Request for tutorials

by CrazyTB on 09/16/2006 05:14, 10 messages, last message: 04/08/2009 04:10, 1739 views, last view: 05/04/2024 03:17

Sauerbraten already has some documentation about how to edit maps, but that documentation is "basic". It is enough to understand how to use the editor feature, but not enough to learn how to make good maps.

So, I am requesting a few tutorials:

- How to create a good map. (makkE, you could contribute to this ;) )

- How to select textures for your map. (I know about y+wheel, I just don't know for sure which textures should I choose; sometimes I feel it is not ok, or there is no good texture for it)

- How to make round things in Sauerbraten. (how to make circles, spheres and other curves in sauer)

- The map.cfg file. (should be a tutorial explaining how to change the skybox and maybe a few other things; all of this is already documented, but could be written in a more direct and easy way)

- Map editing tips and tricks. (list of a few useful tips)


Maybe I am asking too much? :)

I think these tutorials could help a lot when people want to create a map. They should also help to increase quality of maps posted to Quadropolis.

These tutorials should be stored on some wiki, to be easy-to-access and easy-to-edit. I suggest Sauer wiki (if that allows anyone to edit), or starting a virtual book at http://en.wikibooks.org/ (There are nice Blender tutorials there)

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#1: ..

by Passa on 09/16/2006 06:21

There already is a wiki..

http://cube.wikispaces.com/

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#2: ..

by Stakhanov on 09/16/2006 06:23

Indeed there is , but it lacks content , as a supposed community portal :>

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#3: Re: wiki

by MeatROme on 09/16/2006 07:10, refers to #2

It's not very old.
It's still growing.

re : mapping tutorials :
there are already a lot of those "out there" - dealing with non-game-specific issues of mapping. Especially on "what makes a map great" ... in the end this isn't something you can learn by reading - only by doing. It's an art, a skill you might be gifted with or which you acquired through endless hours spent at it ... littering your harddrive and backup-media with countless half-finished, half-assed, ugly and useless maps.

The Q's about sauer-editing you posted are a different matter, but I can tell you straight out : you _can't_ creat "round" things in sauer. The octree only allows for cubes to be manipulated, you can try to approximate curves with that.
If you need something "truly" curved you can use a mapmodel (md2 or md3) - but that shouldn't be used for large scale stuff.

the skybox Q is answered on the wiki (http://cube.wikispaces.com/mapcfg)

The wiki is not editable by just anyone for a reason - aard decided to keep the editors to "known entities". People that he hopes or knows he can trust not to botch it up and post wrong or misleading content. Just look at this forum and imagine the wiki opened up to "the public" ...

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#4: Re: wiki

by CrazyTB on 09/16/2006 14:27, refers to #3

About rounded shapes: I know I can't use truly rounded shapes. By the way, no game can, it is always approximated by polygons.

My question is about how to make rounded (or rounded-like) things using sauer editing capabilities. Like... How to make circular platforms, and many other things.

There are some rounded spirals at spiralz map, but If I need to do something slightly different, or bigger, or smaller, I don't know how to do. I just can't copy and paste.


About closed-wiki: At least I hope that all "good" and active community members can have the editor status. I mean, all people that makes good maps, or good scripts, or good mods. Just to help to improve the wiki.

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#5: Re: wiki

by MeatROme on 09/16/2006 17:26, refers to #4

re : polys
well it's only digital you know, there's something called "machine precision".
Maybe you've tried something like :
printf ("%d",(5.000000000001 - 5));

Depending on your systems architecture the result (which should be 1.000000000E-0012) can be
IBM-PC : 1.00000042968507E-0012
Sun Workstation : 1.0000889005823e-12

But OpenGL has GL_SPHERE and nurbs and other stuff to _/believably/_ render curved surfaces.

re : curved geom in sauer
your on the right track : just look at how it was done on some of the available maps.
Maybe even copy it to a backup so you can freely modify and save to keep analyzing in multiple sessions.
In the end I'm certainly not the most qualified to answer wizard mapping Q's, since I just do it for fun and so tend to leave stuff like curves to either happen to me by sheer luck or just avoid them ;)

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#6: Re: wiki

by CrazyTB on 09/16/2006 23:59, refers to #5

About precision: I'm a computer science student. I know about floating point precision. :) And I know the computer is a digital (discrete) machine.

About NURBS: I don't think any game uses that. Maybe because it is too slow. (just guessing) I'm even not sure if Blender has Nurbs support.

About curves in sauer: just looking not always help... Or maybe I haven't "studied" it well. This is the reason why I ask a tutorial.

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#7: hm

by kurtis84 on 09/17/2006 01:23

Most of the things asked about here, are already in the docs included with sauer. The one cool thing about sauer at this point, is there are several examples of nearly everything it can do.

I do plan some tutorials, etc. on the wiki, but I also suggest anyone with some curiosity to just look at whats already in sauers package. If you see something you don't understand in a map, take a look at the maps config file, to see whats making it happen. If theres a shape you don't know how to make, go to edit mode, and look at it.

I suspect 80% of what I know about sauer, was from trial and error, or learning from the maps, etc that are already here.

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#8: curves

by Connors on 04/08/2009 00:49

I know that curves are really still polygons but HOW do you make them in Sauerbraten? I read this thread and i kept thinking that in all the stuff you wrote you might actually have answered a question...

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#9: ..

by SheeEttin on 04/08/2009 02:37

http://cube.wikispaces.com/Videos

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#10: The importance of paper

by abcord on 04/08/2009 04:10

Get some graph paper, and plan your level first. I can't state how important this is.

Remember that the strength of this engine is in creating architecture, so try to make sure most of the level is organized along the cardinal directions(NESW) and you will have a much easier time starting out.

Making curves is not difficult. You can push and pull the individual corners of a cube. Select the corners by dragging the middle mouse button.

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