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QuArK Map Editor Updated 1999-03-21
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Introduction to the map-editor |
The map editor is the main part of QuArK. A map is a 3D world in which you
can play; the map editor lets you build your own 3D worlds, and you can use the
FPS-game to play in the worlds you built.
Basically, a map is made out of mathematical polyhedrons in 3D space. Each of
these polyhedron will be shown in the FPS-game as a wall, floor, ceiling, furniture,
or just anything with a fixed 3D shape. Monsters, weapons, and other entities are
not made out of polyhedrons, and you cannot use the map editor to build their shape.
The map-editor window |
Move your mouse to highlight an area in the map-editor, then mouse-click to go to an description of that area.
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Hintbox |
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Hintbox Whenever you see the text "Press F1 for help" in the little hintbox under the dataform-display, you can press F1 and get a larger blue hintbox, which tells you a little about the thing you are pointing at. If you are new to QuArK, these hints comes in handy if you do not exactly knows what the thing you are pointing at, does. So press F1 to get a hint, before asking about it in the editing-newsgroups. Once you move your mouse outside the larger blue hintbox, it will automatically disappear. |
Map-editor menu |
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File Menu Open works just as in the QuArK-Explorer. You can open any file with this, to apply it to your project. Save will save your current project to an .QRK file. Save in QuArK Explorer. Use this if you want to add this map to your current project. This way, you can have multiple revisions of a single map, in a single project. Just remember to give them a sensible name, so you can distinguish them. At the moment (QuArK v5.7), the map editor will automatically close itself when you use this menuitem. Save as file. If you want to export just this map to a .MAP or .QKM file, select this menuitem. Save all will save all opened files. This includes the current project and modified add-on data files. Close will close the map editor. |
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Layout Menu Wireframe will change all map-views to show polyhedrons and entities as wireframe-graphics. This is the fastest drawing-method of the map-views. Solid will change all map-views to show polyhedrons as solid object. This means that you won't be able to 'see-through' polyhedrons once they are in view. Textured will change all map-views to show polyhedrons with their applied textures and alignment. It will also show 3D-models of entities, if QuArK can find the 3D-representation. New 3D-window will create a new free-floating 3D edit window. An 'eye' with an angle-handle will be shown in the map-views, to illustrate from where the camera sees the world. You can actually edit polyhedrons in the 3D-window, and manipulate textures. OpenGL view ????? Show whole level will in wireframe-mode, draw all lines the level consists of, even those that can't be seen simultaneously in all map-views. Gray out of view will in wireframe-mode, draw grey lines of those parts of the level, which can't be seen within the map-views. Hide out of view will in wireframe-mode, only draw lines for those parts of the level, which is within the map-views. Panel at right. Check this menu-item, if you want the compass, dataform and that area, moved to the right of the map-views. Layouts. These menu-item are used to change between the different map-layouts. |
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Edit Menu Undo [something]. This menuitem will be active, if you can undo a previous action. The something, will be the action it will undo. Undo/Redo will open up the Undo/Redo window, where you can undo or redo more actions with one mouse-click. Cut. You know; remove the selection and put it into the clipboard. Copy. Just as easy; copy the selection into the clipboard. Paste. Take whatever is in the clipboard, and if it is something QuArK can use, it will paste it to where you point. Duplicate. A copy and paste action, but without putting the selection in the clipboard. Delete. Deletes the selection. Notice that it won't put anything in the clipboard. View group. See the View Group menu. It will only be active, if you have selected a group in the tree view. Texture flags. Only some games have this menuitem. See Face-flags window for a description. |
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View Group Menu If you have a group selected in the tree view, you can specify different behaviour for it. Group is visible. This is the normal setting. All objects that belongs to this group, are visible and selectable on the map-views. Group is grayed out. When this is marked, all objects that belongs to this group, are shaded even if they are within the visible part of the map-views. Group is hidden. Every object that belongs to this group, are not drawn on the map-views. Marking this option will automatically also check the Cannot select with the mouse option. Hide on textured views. When this option are checked, all objects belonging to this group are not shown on solid-, textured- or 3D-views, only wireframe-views. This speeds up drawing a bit. Cannot select with the mouse. Check this option, if you do not want to select and change objects belonging to this group by an accident. This is a good setting, when you are done with some part of your map, and starts to build something else near or within that finished part. Ignore to build maps. If this option is checked and the Ignore groups marked so when building map in the option menu also is checked, QuArK will not include objects belonging to this group, when you build your level. Using this option, you can play-test parts of your level, without having to compile the entire level every time. |
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Toolboxes Menu This menu works just like the one in QuArK Explorer. |
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Search Menu Replace textures. Use this if you need to replace one texture in a selection, with another texture. Entities by name will search for the next entity with a classname that matches the name you entered. Entities by specific will search for the next entity with an specific-name which matches the search-value you entered. Broken polys and faces. Activating this option, will search your map for invalid polyhedrons and faces which does not belong to a polyhedron. Holes in map. This function will try to check your map for leaks. It is not a accurate leak/hole finder, so sometimes it might point to a leak which isn't there. Basic checks. Performs various checks on your map, to see if it can be compiled correctly, and function properly in the FPS-game. |
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Commands Menu Insert map item. Activating this, will open the New map items window. Brush subtraction. To subtract one brush from another, you mark; Face sharing subtraction. This is an advanced brush subtraction method. If a face from the originally brush, will be split up into multiple faces by the subtraction, it will actually be converted into a face, which is shared by the brushes that will be created by the brush-subtraction. See more about shared faces here. Make hollow will create a polyhedron for each face the selection has, and delete the original selected polyhedrons. The inflate/deflate value in the Movement configuration window, determines the thickness of the new polyhedrons, and if they should occupy (negative value) or surround (positive value) the original selected polyhedrons. Intersection. This is basically a kind of brush adding function. It will try to create a new polyhedron which occupy the common area of the selected polyhedrons. Dissociate duplicator images. Only active when you have marked a duplicator. This will create actual copies of the duplicator-object(s), and remove the duplicator itself. Orientation. Only active when you have selected a face. It will bring up a window where you can edit some attributes about that face. However, its not recommended that you do it this way, unless you know what you're doing! Adjust angle. Only active when you have selected a face. This will bring the angle of the face on the polyhedron, to the nearest angle by which you specified in the Configuration|Map|Building. Delete face. As it says. However, deleting a face will very likely make a polyhedron invalid. Cone over face. This will create a new set of faces in style as a cone, over the selected face. The number of new faces will be the number of edges the selected face has. Swap face sides. Will swap the face inside-out. Do not use this, unless you really want to! Extend selection will include adjacented polyhedrons of your selection, to it. This way you can mark one polyhedron, and extend the selection to everything that it touches. Tag side. This menuitem are created by an plug-in. It allows you to select, or tag as it says, a face of an polyhedron. With a tagged-face, the next three menuitems becomes active. Clear tag. Removes the tag. Glue to tagged. Another selected face or polyhedron, can be glued to the tagged face. Very usefull if you want another face to touch the tagged-face, so it will be somewhat seamless. Wrap texture from tagged. Should wrap the texture of the polyhedron, around it, so it has fluent seams. Make prism, Team duplicate and Tricky force to grid are installed plug-ins. Not documented here. |
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Game Menu GO! does the whole sheebang. QuickGO! a faster version, which should only be used when testing your map. QuickGO on selection only, as QuickGO! but only builds what you have selected. Prepare used textures creates a .WAD texture-file, with the textures used in the map. Complete rebuild will build everything, except running the FPS-game. Run FPS-game starts the game with the current map. The next menuitems varies from FPS-game to FPS-game. Familiarize yourself with these build tools, for the FPS-game you're building a map to. Customize menu opens a window, in where you can add, change and remove the above menuitems and their functionality. |
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Toolbars Menu Display. Wether or not the display toolbar should be visible. Movement tool palette. Wether or not the movement toolbar should be visible. Mouse modes. Wether or not the mouse modes toolbar should be visible. |
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Options Menu Delete unused faces & polys. If this is unchecked, you will be able to make invalid polyhedrons/faces. Always keep this marked, so QuArK will warn you, when you are going to make an invalid polyhedron/face. Secondary red lines. When this is marked, an extra set of red lines will appear in the map-views. These can be used to reduce the selection-area of one map-view, if you do the selection in the other. 3D models in textured views. Check this to see a 3D representation of the entity-models, in textured views. Adjust angles automatically. When this is checked, adjusting any angle, like a face-angle or entity-angle, it will automatically adjust it to the nearest angle, specified in Configuration|Map|Building. Paste objects at screen center. Check this if you want objects that you paste into the map-view, appear in the center of the current map-view. Uncheck it, and it will paste it at the exact position as the original. Ignore groups marked so when building. When this is marked, any group marked Ignore to build map will not be available in the map when running the FPS-game. Uncheck this if you want your entire map build. List of plug-ins. Opens a window which shows what plug-ins QuArK has loaded. Configuration. Takes you to the Configuration display. |
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Help Menu Contextual help. Opens your web-browser. Help contents. Opens your web-browser. View console. Shows a Python-console. Usefull when debugging plug-ins. About. Shows the about box. Registering. Opens your web-browser. |
Display tool-palette |
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Grid settings There are two parts to this button. The left will bring down the menu, where you will be able to select what grid-scale you want to work in. The right part will enable/disable the grid, so you can work freely if needed. You can also use keys to increase or decrease the grid. See Configuration|Map|Keys for these. |
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Zoom settings This button also have two parts. The left will bring down the menu, where you can select a zoom-factor. The right part will, when no object are selected, fit the entire level into view. When a object are selected, you can click one time to zoom to selection, and click again to fit the entire level into view. You can also use keys to zoom in or out. See Configuration|Map|Keys for these. |
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3D windows Icons from left to right: New 3D-window will create a new floating 3D-window, which you can place anywhere on your desktop. It only exist as long as you are in the map editor. Full 3D-view will take you to a full-screen 3D-display. You must press Escape to return to the map editor. OpenGL 3D-view ???? |
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Linear handle If you have selected more than one object in the map-views, you have already seen the red linear handle circle. This 'handle' allows you to resize, rotate, shear and move your selection. If you want this linear handle circle to appear when you select only one object, you must mark this icon. It is highly advisable that you try to use the linear handle circle, at least once, so you know what it can do. Keep in mind that holding the mouse-cursor steady for a moment on one of the many small handles in the circle, will bring up a little 'flyover' help. |
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Help book Will open up your web-browser, and display the QuArK main page. |
Mouse modes tool-palette |
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Selecting polyhedrons When this item is selected, every polyhedron that is inside or partly inside the red selection rectangle, will be selected. Notice that only polyhedrons will be selected, however polyhedrons which belongs to entities, like a door, will also be selected, but not the entity itself. |
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Selecting entities When this item is selected, every entity that is inside or partly inside the red selection rectangle, will be selected. Notice that only entities will be selected, entities which have polyhedrons belonging to them will not be selected. |
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Quick cube creation To quickly create a cube with the default texture, select this icon, and drag in a map-view to size the new cube. |
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Polyhedron cutter "Like a knife through butter." Mark this icon in the mouse-modes toolbox, when you want to cut polyhedrons in two by dragging a line through the polyhedrons. Remember you can always undo your actions if you're not satisfied with the result. |
Movement tool-palette |
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Move selection Pressing this button, will move the selected objects, the distance in units specified in the movement configuration box. |
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Enlarge/Shrink selection Pressing the first button, will enlarge your selection, with the zoom-factor amount, specified in the movement configuration box. Pressing the second button, will shrink your selection, with the zoom-factor amount. |
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Inflate/Deflate selection Depending on the value in the movement configuration box, this button will either inflate (make bigger), or deflate (make smaller) your selection by the specified units. If the inflate/deflate value is negative, the button will act as an deflate-button, and positive values will make it act as an inflate-button. |
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Mirror selection (Symmetry) These buttons will mirror your selection, around its common center. To see the common center of your selected object(s), you must be able to see the linear handles of the selection. The icons from left to right: |
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Rotate selection These buttons will rotate your selection, the amount of degrees specified in the movement configuration box, around its common center. To see the common center of your selected object(s), you must be able to see the linear handles of the selection. The icons from left to right: |
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Movement Configuration Pressing this button, will open up the movement configuration box, so you can specify different values for the move-, enlarge-, shrink-, inflate/deflate- and rotation-buttons. Move selection (x,y,z). Here you specify, the distance in units, the move-button should move the selection with. These values can be both positive and negative. For instance; '+8 -16 0' will move the selection +8 units in X-direction, -16 units in Y-direction and 0 units in Z-direction, from the common center of the selection. Zoom factor. This value specify by which factor to enlarge/shrink your selection. You can't specify a value lower than '1', but you can specify floating point values like '1.75', if you so dare. Inflate/Deflate by. By which amount in units, the inflate/deflate-button should change your selection. A negative value will deflate (make smaller) the selection with the number of units specified, and a positive will inflate (make bigger) the selection. Rotation angle. The distance in degrees, the rotation-buttons should rotate your selection. Best values are from 1 to 180, since specifying anything above 180 or negative you could just use the other rotation-button. |
Userdata |
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Userdata This panel will primarly contain all folders from new map items window, all texture-folders from the texture browser, and a 'used textures in this map'-folder. Else its up to you, to drop other objects into this panel. Objects that you use very often, would be a very good idea to put into this panel. You can always remove objects from the panel, by dragging it to the trashcan. |
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Normal folders These folders are the same as the top folders from the new map items window. If you know what you need, it is faster to go this way, through the panel, instead of opening up the new map items again. |
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Texture folders These folders are the same as the top folders from the texture browser. Plus theres an extra folder, which contain textures that are used in the current map. |
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Other objects By dragging objects from the dataform or the new map items, you can drop them in the panel, and they will always be available to you. Notice that these objects are depended on what FPS-game you have selected in the QuArK-Explorer. |
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Single texture You can even put in a single texture in the userdata panel. |
Tools |
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New Item Opens the new map items window, in where you will find many different objects, usefull when creating a map. |
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Trashcan Usefull to delete an object from the userdata panel. Just drag and drop it in the trashcan. |
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Undo Will open up the undo/redo display. |
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New group Creates a new group in in the tree-view, where you can place other objects in, so they are neatly grouped together. Once you have created a group, you can keep your mouse-cursor in the dataform display, mark the group and press F2 to rename it. |
Compass and Zoom |
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Compass Y-axis rotation Rotates the map-views. This is usefull, if you use the classic map-layout, so you can see 'the other sides' of your map, without having to manually rotate the objects. |
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Compass X-view-axis rotation Rotates the map-views. |
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Zoom Zooms the map-views. You can also use the mouse or keys to zoom with. See the Configuration|Map|Keys options for these settings. |
Dataform display |
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Tree-view (Hierarky-view) This view actually contains your level! In here, you can arrange and group objects; polyhedrons and entities, and plugin-functions like the duplicator. You can see all entities you've put into your level, and what polyhedrons belong to what entities. You can right-mouse-click on every tree-view object, to get a context-menu, from where you can select different actions. Some of the more powerfull functions are:
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Specifics/Args-view Most entities (Monster, Weapon, Door) have a set of parameters to set, so they act in a certain way. These parameters are called specifics in QuArK. Each specific can have an argument (arg) attached to it. If you do not know what permitted values an arg can have, keep your mouse-cursor steady and a blue 'flyover' help-box will appear, if there is any help to that specific/arg pair. Sometimes there may be an dropdown-listbox which contain valid args, or most used args. Some specifics are only possible to turn on/off, these looks like checkboxes. There might even be pushbuttons which opens another window, with more specific/arg settings. The above icons from left to right:
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Polyhedron-view When you have selected a polyhedron, you can see some information and change settings for it, in this view. Faces shows how many faces (sides) this polyhedron consists of. Center is the X,Y,Z coordinate in the level, where this polyhedron exist. You should not change this manually, unless you don't want to move the poly in the map-views. Texture shows the currently applied texture to this polyhedron, as well as a list of used textures in the level, so you quickly (?) can change to another, without opening the texture-browser. Owned by displays the name of the group or entity, in which this polyhedron exist. The icons above the texture from left to right:
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Face-view Used by ??? Texture shows the currently applied texture to this face, as well as a list of used textures in the level, so you quickly (?) can change to another, without opening the texture-browser. Tex. origin is both the X,Y,Z coordinate of the face in the level, and texture-position on the face. You should not change this manually, because you might change the size of your polyhedron. Use the intersection-point of the two blue lines instead. Tex. scale shows the X,Y scale of the texture on the face. You can also change the scale by dragging in the two blue lines. Some times you might want to mirror a texture, due to some text in it. You should then type in a negative X-scale, or just put a minus sign in front of the current scale-value. Tex. angles is the angles of the texture on the face. You should only use the blue dot and lines to change this value. The icons above the texture from left to right:
In the texture-view below the icons, there is a little blue dot and two blue lines. The blue dot are used to rotate the texture on the face. The lines are used to drag the scale of the texture in X and Y directions. The lines can even rotate independently so the texture gets distorted. The intersection-point of the two lines are used to position the texture on the face. |
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3D-view A quick way to see the selected objects in 3D with textures and their texture-alignments. |
Map layout |
These are the different map-layouts you can work in. Some might be easier to understand than others, but thats up to you to choose one you like. You will always be able to switch between layouts when you're working. See menu layout on how you change between these.
However, you should be aware that rotating the compass will affect all 2D-views, so the X,Y,Z axises will correspond to the angle of the compass. If you use the 4-views layouts, you should not need to change the angle of the compass.
Undo / Redo |
New map items |
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New map items This window contains all objects thats possible to use in the map-views and dataform-display. The top-folders, also known as main-folders, are here marked in bold. Some of these folders might come from add-ons, others are somewhat static. You can drag objects from here, and drop them on the userdata panel, so you will have quicker access to them. It is highly recommended that you familiarize yourself with these items, for the FPS-game you are building a level for. There might be prefabs here, which you installed with an add-on. See how you install add-ons in the QuArK Explorer or Configuration|Games. |
3D Window |
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3D Edit Window In the 3D window, you will be able to move around in the level, almost as if you were doing it using NOCLIP in the FPS-game. To move around, you can use the mouse, or keys, when the mouse is inside the 3D-window so the window becomes active. The keys you can find and redefine in the Configuration|General|3D view options. Another feature of the 3D window is, that you can edit your map in it. You can click on a polyhedron, and it will appear selected with wireframes. You can move the selection around, just as you would do it on the map-views. Even align textures on faces can be done in the 3D window. |
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Camera Position Once you have created a new 3D-window, a 'eye'-icon will appear in your map-views, showing where the camera are positioned in the level, and in what direction its pointing. You can move this camera around, and adjust its direction-handle, just like any other entity. However the camera won't be a visible object in the tree-view, since it only exist when a 3D-window are open. If you have more than one 3D-window opened, there will also be more 'eye'-icons in your map-views. One per 3D-window. |