Lesson 3

By: Deathbliss

Deathbliss

A skybox and an introduction to zones:

In the last lesson we made a hallway with windows, the links to which can be found below. We want to see something out of those windows, right? Well...

In UnrealED levels are made with zones. You want a pool to swim in? That's a WATER ZONE. You want a portal? That's a ZONE PORTAL. You want a skybox? That's a SKY ZONE, and on and on it goes for fog, clouds, and a few more I think. Unlike Quake style editors where you could just put a cloudy texture on the ceiling and "presto!" instant sky (a flaw I think that UnrealED don't work that way) UnrealED and Unreal levels need the clouds in their own little box, not touching anything else. A strength in UnrealED is that despite the extra work, I must admit the clouds look a helluva lot better. You see all of this through a camera like thingy called a SKYZONEINFO. So to start open up the last save of the map you have been working on with me (lesson 2) then RIGHT CLICK on the BUILD A CUBE button (you should know where it is by now...) and set the values the same as below: CLICK on BUILD to make your "carving tool" (the RED BRUSH) the shape that your skybox will be. Now here is where I may be fatally flawed. In other tutorials they all have different ways of doing this but I have discovered a few things:

1. The lengthier and wider the skybox the less chance of seeing the walls of the skybox.
2. You don't want to see the walls because it's noticeable that there is a wall there when you are looking up at the sky.
3. The shorter the height the better because it's easier to hide the walls with the help of the extra length and width.

For an example try sometime opening the file NyLeve.unr. - not now, but later. This is the second level you come to in Unreal, Nyleve's Falls. It's a good place to see and understand skyboxes a little better. You can also download my level "Sniper Heaven" from UnrealED Exordium (link below) to get a better idea of what I want when I look at the sky.

Anyhow if this works out right you won't have to see what I mean. PRESS and HOLD CTRL when the RED BRUSH is highlighted, and move it away from any other area of your level by DRAGGING with the LEFT MOUSE button. Position like so: Now go to the TEXTURE PACK SHANEDAY and if you followed me in the last tutorial that blue texture (DAYSKY 8) should be there. DE-SELECT all then CLICK on that texture. Go up to BRUSH, then SUBTRACT your skybox from the world. The walls and ceiling should have UNLIT checked in their SURFACE PROPERTIES. Now you need to load a ground texture, I am using the TEXTURE PACK GENEARTH and the texture MGRASS 7. You may use whatever suits you. Now here is where my main flaw may lie. Mountains. You build sheets that will have the mountain texture on them, and they are supposed to fit each other as you set them. I can't get them to, still the persons who made Nyleve's falls knew how. So I'm cheating, and we'll use their box since I can't seem to get this mountain trash right. SAVE your level and open up NyLeve.unr. By pressing CTRL the same time you select stuff you can select multiple items. Do this on the following: Once you have all the stuff pictured selected go up to EDIT then COPY. Then go to OPEN and open up EXP3.UNR. Finally go up to EDIT, then PASTE. Wait a moment, find the newly pasted mountains, and position them like so: Now before you get too pissed off at me and call me a hack consider this, your mountains could have been textured differently if you had done it yourself but if done right they'd look like this. I'm certain there's only one right way, yes I haven't found it and no one is giving the information I need out in their skybox tutorials. I will of course redo this at a later date if I manage to find my own way. I will also post the info here. If it'll make you feel any better re-texture the mountains any way you want but be forewarned, they won't look right. While doing this tutorial I experimented with many different positions and none looked right. I'll be e-mailing a few folks about this but for now this will serve our purpose. From here on out it's all original, I guarantee! REBUILD (F8) and SAVE. Open up the CLASSES BROWSER (go up to the word TEXTURES and CLICK on the arrow, select CLASSES from the list). Click on the minus next to INFO, then from the list click on the minus next to ZONE INFO, finally click on SKYZONEINFO. In the 3-D VIEW add SKYZONEINFO right smack dab in the middle of the mountain box - align as necessary. I've placed mine right in the center, and halfway below the top of the mountain box. You'll be free to move the SKYZONEINFO wherever you want, however it must be in the skybox. The SKYZONEINFO is a camera, your view of the sky and surrounding terrain will be affect by it.

Now RIGHT CLICK on the BUILD A SHEET button. Set it the same as your skybox, 2048, 2048 - make sure Floor/Ceiling has a dot next to it. BUILD it and position it so that it is aligned EXACTLY with your skybox. Put it right above the mountain sheets, or one grid below (like me). See below: DE-SELECT all, then open up the texture package GENFLUID.UTX (if your still in the CLASSES BROWSER get back to the TEXTURE BROWSER). In there there is a bunch of SKY TEXTURES - select one you like (I decided to use SKYTST 8). Now go up to brush, then ADD SPECIAL. Set like so: I went into SURFACE PROPERTIES, and under SCALE-SIMPLE SCALING I set the size to 4.0. Feel free to experiment until you get something that you like. Now move the RED BRUSH up a little, between your first cloud sheet and the ceiling - about halfway between them (I moved mine 5 grid units up). DE-SELECT all and find another cloud texture you like, or use the same one. Once your done scale it the way you like. Use the same settings above when adding it. Now go into the SURFACE PROPERTIES of each cloud sheet and under EFFECTS check of either UPAN, VPAN or both - this is how your sky moves. To adjust the speed of your sky RIGHT CLICK on the SKYZONEINFO, CLICK on the minus next to ZONELIGHT and set the TEXUPAN and TEXVPAN speeds to taste (I am trying 0.050000 on both). Now open up the CLASSES BROWSER again. Go through all the steps that got you to SKYZONEINFO, and this time click on CLOUDZONE. Place this in between the cloud sheets, right in the center of everything. It must not be outside of either of the cloud sheets. REBUILD (F8) and SAVE. If everything got dark in the 3-D VIEW CLICK on MODE, and select TEXTURES from the list.

Now build a sheet to these dimensions 128x128 and stick BELOW the lowest cloud sheet and ABOVE the SKYZONEINFO. Open up the texture pack GENFX.UTX, under FLARE textures find one you like (it will be your sun) DE-SELECT all and then go up to BRUSH and ADD SPECIAL. Set it like the following: Select the texture you'll use (I used FLARE 4) and be sure to re-size it to 2.0. Some of these don't work well for a sun, and you can see the faint ghostly outline of the square they're made of. The one I use doesn't, but my other attempts did. If the texture is not aligned - centered on the sheet - then RIGHT CLICK on the sun, go into SURFACE PROPERTIES, and select the tab PAN. Use the four small buttons to align your texture. This step will come in handy as you do more advanced things later. Finally locate this button in the toolbar: Once you've moved your RED BRUSH out of the way and selected your sunsheet PRESS this button (it's ROTATE BRUSH) then in the SIDE VIEW PRESS and HOLD CTRL and DRAG with the RIGHT MOUSE button until your sunsheet is slanted. Do this again in the TOP VIEW as you may want to turn it a little - following the same steps, until you have something like this: What are those lights for? Why they're my SUN lights, so you can feel like your looking at a sun in the level. Add up to 7 lights and position them any way you desire around your sunsheet and in front of it (not behind it) but try to stay in the mountain box while doing so. Once they're in select each one and then RIGHT CLICK on one of them. Under OBJECT set the GROUP to Sunlights (or your own clever name). Under LIGHT COLOR set the three options (from top to bottom) to 150, 0, and 250. You can adjust this later if you wish. REBUILD, and try DYNAMIC LIGHTING under MODE in the 3-D VIEW to see what it looks like. One more step - RIGHT CLICK on SKYZONEINFO and under DISPLAY set the AMBIENT BRIGHTNESS to 255. Under ZONELIGHT do the same. Set the same settings the same way by RIGHT CLICKING on the CLOUD ZONE when you're through.

Have you seen the term ACTOR yet? ACTORS are many things in UnrealED and these zone thingys are one of them, Lights are another. When you select 2 dissimilar ACTORS in UnrealED it gives you the option of ACTOR PROPERTIES. So if for instance you wanted your sun and it's lights to be one total group you could do that. Something to remember...

NOTE:

To drag an item PRESS and HOLD SHIFT or CTRL and drag with the RIGHT MOUSE to move the items. PRESSING CTRL just moves the item, while PRESSING SHIFT will move the item and your view.

Well REBUILD your level and SAVE it as EXP4.UNR. Give it a test run. Follow these instructions to adjust things the way you like. With skyboxes you need to experiment to get anywhere, and this is pretty much as far as I've ever gotten with them. If you have any questions or tips to share - e-mail me.

You're doing well, you've made it this far through these somewhat technical and difficult discussions. When you enter your level you may notice (as I did) that not only do the windows show something, but that the light from them lights up your hallway. May not need that flashlight after all - huh? In the next tutorial I will learn with you as we create our (yes mine too) very first TELEPORTER, we'll discuss zones some more, and I'll show you how to build a pool. Yes, there will be something at the end of that hallway very soon...