Mapping
The Red Orchestra/Darkest Hour games both use the Unreal engine and what we’ll actually be using is an Unreal editor (Ironically called UnrealED). The engine works quite differently from the GoldSource (Half-Life 1) and Source (Half-Life 2) engines.
Tutorials
For now I’ve compiled quite a few links to sites that should teach us the basics of making maps in the Unreal mapping program. I haven’t had a chance to look through all of these, but they’re all right here for when we need them.
- Unreal Wiki: Legacy
- 3D Buzz This is probably the best Tutorial to go to as it’s all Videos with great explanations. Very easy to follow.
- Hazel.H Haven’t read through the tutorials but the layout looks good and easy to find what you need.
- UDN Two
- The Art and Science of Level Design More of an article/theory on proper level design then a tutorial for mapping.
- Planet Unreal UnrealEd Tutorial
- UnrealED Tips and Tricks at RO Forums
- Bloom Tutorial at RO Forums
- Bot Pathing Tips at RO Forums
- Easy Terrain Creation
- Terrain QuickStart Checklist at RO Forums
- Unreal Engine 2: Site Map
- RO Actor Guide PDF Guide to all the actors (entities) in RO.
- Unreal Wiki: Optimization (Advanced)
- Creating a seamless skybox using a static mesh
- Hazel.H - Tutorials - Skyboxes Covers the basic concepts of skyboxes and some more advanced effects.
- Angel Mapper’s Tutorials
- Hourences’ Tutorials
- Architectonic - Beginner’s Tutorials
- Corsix’ Mapping Tutorials (UT2004)
- IceCreamYou’s Tutorials (UE3 / UT2004)
- Blitz’s Advanced Botpathing Tutorial
- MayaPLE to UnrealEd 2.0 Tutorial
- How to Convert a Skybox to a Skydome
- Normal Map Creation in The GIMP
- CGTextures.com texture tutorials
- Creating a Detailed Master Plan Rendering in 3dsmax and Photoshop (Overkill for gaming, but a lot of good ideas and information.)
Tools and Resources
- Nem’s Mega 3D Terrain Generator For creating basic terrain. Has many tools and options.
- Importing Real World Terrain If you would like to base a map on a real location, post a request here.
- The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives (TARA) One of the largest and most significant collections of aerial photography in the world. (Substituting other locations in place of ‘France’ in this url will allow viewing thousands of WW2 aerial photos, located where they were taken, in Google Earth: *[http://aerial.rcahms.gov.uk/database/results.php?field=where\&searchdb=tara_scran\&searchterm=”France](http://aerial.rcahms.gov.uk/database/results.php?field=where&searchdb=tara_scran&searchterm=%22France)”)
- UnrealWiki
- Unreal Developer Network
- 3D Buzz
- BeyondUnreal Development Forums
- UnrealScript Coding Reference
- NVidia DDS / Texture Tools
- CrazyBump Create normal maps from photos.
Textures
- The Wood Workshop The Wood Workshop is a free seamless texture editor that specializes in the creation of seamless wood textures.
- Free Game Textures and Normal Maps Lots of textures by category (some with normal maps). Included both cubic and hemispherical skymaps.
- 360º Panoramas / SkyBoxes Process for creating perfect 360º Panoramas / SkyBoxes with Terragen.
- Free 3D Skyboxes. RWX Format (object) Free examples of skyboxes. Separate images for top and each side.
- Hazel.H - Textures Free skybox and other textures.
- Skybox Textures Forum thread listing locations where skyboxes can be found.
- CGTextures.com High quality, free, royalty-free textures.
Map Repositories
Configuring Your RO SDK for DH
The game manual that came with Darkest Hour explains how to setup your RO SDK to be able to map in DH. But I feel that’s a bad guide as it’s poorly worded. Setting up your RO SDK is simple. Firstly make sure you have it downloaded and installed. The Red Orchestra SDK will come with the game once you’ve purchased it. Open up the Steam window where you usually have your ‘My Games’ list. Then look up top at all the tabs and look for the ‘My Tools’ tab. There you can download the RO SDK, if you Haven’t done so already. Now all you simply do is right click on the RO SDK in your ‘My Tools’ tab and go to Properties… then in the pop-up window click on the ‘Set Launch Options…’ button and add the following line:
-mod="darkesthour"
Afterwards you can launch the RO SDK and it’ll have all the Actors and Textures available from DH (As well as RO).
Map Cheatsheet
From the Mapper’s Cheatsheet thread by Divinehammer:
RO SDK Measures
ROScale
- 1 meter = 60.352 UUs
- 1 foot = 18.4UU
Kneeling Rifle Rest height
- 64uu
Standing Rifle Rest Height
- 96uu
Common building interior Heights
- 128uu
- 160uu (Good Common)
- 192uu
SDK Shortcuts
- O = turns off volumes
- F= Turns off/on Fog
- K= Turns off/on Sky portal
- ruler (in uu’s) key combo is shift+ctrl+middle mouse button
- Shift+b select a side selects all sides of a brush
- Alt + RClick of a texture loads that texture in the ready
- Select a static mesh Ctrl+W duplicates that mesh
- Ctrl+Alt+Shift allows you to draw a loop around several objects and select them.
Map Optimization
- Stock Maps Have these standards as reported in the forum
- AP : from 3 to 34 on the level.
- max SM triangles : from 40 000 up to 120 000+
- max SM rendering time : from 2ms to 6ms
- Stat all from the console will bring up all info on your map.
- Stat FPS shows your frames per second in editor and in game.
- Stat Render Shows all info pertaining to rendering the scene you are looking at.
- For staticmeshes outside the playable area you should turn all of the collision properties to false and bShadowCast to false as well.
- Unrealed plays nicer when you use powers of 2 when you build. Ex. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384, 32768
- An excellent tutorial on map optimization has been written by Rachel Cordone. She has also written a number of other handy tutorials.
Tips
- ALWAYS protect spawns/etc. with NoArtyVolume.