### GENERAL EDITING TIPS FOR UNREALED2

"Machismo"
E-Mail:- cool_machismo@yahoo.com

### INTRODUCTION

This tutorial will deal with some common editing tips and things that tend to slow down levels. Very essential info but not deserving of a separate tutorial. Its actually just a rambling on various topics of interest ;). This tutorial is subdivided into:

- Order The Compiling Process [NEW !!!!]

- Statistics

- Clean Brush Surfaces

- Precise Scaling [NEW !!!!]

- Remove Unused Textures [NEW !!!!]

- Weird Mode

### ORDERING THE REBUILDING PROCESS (OF BRUSHES) - NEW!!!!

You can easily determine the order in which the editor compiles brushes. Why do you ever need to order the compiling process?. Well consider consider the following:

SITUATION I: I have a simple room like this:
Check out the picture and u can see that the arch is made of two parts (in case you are wondering the textures are from ShaneChurch.utx). Now when I subtract the connecting room at the end, the arch gets screwed up, like this:
Hey we cant have that happening now can we. First it looks horrible and the left and right arch are actually two different textures. This can be solved easily. Select the two arches right click on them and choose order >to last:
Now rebuild the level and see what u get, the original texture surface of the two brushes is now restored like this:
"Clean as a whistle!". Its easy to understand how it happened if you look at the situation this way: say you had subtracted the first room and then immediately subtracted the second room and only then added in the arches they would be perfect. Actually the arches originally have been added in first so how shall I put it ..... their order in the rebuilding process is first (i.e. the editor knows and assumes actually that the brush was actually put in first and only then the second room was subtracted). Now when you order the brush to last you just reverse the position - you tell the editor that the second room should first be compiled and then the arches have to be compiled. You'll find yourself in this situation a lot since it is difficult most of the times to anticipate the order in which to put in brushes in your level (hum... not really the above situation could have easily been anticipated and should have been ;).

IMPORTANT NOTE:- Just as you ordered the arches to last, you could as easily have ordered the second subtracted room to first. And you would get the same result since the second room would first be compiled and then the arches would be "rebuilt".

SITUATION II: Before subtraction:
After subtraction a part of the lamp is lost.
A simple selecting the subtracted brush and ordering it to first (or selecting the lamp and ordering it to last) will get back the brush like so:

### STATISTICS

They best way to ensure that your level is fast and will play well is to keep stict control over your level design and not let it get too out of hand. They best way to do this would be to make use of the following. NOTE: These can be used in both UnrealEd2 (by typing it into the command bar at the bottom) or within Unreal Tournament/Unreal 1 itself. The four favorite stats that I use are:

- stat fps : Frames per second, amount of visible nodes in one screen and polys being displayed.

- stat global : Displays a collection of all stats

- stat zone : Number of visible zones

- stat occlusion

### CLEAN BRUSH SURFACES

What I mean by clean brush surfaces is that the brush surface must be split in as less segments as possible - here I am referring to both the original brush and the surface of the brush. I made a mention of this in the 2D Editor Tutorial. Here's how to do it again:

- On using the 2d editor to make shapes your are probably going to end up with some thing like this:
  That's not very good for the level frame rates, notice how I am able to select different pieces of the surface of the end of the brush.

- METHOD I - There are two ways to fix this. Both very important in different situations. The method you use will be based on the type of brush that you are dealing with (and also the level). I recommend you use the first method on curved rooms. To correct the "error" select all the pieces of the end of the brush that you want to join together. NOTE: U should use the shortcut key SHIFT+C (Select surfaces that are ADJACENT COPLANARS) to select all the surfaces of the end of the brush. You could use Shift+W in this case but its always easier to use SHIFT+C. Now that you have the surface you want to join selected, got to that surfaces properties and do two things, under the alignment tab:

  - Wall Direction

  - Wall Pan

Make sure that you align the surface using both wall direction and wall pan or it will not work. Now select the brush whose surface you want to merge, right click on the brush and go to the selected properties like this:
Once you've hit the merge option, rebuild immediately and select the surface of the brush, you'll see that it has been joined/merged into one.
The best way to find out - where previously the node count was 25 it fell to 20 . Now imagine your level had 900 brushes - theoretically you could have the "laid the smack down" on 4500 nodes - now you tell me that merging polygons speed up a level or what!.

The separate option works in reverse if by mistake you have merged unwanted areas of the brush (especially happens if that brush was made by an intersection of several other brushes) separates merged polygons.

- METHOD II - Actually the above method is better to use on curved surfaces rooms etc, where intersection is not an option, or just plain time wasting. Now since the above brush was just straight, I took the builder brush and intersected it against a flat brush (what CliffyB calls a building box) and only then subtracted the brush. Now compare the new brush with the previous one:
  No need to merge polygons here.

  - NOTE: In reality this example would not be good for the brush since I made the brush using beizer curves and ended up merging polygons anyway. Not only that there was a slight node increase. That's the danger you need to find when to use the previous method and when to use the second method. I recommend you use the second method where the brush itself is clean or doesn't use beizer segments.

### PRECISE SCALING - New!!!

The "mode scale" command does not allow for precision. Umm......... this part is actually very very basic but it could be missed by some. To employ precise scaling go to the builder brush or brushes properties > brush > main scale > scale. Here you can enter the precise values for x or y or z or whatever. Like this:
This is especially helpful for shapes made in the 2deditor and or outdoor terrain. You can make the shape or terrain on a small scale and then "scale" it up as much as you want!. Besides the 2deditor only handles 2x scaling (e.g.: 256 then 512 then 1024). I'm repeating myself but its especially helpful for making large outdoor terrain - where you make the shape in the 2ded or a third party software and then scale it either x or y or z or however you want to have it.

### REMOVE UNUSED TEXTURES - TEXTURE CULL - New!!!

Enter "texture cull" without quotes in the command bar of the editor. If you find that whenever you load a level, some texs that you previously used in the level but don't use any more are loaded just hit this. Besides this, the texture cull command gives a very useful reading of the names of every texture used in your level.

### WEIRD MODES

"mode facedrag" - Select the brush and enter this without the quotes in the console. Hold down control and drag with the left mouse button in the various views to contort the shape into weird stuff.

Continued .................................

General Editing Tips - Part II .......... Click Here to Continue!.