Sniper's Paradise!

2D Editor Shapes

 "Machismo"
cool_machismo@yahoo.com

Introduction

This tutorial will show you how to make a basic arch and complex curved passages using the 2d editor and some other cool shapes that can be done. This is actually more of a series of series of 20 screen shots that will show you how to get the stuff done. I expect you to be quite familiar with the editor and the 2d editor.

UnrealED Note: It's assumed that you are using version 225.

You can grab a zip file here that contains all the shapes made and used in the tutorial. It also has some other shapes that you can use. Download.

The Basic Arch

1. Load the skycity.utx texture package which has a very nice basic arch (to see all the arches of that package in the drop down menu below choose arch) - skycity as usual has some really great ones. (v436) We are going to use this picture to make our shape in the 2ded. Select the arch and then open up the 2d editor (from the tools menu or by hitting the 2deditor button). Go to file menu, scroll down and from image hit "get from current texture" and the arch image automatically gets loaded into the 2d editor.

Note on 2dED Crash:-  Right click on the texture choose export to .pcx, In the save dialog choose save as type > all file types, Now save the file as anyname.bmp - the 2ded can only open .bmp textures, Now from within the 2ded choose file > image > get from disk. Now it should be fine

2. It should now appear in the 2ded like this:

3. You can stretch the leg of the square by clicking and selecting the white highlighted vertex. The chosen edge will be highlighted by a red square. You can select the other leg by clicking the edges. Stretch the legs of the square so that it touches the edges of the picture like this:

Please note that to make the picture more distinct I have held down ctrl and selected all the edges - don't expect to see something like that. These four legs will be called the base legs. No matter how their size changes keep track of the bases so that you know what I'm talking about. The aim is to create a 2d shape that covers the entire brown (empty?) region of the arch.

4. Select the top most leg of the square by clicking on one of the vertices so that it is highlighted and hit ctrl+i or edit split side or hit this button . This will divide the top half of the square into two equal half's. It will look like this:

Note1: I have highlighted the single vertex that I selected before hitting ctrl+i.
Note 2: You will find it difficult to align the sides just right click anywhere in the 2ded and turn down the gird. I have to say though its more convenient working with the gird set at 16 for curved shapes as you can get exact measurements.
NOTE 3: To move around in the 2ded hold down the right move button and drag to move around.

5. Move the newly created vertex to the place on the picture where the straight part of the picture ends and the curve begins, like this:

6. Ok for now leave the vertex selected in the above picture. Hit ctrl+i and split that side so that the shape looks like this:

7. In the same way by selecting the new vertex and the old I added in 6 other vertices and then moved them up one by one so that the shape became like this:

Note: I have just selected all the vertices so that the picture is more distinct don't expect to get something weird like that in your shape :).

8. If you've followed all along and got the above shape jump to the next step, if not read on. Still having problems and unable able to get that shape?, want to blow my head off for not explaining straight?, not to worry help is at hand. The 2ded requires some practice to get the hang of it. Save the picture in the previous step as a bmp. Load it in the 2ded and try to work out the shape by following along. That should have helped you solve the problem. There will be many lines running around so you may get disoriented, if so delete the image using the file menu reorient yourself and then load the image.

TIP: I have explained this in a way so that you can get your first arch shape easily. After some practice you should just add in how many vertices you need and then move them at one shot, not add three and them move, etc. And who ever said the arch shape needs to conform to the picture, take a close look at the arches in DM-Curse to see what I mean. 

9. Under the process menu hit extrude and in the dialog box that opens put in a depth of 32 - which determines how thick the arch will be. Leave everything alone for now. Hit build and your brush should appear in the level on its side which you will naturally have to rotate .... always for any shape you create in the 2ded. You can also use this button and enter the values.

10. Leave the 2ded alone for now. Now we'll create a room for the arch to be placed in. Subtract a brush 256x256x512. Build a brush 256x256x32 and add it into the middle of the room with the arch texture that you used. Hit the extrude button from the 2d editor to get the shape in you level. Rotate and align it so that it covers the brown part of the arch exactly. Intersect if necessary and hit the subtract button. The arch you ordered:

There you go, you have a nice beautiful arched doorway.

Curved Passageway

Curved passages should not be created using vertex editing (although you could do it). Man it would be like wanting to ride along in a cart when you could actually zoom along on a Ferrari!. Well that should have made you quite familiar with the 2ded. Lets see how to make one of those nice curved passages that seem to be used in nearly every level (like Zeto, Liandri, etc.). Oh man this is going to be so simple to do but the results that you will get are going to make you go - wow that was easy!.

First hit file new and set the green origin to the left or the right of the square like this:

[Note- If you were to extrude the shape you would get a perfect 256x256 box!]. Hit the loft, revolve menu and set sides per 360 degrees to 24 and number of sides to 12. Hit the subtract button and check out the shape you got. If you were to set sides per 360 to 24 and number of sides to 24 you would get a completely curved room. Play around with this value to see the different shapes that you can get. Here's how it should look:

Well for some the mantra may be "location, location, location" but here's mine regarding curved rooms:
1. First get the damn shape you want worked out in the 2ded.
2. Set the crosshair at an appropriate distance from the shape. The further you move the crosshair to the right the more the shape starts to lose its " small inner curve" and resemble a stretched one. The closer you move the green crosshair to the shape the more the curve seems to "collapse on itself". Try moving the crosshair around to see the effect.
3. The values you set in the revolve box will affect the final brush drastically.

In conclusion how does the 2ded handle revolved shapes?. You can just think of it taking the 2d shape and sort of joining it together in sheets to create the final shape just think about that and you'll probably get the point (well at least I hope so :). Ok listen up people with this part I am going a little overboard, lets see how to get some complex revolved rooms.

1. DM-Zeto: The first order of the day, let me dispel some myths. The shapes are quite simple to create once you get the hang of it. Here's the final shape in the 2ded (see below for how I got the shape):

The shape works somewhat on the same principle as the arch. Just split the top part of the cube 6 times and move the vertices to the positions indicated above and you'll get the shape.
a. In the arch that we created before you will notice that all the vertices seemed to emanate from one vertex but in the above picture I have highlighted the vertex that causes the shape to change drastically.
b: You'll notice that the shape has been created using attention to detail - all the vertices are at precise 4 units away from each other. What's the big deal with that?. Texture alignment can be a real bitch if you make the shape without consideration to such stuff.
c: WARNING: These shots were taken in the old 2d editor and are probably here for unknown reasons if you were able to get the shape in the previous pictures just ignore this step as it could get you more confused.

This is for those of you who like to be babied, a series of shots showing how it was done in the first place:


In Step 1 I created the first part of the shape by splitting one side over and over. In step 2 I shifted sides and split the ones that I have selected and moved the vertex around. Check out the next picture - selecting those two vertices and splitting them will take you to the picture in step 3. And selecting the two vertices that are highlighted in step 3 and splitting that will give you the final shape that I first showed you.

Now revolve this baby and see what we got:

Not quite DM-Zeto but close enough to see the similarity. Got the point?.
2. PIPE DREAM: Shape in the 2ded and its result:

This really illustrates a thorny issue that you will encounter while revolving shapes. Alignment of vertices, etc. You will need to be comfortable with vertex editing (very very comfortable in fact). Another point that you should note is that I extruded and then revolved the shape so that they connected up perfectly.
3. Some Standard Shapes/Rooms/Stuff you can do:
IMP. TIP: Whenever connecting revolved rooms you will encounter ugly shapes. To resolve this extrude the same shape that you have used to revolve a passageway when you want to connect it.
a. The purpose of showing you this simple shape?. I just wanted to illustrate the point that you could do some awesome stuff with some very simple shapes!. 

Notice the step like roundedness of the beginning of the room and how I connected the revolved room with an extruded shape. [This is how I did it - revolved the shape 24 sides per 360 use 1; next in the 2ded I just moved the bottom of the shape down one unit (remember the gird is at 16 units) and revolved it using the same settings again, this ensured that my step had a perfect height of 16 units; I did this several times and then just extruded the same shape so that I could connect the revolved room perfectly and viola we got one cool room!.

Do I need to explain further?. I think not buddy, you should now be able to create just about any rounded passage that your mind can conjure up or anyone can think up. In my opinion the 2ded is the most important part of the editor once you have mastered it maps like DM-Zeto should be a snap. Now all you need to get good reviews is get creative that's all I can help with at this point.

Merging Co-Planar Polygons

You would have noticed something in the shapes that you get in the 3d view after revolving the shape in the 2d editor and subtracting it. They all seem to be broken into smaller pieces, thus:

I was able to select a part of the floor, a part of the wall and a part of the ceiling separately. This is bad editing and raises the node/poly count that mappers always try to keep down. So you need to rectify this. First select a part of the floor, right click, scroll down to Select Surfaces and under that menu select adjacent floor ceilings, or you can simply hit Shift+F. This will select all adjacent floors. Now go to surface properties of these textures -from the View menu surface properties or hit F5 or the surface properties button. Under the alignment tab hit align to floor so that the surfaces are aligned properly. Do the same for the ceiling of the room. Now select the wall (all the little pieces that it is broken into) at the end of the curve. Go to the surface properties and hit first wall direction and then wall pan - don't forget to do both. Do this at both ends of the curve. Now select the subtracted brush in the top down view, right click and scroll down the menu to POLYGONS and under that menu hit MERGE. Now rebuild the level and select the end wall, it has become one piece, like this:

Nice, clean and fixed!. Its a great idea to do this to every shape that you make in the 2d editor (actually you need to do it for visible surfaces only). Another way of getting rid of these broken parts (use only on extruded shapes) is to intersect it against a flat surface. try this for any extruded shape.

Bezier Segment

You can create arches using bezier segments. This is actually easier but I wanted you to get used to the vertex move method before as it is convenient for getting to know the 2ded better. Turning a segment into a bezier segment is easy. Try this select the top of the default cube and hit the bezier segment button to turn that segment into a beizer. You get two control points just select one of them and move them around to see the shape bend in that direction.

This is really convenient for creating curved shapes (note not curved rooms shapes that are sort of round). You need to experiment with it to get some good results.

NOTE: I hope you downloaded the zip file. if you look under the SkyCenter folder you will see that a lot of the shape have been done using beizer segments (especially the lockers). Check it out now!.

Now take a look at this final shape - the round parts of the shape have been made with 2 beizer segments (i.e. with a total of 4 control points). Note: The texture is from ShaneChurch.utx.

Scaling Things

This is a very convenient button. You can just create shapes in a small scale and then just hit the scale up button to increase the size. Its like working in miniature and then just scaling the shape up to a huge size. Great for creating outdoor detail.

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