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.

Tools and Resources

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.