not tried it yet. So this is what I know of so far. It's easy to set up so you can see it...

* Create a light in the normal way in the centre of the yard and drag out its box to fill the yard north to south and from the east wall the wall with the door. It should have the height from floor right up to the sky.
* J for light properties
* Give it a brightness VALUE 25
* On the right is the list showing fogs and lights so choose fogs and select delta1_fog. You can try others but there is not a lot of difference and some do not seem to work.
* J to close light properties.
* In Entity Inspector give it the property shaderParm3 and a value of 600. This is the distance in units beyond which the fog is completely opaque. Our yard is about 640 units long so if you look from one end then the farthest wall is whited out. Take a few steps and it starts to appear.

But note the join between the lightfogs boundaries and also the sky above is black. But it is useable with some inqenuity and I have hopes of better methods in the future.

===Rain and Snow, Introducing Patches===

* A patch is a one-sided surface only with no depth.
* It is textured only on one side and the other side is totally transparent and the edges have zero height. It's like a big plastic sheet, and like such a sheet it can be warped and twisted into useful shapes and curves far better than brushes. Textures align around those curves whereas they would align in straight lines on a curved brush.
*Multiple patches can be placed together to surround a volume but it is a shell.
* With the same textures, patches are just as solid to the player as a brush and a steel plate just as impenetrable as if it were six feet thick.
* Patches do NOT seal against the void.
* Some example uses are:
# to shape terrain;
# as semi-transparent decals for example to place stains, etc.
# Later we shall use patches with a rain-emitting texture.
*Patches can be created directly or you can first create a brush and convert it.
*Patches are created with their visible surface facing the user out from the editor grid view so select the TOP view for a horizontal patch.

Now for our rain...

=== Rain and Snow ===
* Dark Mod rain and snow are particles emitted by a material.
* Only one surface is needed so we apply that to a patch and place it above where we want rain - much like a cloud in the sky except this patch is invisible.
* The rain is emitted at right angles from the surface but falls under gravity (currently - but may be changed) so if tilted it will emit at an angle then curve down unnaturally so don't use this to simulate wind slanting in the rain; place the patch horizontally.
* The patch should be right side up with the rain texture on top. It is set up to emit downwards through the patch.
* Rain falls through everything so avoid overhead overhanging roofs etc.
* There are various textures, eg, light and heavy rain
* Patches can be stacked above one another for torrential rain
* There is some perfomance lag with large areas and stacked patches

To make it rain in our yard...

* In the TOP view, create a brush the length and width of the yard but about 24 units from the house wall (else there is some spill over so a little rain would fall just inside.) Height of brush irrelevant.
* Patch menu > Simple patch mesh > 3 x 3 converts the brush to a patch.
* Rotate it upside down.
* In a side view raise it up to about half way up towards the sky. If too low the player cannot see it falling down when looking up. If too high it affects performance.
* Give it the texture textures/darkmod/weather/rain_downpour
* For extra heavy, clone it and raise up the clone a few units. Repeat for torrential rain.
* Clone and move into the south west corner of the yard and resize to fit that area not covered by the main rain patches

You could try the above with a snow texture (from the weather section) instead but would need to texture the ground with snow from the nature section.

Ctrl + S to save and dmap and map to test it out.

===Rainsplash===

* Create a brush in the yard.
* Stretch it out to cover the length of the yard and the width of it at the top. Height irrelevant.
* Patches are created with their visible surface facing the user out from the editor grid view so select the TOP view for a horizontal patch. If you use a side view then it will be created on its side (it can always be turned over of course later)
* With the TOP grid view the CURRENT window, select Patch menu > Simple Patch mesh and click OK to accept the default 3 x 3. These values refer to the vertices which can be dragged about in three dimensions to produce different curves - the more vertices, the more curves - but we only need a flat patch so accept the minimum 3 x 3.
* The brush should now have been converted to a flat patch.
* In a side view it should just be a line with no height.
* Drag it down exactly in line with the surface of the floor of the yard.
* Give it the texture textures/darkmod/weather/rain_splash_moderate. Try a different splash if preferred.
* In top view, clone the patch and drag and resize it into the south west corner to fit the floor area not covered by the other patch.

It's that simple. Dmap and map and take a close look at the ground to see the rain splashes.

=== Performance: Hiding Distant Rain ===

If you change the rain and splash patches to func_static entities you can add some properties that hide distant rain so improving performance. I used it in the extended released version of Thief's Den but it is not critical in this small yard so I will only mention it here briefly...

* hide_distance n = distance in n units beyond which a rain patch is 'switched off'.
* dist_check_period n = how often in milliseconds the distance is checked. Too-frequent testing reduces performance; too-infrequent will cause a visible delay. For rain I used 0.25.
* dist_check_xy n = if 1 then only horizontal distance is tested not vertical. Set to 1 for rain/snow.

== Sound Effects: Rainfall==

To add a background sound we could add a global ambient but this would be heard all over the mission, even indoors, so it's not suitable for our rain. Instead we have to use a local ambient which fades as you leave it so we need two with their sound overlapping...

* In the top grid view, RMB menu > Create Speaker (this is also available in the 'Create Entity' list.)
* Give it the following properties. To do this you can..
# Type them in the input boxes at the bottom of Entity Inspector and click the check button OR...
# RMB the top line Classname Speaker and select Add Property from the menu then the + to open the list. You still need to type the values so option 1 is probably the easiest, in fact, copy and paste them from here...

* s_volume 0 = loudness - depends on how heavy your rain - adjust to taste. Use negative values to deduct from 0(max), eg, -6 is quieter, -8 quieter still, -50 is probably inaudible.
* s_mindistance 0 = distance from speaker at which it starts to fade
* s_maxdistance 8 = distance from speaker beyond which it cannot be heard (I estimated these units were 40 normal units.)
* s_shader sound/ambient/environmental/weather_rain04_loop.ogg = sound file
* s_looping 1 = plays over and over (if 0 would play sound file only once)

Place this in the yard midway between the door and the wall and almost at the height of the wall so it spreads upwards too. It is unlikely that the player would be able to climb up very high but just in case you change something later...

Clone it and place this one in the south east corner maybe 24 units from either wall. The speakers are the green squares with arrows as shown in the diagram below...

<center>[[Image:AZspeakers.jpg]]</center>

No need to dmap when creating or adjusting speakers just map and listen. Note that the door will not yet block sound when closed - we'll do that later. But the sound should fade nicely as you enter the house.

The sound files are in ogg format in the Dark Mod sound folder so you can create sounds in your missions for all types of things not just rain of course.

More details about sound speakers are in [[Sounds: Background and Local]]

{{A-Z Beginner Guide TOC}}