Welcome to Tutorial Two

In this tutorial, I will be showing you how to use WorldCraft... for this you will need to have completed Tutorial 1. I find that WorldCraft is easy to use. Its layout can be customised, as with most windows programs. The GUI [Graphical User Interface] has been well designed and the buttons and toggles are easy to pickup. Just before we start learning all about WorldCrafts Features, we will take a look at what mapping is all about.

Getting to know WorldCraft will take time… there are many features that you need to learn and become proficient with [Just like anything] if you want to build a decent level. Don't be but off with that though. WorldCraft is easy to pick up and you will be mapping in no time.

If you have any questions get them to me and I'll set about helping you out. You will have to get your head around the following info to get cracking in WorldCraft. Lets get it on.

Contents:

• An Introduction to Mapping
   • Solids
   • Entities
   • Entitie Types
   • Putting it all Together

An Introduction to Mapping - [Back to Contents]

Solids: The Foundation of 3D Design
Blocks. Wedges. Cylinders. Spikes. May not sound like much, but these are the basic building blocks of all architecture created in WorldCraft. You can carve them, manipulate them, and clip them. You can combine these solids [also called brushes] to make any shape possible, real or imaginary. This is identified as constructive solid geometry [CSG] and this is the editing style WorldCraft uses.

Once you create a brush, you'll assign to it a texture, which is a pre-existing bitmap image created to make the brush resemble something in the real [or some imaginary] world. Examples of textures include bricks, rock faces, and water.

Entities:
You say you want more in your game world than inanimate solids? Well then, what you want are entities. Where brushes are "world objects" used to form the basic inanimate structure of your level, entities are the objects that move, have sound, or are interactive. An entity is anything that performs some type of procedure or task in your level.

Entity Types:
There are two types of entities: point-based and brush-based.

Point-based entities exist only at specific points. Examples include illumination, monsters and players. [Monsters do have an area, but this is defined by the game code and is not modifiable from within the map.] Some point entities are just that: points. For e.g. the env_beam entity, which controls Half-Life's beam special effects, uses two point entities as targets; you put down the two points and the beam of light runs between them.

Brush-based entities are entities that depend on a brush for their physical presence, like doors, trains, and other moving objects. A trigger is another type of brush-base entity; it requires that you indicate an area or activation field, which controls the trigger's procedure.

Putting it all Together:
Using these simple components, you can produce a virtually untold variety of levels. Whether its a desolate room or a huge, complex world, you'll do it by using solids and textures to create your structural design, then adding illumination, monsters, buttons, moving platforms and a multitude of other entities to bring your creation to life.

Once the whole thing is in place, you will need to compile your level. This is the procedure that turns your group of solids and entities into a playable level that you can run in Half-Life.

Now you need to learn about the WorldCraft interface.

Killa-Kyle